Paid a guy to run my Instagram for two months. Worst money I ever spent.
Hired a social media manager back in January. Young guy, sharp, knew all the algorithm talk. Two months, 400 dollars a month. He got my follower count up by about 900. Sold exactly one small piece out of it, and that buyer told me later he found me through an old gallery listing, not the account.
Meanwhile I've sold four pieces this year to people I met at shows and studio visits. Not a single one looked at my Instagram first. The account is a business card at best. Somewhere to point people so they know you're not a scam.
I'm not saying the internet is worthless. I'm saying paying someone to make it look active while the actual work sits in a studio is backwards. The work is the marketing. Everything else is just where you point people after they've already decided they want to look.
Dropped him in March. Account's been quiet since. Nobody's noticed except the algorithm, and the algorithm was never buying anything anyway.
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This tracks with my experience, though I never paid anyone. I keep the account because buyers do check it before they commit to a studio visit. It's a proof of existence, not a sales channel.
The follower bump is meaningless anyway. 900 people who liked one algorithm-suggested post are not your audience. A buyer who finds you through a gallery listing is a buyer. Someone who follows you because an ad put you in front of them is just a number.
I think some artists do sell through Instagram, but it's usually because they're already good at talking to people and the platform just extends that. It doesn't create the skill. If you're not someone who sells through hanging around and being present, the platform won't fix it either. It just gives you a bigger room to be invisible in.
Sounds like you got off cheap, honestly. Some people pay a lot more to learn that lesson.
Proof of existence, exactly. That's the real job of the thing. I stopped worrying about numbers years ago. A few hundred people who actually care beats a thousand who scrolled past once and forgot.
I've had a couple of collectors message me on there, but every single one of them came to the studio before they bought anything. The platform just made the introduction. The sale happened sitting on the floor with them watching me cut smalti, not through a DM.
That buyer who found you through the gallery listing, he did the work himself. Those are the ones worth keeping. 🙂
You've got it exactly. The transaction never happens on the platform. It happens in person, when they see the weight of the piece and how it's built. The account just gets them in the door.
And that gallery-listing buyer, yeah. He found his own way in. People who do the digging tend to stick around. The ones who scroll past a post and forget were never buyers anyway, just numbers on a screen.
That's the whole thing right there. Few hundred people who actually care. My mistake was thinking the number mattered. The guy was selling me reach, and reach isn't worth anything if it doesn't hold.
I've been at this long enough that my buyers mostly come through word of mouth and shows anyway. The account exists so someone can confirm I'm not a ghost before they drive out to the studio. That's its job. It does its job. Fine.
Maybe forty years ago I'd have been worried about a thousand people who forgot me. Now I'd rather have the ten who remember.