The followers who actually buy came from a mailing list, not the algorithm
People keep asking me how I sell paintings, and they seem disappointed when I tell them it's not the social accounts. I run a modest Instagram for the studio, maybe 4,000 followers, and it's pleasant enough. But the collectors who have actually commissioned work from me over the past few years nearly all came from my newsletter. The plain text one. No templates, no design, just a note every month or two about what's on the easel and which pieces are about to be released.
I started it back in 2016 out of frustration, because I was tired of watching a carefully composed post disappear into the feed after an hour. Today it has 700 subscribers. Last year three commissions and two gallery introductions came directly from those emails. That's a better conversion rate than every platform I'm on combined, by a wide margin.
The social accounts are fine for visibility and for students finding my classes. But if you want someone to spend real money, you want their inbox, not their feed. The feed is a hallway. The inbox is a sitting room. I'd rather sit with seven hundred people than wave at four thousand.
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This rings so true. I think we forget that an algorithm is showing you to people who are passing through, while a newsletter is people who chose to open their door. It's the difference between being seen and being expected.
I've never had a huge social presence and I stopped worrying about it once I realised the people who actually write to me about a piece, who ask if it's still available, almost always found me some other way. Word of mouth, a studio visit, an exhibition. The Instagram is fine for strangers to get a sense of the work but it doesn't hold anyone's attention the way a quiet letter does.
There's something about the plain text too. No design means no barrier. It feels like a friend wrote to you, not a studio. I read mine in the morning with coffee and I find I actually look forward to them, which I can't say for any feed.
I've been telling myself I need to start one for years. This might be the nudge.
That is exactly it. Being expected versus being seen. I could not have put it better myself.
What you describe about the studio visits and word of mouth is very much my experience too. The social accounts serve a purpose, they give a stranger a way in, a first look. But the relationships that actually matter, the ones where someone saves a painting in their mind and writes back six months later to ask if it is still in the studio, those developed somewhere quieter. I think a newsletter feels like correspondence, and people still respond to that. Even in a plain text note with a slightly crooked thumbnail attached.
Being expected versus being seen, that's the whole thing. The social feed is a shop window for people walking past. The newsletter is someone who's already decided they want to know. Different thing entirely.
Same for me with the studio visits. Someone comes to the workshop, sits down on the stool, watches me cut for a bit, that person remembers the work for years. They can feel the weight of it. A screen just can't do that. Instagram tells people a piece exists, it doesn't tell them anything worth keeping.
I still keep the account going, it's useful, but I stopped treating it like it mattered. The people who write to me, the ones who actually commission, they all came through the door one way or another. The algorithm never once walked through my door.