As an emerging artist, Instagram may well be as useful a tool as one of your brushes or pallets. The infamous social media giant is used to promote artwork, and makes us feel like we are connecting to the virtual mysterious ‘art world’. You may have even read one of the dozens of articles giving you tips on how to use Instagram as an artist, where recycled advice will tell you how important it is to ‘make your profile stand out’ – perhaps a little obvious, for a visual form of communication on an image centric platform.

But how valuable is Instagram as a part of your practice?

Are we overestimating the reach Instagram has for artists to make connections?

Instagram had its tenth birthday in 2020 and now has a user base that exceeds 3 times the population of the US, (more than a billion people adjusted for bots and fake accounts.)

If like me, you watched Neflix’s documentary highlighting the inner workings of the algorithms behind social media platforms, titled ‘The Social Dilemma’, you may have left it warily conscious of how many times your finger goes to tap open the Instagram app of its own volition – at least for a few weeks before you could go back to feigning comfortable ignorance and fall back into old habits. While the documentary focuses on the damaging effects social media and its addictive properties have on mental health. It also spells out where the balance of control is between users and the algorithm. If you haven’t seen it, basically you, the user have no control and the algorithm dictates how many people will see your post and which people will see it. The numbers are frighteningly not in our favour - in fact an average of just 10% of our followers will see your Instagram content, not ideal if this is your sole channel to promote your story.

Balance is the word of this article. As an artist, can you quantify how much time to spend snapping, uploading and documenting your practice vs actually getting on with the work at hand?

Sure, the platform is necessary, in fact that’s how we, here at ArtThou discover most of the artists we collaborate with, but geez don’t let it consume you!

We invite you to rethink how you use the platform, and treat it as a tool. Tools have a function, and serve based on how you use them, they’re not meant to respond and communicate back.

This function should be to express aspects of the production, the environment you work in and some WIP work. Again, with balance. Against popular opinion to ‘show your work’ - as coined by Austin Keon - we recommend you keep control and maintain balance. Have you considered that over-posting could have a detrimental affect on how you are perceived online?

Remember the social media algorithms are so finicky yet designed to be highly addictive. One is at risk of ploughing all their time and energy into posting, with a elusion of promoting your practice online, while their are other more valuable ways to nurture your identity in the real world.

In summary, yes the platform is valuable and an essential channel to be a living part of the virtual community, yes it has an unbelievable power to reach people across borders. Just don’t tidy and arrange your paint brushes for a quick snap and dopamine fix - do it because it’ll give you the headspace to produce better work.

Words: Grace Barclay

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