How to Grow Your Instagram as a Calligrapher (6 Strategies to Fuel your Calligraphy Instagram Following)
If you’ve just started or are in the process of growing your calligraphy account Instagram, and want some smart strategies to grow your Instagram faster, keep reading.
Who is this for?
This guide is for calligraphers who want to grow their Instagram for the purpose of building KNOW, LIKE, TRUST with their ideal target audience. This isn’t for for calligraphers who are just using their accounts to measure their progress with no business goal in mind—don’t worry, I was there at one point when I was a beginner.
You are growing your Instagram for a reason, right?
So I want you to ask yourself: “Why do I want to grow my Instagram?”
Is it to find potential clients for my calligraphy business?
Is it to network with event planners in my city?
Is it to sell my workshops?
Purpose of Instagram for businesses
To build KNOW, LIKE, and TRUST with their ideal audience.
You want your audience to KNOW who you are and what problem you are solving for them. You want your audience to LIKE you. And then you want your audience to TRUST you.
Instagram is a vehicle for bringing your audience somewhere (your products, services)—in marketing, this is called a funnel. So that’s why I’ve always thought of Instagram as a relationship platform.
I want you to be careful. Growing your Instagram following is a way to get somewhere. Don’t get caught up in vanity metrics.
Top 5 hacks for growth
In this blog post, I’ll be sharing about these 5 strategies to grow your following and engagement on Instagram.
Convert your followers from somewhere else (if it makes sense)
Optimize your profile and bio
Show your face
Post engaging photos and stories
Write relevant and engaging captions
Use the right hashtags
Looking for more resources to build your calligraphy business? Welcome to join my Facebook group “Calligraphy Business Bosses” for more!
1. Convert your followers from somewhere else (if it makes sense)
A lot of calligraphers have two Instagram accounts:
A personal Instagram account
A calligraphy Instagram account
Did you convert your followers from your personal Instagram account to your new calligraphy account yet?
If you’ve recently started a calligraphy account, you probably have way more followers on your personal Instagram account.
Did you know that tour current friends, family and network are much more inclined to buy from you since they know you already?
Personal example:
In 2018 and 2019, I sold Christmas cards and mainly promoted it on my Instagram through posts and stories. 90% of people who bought my Christmas cards were my friends and people who knew me in real life or through my network. Both years, I made about $500 revenue from Christmas card sales.
DO THIS:
Share on your Facebook page (put it in your bio, make an announcement, add it to the social media section of your page)
Share on your personal IG account, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc
DO THIS:
Tell all your friends when you see them in person or when you catch up with them. It’s completely different when people hear the story of why you started vs. them just seeing you make a post. Even if they see a post, they might ignore you.
Share about your calligraphy business on all your social media profiles, including Facebook!
Share about your calligraphy business on all your social media profiles, including Facebook!
2. Optimize your profile and bio
Have you ever heard of SEO, or Search Engine Optimization? I won’t go all fancy on you with digital marketing jargon, but you can do the exact same thing on Instagram.
First of all, what is SEO?
It means optimizing your profile, website, blog—whatever platform you’re using—to be more search friendly.
When you use Google and search for “best gluten free recipes,” for example, the first few posts have the best SEO.
As a calligrapher, you should definitely optimize your website for SEO, but you can also do it with Instagram.
Let’s say someone in your city is searching for a calligrapher to create a custom wedding sign. They might Google it, but they might also use Instagram to search for calligraphers in their city. That’s why I recommend changing the “name” section of your profile to city name + calligrapher then your name.
Not only is the “name” section important, but once someone clicks on your Instagram account, you want them to understand exactly what you offer within three seconds. This is where the “bio” comes in. Make it clear what you offer—whether it’s wedding signs, or workshops, or custom calligraphy quotes in frames—and tell them how to contact you or order from you!
DO THIS:
Put your city name + Calligrapher so people can search for you
In your bio, put what you offer/help people with
Put an action point (for example, DM me to order, or click my Etsy shop below)
Link to something (Etsy, website, contact page, order form)
Add your city name + Calligrapher, and optimize your Instagram bio.
3. Show your face
When I first started getting into calligraphy, I followed a whole bunch of Instagram accounts. Some accounts only had calligraphy pictures, while others had some photos of the calligrapher behind the calligraphy.
Guess what? I found the accounts with calligraphers who showed their face a hundred times more interesting. So when I worked on building my own Instagram, I remembered to show my face because I knew people would think the same way as I do.
People are interested in people, not just products/services.
Why do we all hide ourselves behind our artwork?
How about you—have you seen calligraphy Instagram accounts where people just have product after product? Or calligraphy after calligraphy?
There’s no persona, there’s no story.
It’s boring!
EXAMPLE OF THINGS YOU CAN DO
Pictures of you on your profile picture, in your photos, on your stories
Do behind the scenes on your stories
Show pictures of you working at your desk, or show pictures of your studio
Post engaging photos and stories
After all, Instagram is a VISUAL platform. So of course we need to post engaging photos and stories.
FEED
First, are you being consistent with your feed? Does the overall aesthetic of your feed look consistent and on brand?
I’d highly recommend using an app that lets you preview your feed in advance of you posting. I’ve used the app Later (free and paid versions, for mobile and desktop) and the app Preview (free, only mobile) to plan and organize my feed.
PHOTO EDITING
Photo editing is a huge topic, so I won’t dive too deep into it here. These are some simple things you can do to make your photos look better. If you Google “how to edit photos for Instagram,” you’re going to find thousands of blog posts and videos on that topic, such as:
Use natural lighting
Take photos in the same way
use the same filter
I personally like to use the Snapseed app (free) on my phone to edit photos.
VIDEOS
Don’t forget about videos.
When you scroll down your feed, videos play automatically. Have you noticed that you’re more likely to stop and watch videos vs look at a photo? Of course, making a video is more time-consuming, but you’ll get better returns.
Pro calligraphy tip: If you want to record a video of you doing calligraphy, try using a large cup to hold your phone in place and have the camera facing downwards.
STORIES
If you can, try to be on Instagram stories every single day. Not only do your followers see a lot more behind-the-scenes from you, but it’s also a great way to connect with your followers. Stories don’t require a lot of planning and prep work compared to posting photos and videos on your feed.
For me, I found that I get way more engagement on my stories. I get about 100-200 likes on each photo, but I usually get 200-300 story views.
BUT MAKE IT RELEVANT, SERIOUSLY.
If you’re a calligraphy account, I don’t want to see what you’re eating every day. You’re not a food blogger!
Of course, you can have a little fun to show your personality, but about 70% of your stories and feed posts should be relevant to your ideal audience.
5. Write relevant and engaging captions
Are you using Instagram to its fullest? Instagram can be used as a micro-blog in addition to being a visual platform.
Don’t just write one or two sentences when you post a photo. And definitely don’t just put an emoji, my gosh.
If you can, write at least four sentences. Use the space to connect with your audience!
THERE ARE A TON OF THINGS YOU COULD WRITE ABOUT:
What’s the story behind this calligraphy piece?
Who did you create this piece for and why did you create it?
What’s the meaning behind it?
Where did you get your inspiration from?
#FridayIntroductions (yes, that’s a thing—you introduce yourself and post a photo of you)
What are your thoughts behind being a calligrapher or learning calligraphy?
What has helped you progress in your calligraphy journey?
What services/products are you currently offering?
Do you have any upcoming plans to do calligraphy anywhere?
This is not a great caption.
This is WAY better.
This one is great because it shares a real story and allows your audience to connect with you.
6. Use the right hashtags
Are you using the RIGHT hashtags for your audience?
Don’t just blindly use hashtags like #calligraphy #art #love. Do some hashtag research. Again, there are a ton of articles out there about different hashtag strategies.
Use the right hashtag depending on who you want to follow you.
For example, if I want followers from Vancouver specifically so I can promote my Vancouver workshops, I would use Vancouver related hashtags.
What’s best for your business?
In the end, I want you to take a step back and think about whether or not Instagram is the best way to grow your business.
For me last year in 2019, my main income source (90% of it) was from hosting workshops, and only 30% of the people found me on Instagram. Everyone else found me through Google or Eventbrite (the event ticketing platform I use to sell workshop tickets).
Instagram is not necessarily the best way to grow your business. Maybe it’s networking with wedding vendors. Maybe it’s using LinkedIn. Maybe it’s cold-emailing people.
Always: Do what is best for YOUR business.
If you’re looking for more resources to build your calligraphy business and you thought this blog post was useful, I’m welcoming you to join my free Facebook group “Calligraphy Business Bosses”, a community of calligraphers supporting each other in building their calligraphy businesses.