Notes from Aboveground
Notes from Aboveground
Insider #121 with lessons from year one of being a huge instagram account
Dear Insider,
(and readers getting a free preview! 👋🏼)
A year ago, my modest Instagram account suddenly exploded. It took me five years to acquire a 20k following and the glorious title of micro-influencer. But over the next 10 weeks, I would cross 300k.
I did not change something to make it happen. I did not try anything new. I did not put any money into ads. In fact, I had accepted that I may never become a big account because I refused to play by the rules. (More on that below.)
So, how did I catch this wave? And what does it mean to have a big following? Why do some artists struggle while others seem to have it easy? How important is luck as a factor?
And, given all the answers, is it worth doing? Or is it better to abandon this predatory platform that manipulates and monetizes our attention?
These are the questions I want to answer in today’s post. If you have your own questions and aspirations around social media growth, drop them in the comments!
The SneakyArt (Insider) Post is published every Sunday for paying subscribers and supporters of my work.
This post, and all my long-form writing, is made possible by the support of SneakyArt Insiders. Without the safety net of paid subscriptions, I could not afford to spend my time researching, writing, editing, and rewriting. I would have to do what all the other big accounts on Instagram do - jump through hoops with a fake smile and the hope that a big brand will throw some crumbs my way.
Subscriptions allow me to focus on my curiosities instead of chasing after the herd. They give me the time and space to write my best words. And they allow me to keep this post free and accessible to everyone who needs it.
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We are all just prisoners here, of our own device
aka how social media and algorithms abuse you
The best kind of prison, argues philosopher Byung Chul Han, is one to which people voluntarily sign up. When we surrender privacy and freedom for endless content and same-day deliveries, we help build the walls of our panopticon… [continue reading]
Social media offered the promise of limitless free expression. The like button was supposed to bring us this freedom, a simple count of the number of people who liked your work.
But the like button is not simple. An algorithm mediates our access to our audience, arbitrating our right to show our work to the people who have already agreed that they want to see it. Sometimes the algorithm demands reels. Sometimes more hashtags. Sometimes less. Often it straight up asks for cash.
Sometimes you cannot succeed without using trending music that feeds money back to music corporations. The music is trending because people are using it. The people are using it because they can see the algorithm plugging it. Spot the circular logic.
The like button is a tyrant, not a liberator.
It locks us in a race that nobody wants to run, but nobody wants to lose either. We are racing against each other, because the likes must go higher and higher. But the likes are kept scarce in an artificial manner - a starvation diet maintained by the algorithms.
By enslaving you to the like button, social media forces you to jump through arbitrary hoops to create value for predatory corporations.
So the promise of creative independence and individual freedom becomes a kind of enslavement itself - rather than satisfy my creativity, or connect in the best way with the people who love my work, my only incentive is to please the algorithm… [continue reading]
Even before I had many followers, I reached a breaking point with this abusive system. Is it the artist’s job to provide quick dopamine to the most number of people? Is that … it?
Because that does not make sense. Does it?
A short quiz to determine if you can afford to leave social media
Do you have a strong offline network of friends and peers in your geographical area? (Y/N)
Does your publisher love you? (Y/N)
Do you maintain a growing list of customers and potential clients? (Y/N)
Are you able to sell at local galleries, gift shops, and marketplaces? (Y/N)
If your answer to all of the above is Yes, you can deprioritize social media.
Understanding the World Wide Web
I like to think of the internet as two kinds of places. For lack of better words, I go with sources and destinations.
Sources are where I go to cast a metaphorical net and attract potential audiences to my work. I do not expect to have a lot of time. I do not expect to get 100% attention. This includes all social media platforms, discussion forums, and online communities, i.e. everywhere that people go to see different kinds of things.
Destinations are where I try to send them once I successfully have their attention. This is my website, my newsletter, and my podcast. Here, I can expect to have more time with my audience - a few minutes instead of a few seconds.
My job is to be at both places to maintain the funnel from source to destination. Not everyone will follow me this way, there will always be some losses. Designing the funnel is my job. How well it works is my business.
I do not complain when not enough people arrive at my destinations. It means I did not do a good job.
I started the SneakyArt Podcast in the summer of 2020, when my IG follower count was less than 5k. The overwhelming advice from fellow artists was - Don’t do it!
I was told -
Nobody wants to listen to a visual subject. Without video, it is doomed to fail.
No one has time for even a 15-second reel, let alone a 2-hour conversation.
Fortunately/unfortunately, I only do what I want to do. The SneakyArt Podcast is now in the Top 2% of all podcasts, with thousands of listeners in over 140 countries. I did not follow any of the best practices for starting a podcast. I still do not. I only do what I want to do.
Understanding your followers
It is 2024 and everyone on social media secretly wants to get off social media. There has never been a better time to convince people to sign up for your email list, visit your website, or join an offline event, i.e. design your funnel.
Every follower is a full human being with varied interests. Their social media is only a part of their life. Their behaviour on the platform does not fully define them.
The problem of short attention spans is slightly overstated and highly misunderstood. Every year more people read bigger books, write longer PhD theses, and binge-watch hundreds of hours of television. People are willing to give a lot of time to the things they love.
People go to social media to scroll. Asking for 60 seconds on Instagram is like asking for 60 minutes from a stranger on the street.
The business of building an audience requires us to dehumanize people into simple stats and linear analytical trends. Use the data but do not forget reality.
Understanding your work
aka what is the social media product?
In Ep 33 of the Podcast, I spoke with my friend Paul Heaston about social media and building online audiences for our work. At the time, Paul had >400k followers on IG but was not on TikTok. I convinced him to try TikTok as well. Since then, he has grown to >800k followers on IG and >300k followers on TikTok!
Listen to the full conversation for some great ideas, but this is where we landed on the subject of product -
The drawing is not the product. More than 99% of Paul’s audience will never see his sketchbooks (or him) in person.
The post is the product. What people interact with on social media is the eye-catching picture or the interesting process video.
Not even the finished drawing is the product. A clear image of the finished drawing is irrelevant to the success of a reel. The lingering afterimage in every follower’s mind is the vibe and aesthetic around the work - a person who sits in a cafe with a sketchbook to draw things.
Vibes are the product. People follow you because they want to feel a certain way after seeing your posts. The job is to give them that feeling.
The chronology of how I went viral
aka how to ride a wave
I had resigned myself to never going viral, and never becoming a big account, because I was unwilling to play by so many supposed rules. I did not put my face in reels. I did not post multiple times a day. I did not talk about trending subjects. I did not follow any trends at all.
But this happened anyway:
First half of December 2022 - a reel from October goes viral, attracting hundreds of comments. I have ~20k followers.
I decide to post more regularly, making short reels out of old videos similar to the viral reel.
Second half of December - every reel is catching fire. I grow from ~20k to ~90k in 3 weeks.
January 2023 - Follower count crosses 100k. Visiting family in New York, I make reels every day. #NewYork helps with growth.
I use a Japanese song in a reel which goes super viral in Japan. I am told that the lyrics are well-suited to my work. Accidentally, I have picked the perfect song.
Growth compounds. By the end of January, I have crossed 250k followers. I continue drawing and posting similar reels. My account goes viral in India, Brazil, Taiwan, Portugal, and so on.
Exponential growth continues until mid-Feb when I have reached 325k followers. Then suddenly, the brakes hit hard. Over the next 4 weeks, I gain only 1000 followers, inching from 325k to 326k.
Over the next 10 months, I crawl from 326k to 338k. No matter what I do, I do not go viral the same way again.
Since then, I have been trying to understand what a large follower count really means - how it can translate to tangible benefits in my life. I have learned many things. At the same time, I have also reckoned with subtle disadvantages that I did not see coming. You may not think so, but there are several advantages to having a small following. Throughout this experience, I have not wavered on the basic rules by which I operate on social media, the same from when I had less than 100 followers.
These are the subjects of the rest of this already very long post. Thank you for being patient with me! If you have questions or ideas or thoughts to share, drop a comment.
Quick Observations from the Explosion
🌊 You may get a chance to ride the wave. But you also need to be ready for this.
🎥 Reels are a good thing! It is so easy to tap ‘like’ and continue scrolling. A reel is your chance to command several seconds of attention.