Instagram portfolio or website
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As @nyrrylcadiz said, you should definitely have both a website and instagram! Art directors will often find you through social media, but then they will go to your portfolio website to see your best work in one coherent package. When you apply to publishers and agents, you'll also have a link to leave them. Both are a must!
Personally I don't see the need to create a new instagram account. Building one from zero is HARD! You have a starting account with 750 followers, you should use that! You can start sharing a bit more art on it, and there's no reason you can't still share photos from your life. People love that, it makes it easy for them to connect with you. It's actually something I struggle with, I don't have enough personal photos on my instagram to my liking! Really both topics can mix seamlessly on your instagram, there is no need for a new account
If you can't have a website right now for whatever reason, I'd suggest an Adobe portfolio, which you can get for free through your Photoshop subscription. It's super easy to set up in just a couple hours, and it looks professional. It's just like a personal website but it gives you a www.yourname.portfolio.com domain, which really isn't so bad!
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Oh also! For posting on Instagram form my computer, I use the website buffer.com
It posts for you and let's you schedule up to 10 posts in the free version. It's really a life saver! I only post 2-3 times a week, so I can schedule posts for the entire month in one sitting. Then I don't think about it again for the rest of the month and just let it run Uploading posts only once a month has freed up SOOOO much of my time, and it keeps me consistent on social media with very minimal effortvanessastoilova.com
instagram.com/vanessa.stoilova/Check out my Youtube channel for tips on how to start your career in illustration! www.youtube.com/c/ArtBusinesswithNess
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@NessIllustration I agree, no reason why you can’t do both at the same time. Developing a web site takes a while, but if you do them simultaneously you can make sure of keeping them cohesive . Make another Instagram account for your art and keep attbyour branding the same for your web site. Another good piece of advice I got once is to trade on your name.
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Definitely recommend doing both. You can't really curate Instagram like you would an honest to god portfolio. It's just sort of... art dumping group, unless you plan on spamming your followers with re-uploads, etc. Insta is a fantastic place to pick up followers and audiences, but you want to have a curated portfolio that really shows off your strengths on your website so that when those art directors click through, they can see what you really want to showcase
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@NessIllustration Oh cool to know about buffer.com I used it a while back, but back then they didn't support instagram posts. Good to know!
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Like everyone has already said, I think you should definitely have both if you can! An website will be the go-to for agencies, publishers etc to see your portfolio as a whole and who you have already worked with etc, whereas your social media is perfect for growing an audience and posting work in progress, doodles AND personal life so we can all get an idea of what sort of person you are. I personally love seeing artists personal photos, I've liked seeing your photos you've been taking around London especially because you've already told us about your journey moving away from your home country
Maybe just upload more development work, also if you have two IG accounts then that's just adding more faff to your life - that's my opinion anyway!
Good to know about the Buffer website too, it's a pain when you can only upload from your phone! -
@irina I have a private Instagram for family pics and things and a separate Insta just for art. It’s super easy to switch back and forth between the accounts. I recommend separating them.
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As everyone already said - do both!
Regarding the instagram account, I would make a separate one for your art. But maybe that's just me. I don't like mixing my professional life with personal stuff on social media. (I know on Facebook, i really should, at least a little bit...) -
If you are concerned about keeping followers on Instagram, why don’t you start a second account for your personal photos instead of starting a new one for your art? You can migrate any personal photos from your current account to there and then go back and delete them from the original leaving only the artwork. You’d have to start rebuilding your following for your personal account but that’s probably easier since it would be easier to notify friends to tell them about the switch.
I’m sure everyone has their own preferences but when I follow people for their art, I like it to be mostly pictures of art. I like an occasional personal photo to help me picture the artist’s life but if it has too many, I generally won’t follow them.
Laurie DeMott
instagram.com/demotlj -
@NessIllustration That's amazing. I didn't know you could do that.
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@demotlj thank you. How do you migrate photos? I have photos up to 2012
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@irina There are apps that will migrate photos though honestly I haven't tried them. (I saw them when I googled it.) The simplest (though time consuming) way would be to re-upload your personal photos to the new account. If you don't still have them on your phone or computer, there are also ways of downloading the photos from Instagram to your computer (which again, I haven't tried). In other words, I’m not much help! I was just thinking from my own perspective that I would rather lose the likes and followers on my personal photos and rebuild that following than lose the likes and followers on my art pictures and try to rebuild that following.
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A portfolio website first and foremost. Either hire someone to make it for you or learn how to make it. I don't have a website myself but I'm building one at the moment. I haven't been on Instagram in nearly a month. Honestly I'm getting tired of it.
Remember that you are 'renting' the space off Instagram. You've signed up to their Terms and Conditions so they have complete control of what you post. They also have the ability to change how that platform works without any notice. I recently had an art piece removed by Instagram because of a copyright issue (the record label requested it be removed and it came up in my notifications) so you have to factor in that too. When you have your own site you could post anything you like. You have Behance too...you could easily integrate your projects into a site using Adobe portfolio.
Also, there no guarantee these sites are around forever...your own website will be there as long as you want. Who uses MySpace now? It was THE thing a while back LOL. It will happen to Instagram too.
