Question on: How to get your First 10K Followers.
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Great discussion! Myself I am an emerging artist, who has been trying to change their finance career for illustration for the past two years. One year ago, I have joined facebook and instagram and I found it harsh to be not liked much;-) Some time ago i have decided to stop worrying about followers on facebook or instagram and just focus on getting good. In the end thats the only satisfying way. Playing game of following and unfollowing is time consuming and doesn't add value. Also can be discouraging. At this moment i have only 148 followers but whats cool is that this year I got two jobs from instagram
So maybe focusing on getting better instead of spending hours on fishing for followers wasn't such a bad idea 
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@aska sounds like we are in similar situation. I am in the process of aiming to switch my career in revenue management to design and illustration. I have 146 followers on instagram so you're ahead of me!
I was getting frustrated with instagram, I have decided for now not to worry about it and just try to post 1-2 things a week, even if it is just little character illustrations. Between work, college courses, and my kids I don't have much free time for the next year or so. I'm just looking to get better and have fun along the way. -
@miss-beans now you have 1 more follower;-) your instagram looks lovely - specially first 2 raws come very well together. Good luck on you career switch!
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@aska Thank you, how nice of you - yours looks lovely too.
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@miss-beans Ah, now I had to go and look at your instagram and you blew me away with your cute style! I love it! Ps. You got 1 follower more.
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@aska Wow 2 jobs? That's awesome! Shows that the tale of having a lot of followers and fame on instragram is all but a fable
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@sas I think good following matters but sometimes you can get lucky without it and thats what happened to me
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@sas Thank you! I am following you too - love to see all your beautiful creations. Your chickens made me smile!!
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I find the most effective thing for Instagram is to post every day. I know that's not ground breaking news, but when I'm busy with client work and don't get the time to do any self generated work, I find it difficult to get the engagement back when I'm free again.
Liking and engaging with other people's work/comments on your work is super-important too, but again, if you're struggling for time that is difficult. I've made some really good illo-buddies on Twitter/Insta, but it's hard work.
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It's hard at first because you will inevitably start with more than you are following than you have followers, but It just takes time.
I love doing monthly challenges to boost my followers by getting super involved in the challenge hashtag and sharing some love among the other artists doing that month. Be involved by commenting and liking other artist work.
Never follow just to get a follow back.
Make great content.
I tried out an Instagram promotion recently and it was super helpful! I got 400 new followers from it. But I was already at a pretty high number and it targets new followers based on your current followers and if you don't have a large base then it won't work well for you.
I also go through my following list occasionally and stop following people that I'm just not inspired by anymore.
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Lately I have chosen not to care about the following system on instagram anymore. I got tired of people following me only so I should follow them back and then they left. It got me saddened because I felt cheated in some way. It made me selfconsious in my art and I thought my art wasn't good enough which made me very hesitant to post anything at all.
Then I started thinking about how unhealthy my way of thinking is. Like, why should I post stuff for others? Why do I care so much about what others think of my art? It's just like with a person, either they like you or they don't. So I started not giving a crap and posting stuff that I want to post and who likes it, that's wonderful and who doesn't, well I guess it's not their thing and that's oke.
And about the follow-following cat and mouse game, I don't care anymore. If I like somebody's art I will follow them and not because they are following me. I keep my instagram to see my own growth and the people who stick with me makes me very grateful and humble and they give me encouragment to get better and develop myself.
I understand that people need followers if they're depending on instagram to get their art out into the world but while going on my soul-instagram-search, I got this deep thought of paths coming your way when you are ready for them and I think landing jobs in this business will come by posting your art and not by how many followers you have. As stated above, it matters WHO follows you and the word they spread on your behalf!
So, that was my ten shillings of Tuesday morning wisdom. Now back to class
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@Sas Well said!
