Instagram for Artists – How I got 10K Followers | Liron Yanconsky’s Podcast – Episode 62

Hi there, Liron here! Today I will give you my BEST advice for success on Instagram, aimed at ARTISTS in particular.

This is based on an article I wrote that you can find here: How I Got 10K Followers on Instagram.

Instagram & Other Social Media Platforms

Let’s talk a bit about Instagram in the context of other social media platforms.

Instagram is undoubtably one of the HOTTEST platforms at the moment. Great engagement, very active users and a huge potential for success.

But before we dive head first, I want to provide a little caveat. Never put all of your eggs in one basket. Instagram is great now, but it won’t last forever.

Competition increases, engagement goes down and the organic reach will probably also go down with time.

So diversify and try to produce content for as many platforms as you can.

With that being said, let’s get started with the advice! (:

1. Posting A LOT

This is a no brainer. If you want to build an audience, you have to post regularly and post A LOT!

How much? As much as you can.

I think one post a day is the minimum. I personally do 3-4, but less than 1 a day is really little.

2. Hashtags

Hashtags are the main means for making your work discoverable. Make sure to use as many as possible (the maximum allowed is 30).

Also do your research and figure out which ones work for you. Rotate them around and try out new things.

3. Stories

Stories are really important for improving the connection with your audience. But I do believe they also help you reach new audiences.

Their reach is much higher than posts, and they are more easily accessible from the top area of the app.

So many people passively scroll through stories, but will never see most of your posts.

Also try using hashtags in stories. It increases their reach even more.

4. Engagement – Inside and Outside

Inside – by that I mean with your own followers. Reply to messages and comments.

Outside – engage with other peoples’ posts. Leave comments and likes. And make sure it’s all GENUINE. Fake comments are easy to spot, and hurt your brand.

5. Business Account

Not sure about this one, but it seems to me like the moment I switched to a business account my engagement and reach improved.

However, the irrefutable advantage of a business account is the access you get to the Insights feature.

This shows you your top performing posts and a whole host of useful information.

6. Buffer and Efficiency

Make sure to streamline your work process in whatever way possible.

Buffer is a really useful app for scheduling posts to different social media channels. Plus, for Instagram you can’t schedule posts, so it’s really my only way of reaching my audience at times when I SLEEP (haha, different time zones…).

Conclusion

I hope you found this episode helpful.

Instagram is such a hot platform at the moment, so I’m trying to squeeze everything I can out of it, while I can.

In the future it’s going to become harder to build an audience. It will be much more challenging to grow.

It was easier 2 years ago. And it was still easier 1 year ago. And it’s easier now than it’s going to be a year from now.

So go for it!

And with that being said, let’s move on to the artist corner.

Artist Corner

In this episode I talked about Dean Mitchell, and incredible painter working in several mediums.

His oils focus on people, while his watercolors feature scenes more often. I love all of his work, but his figurative paintings and portraiture are spectacular.

You can check out more of his work on his website: Dean Mitchell

Here’s where you can find me

Check out my YouTube Channel – Liron Yanconsky

Or ask me questions on Instagram – @LironYanIL or Snapchat – @LironYan3

I hope you enjoyed this one. Take care, and we’ll talk again really soon,

– Liron

Real-Time Narrated Painting Tutorials – YouTube Experiment Results | Liron Yanconsky’s Podcast – Episode 60

Hi there, Liron again here! Today I want to share with you my recent YouTube experiment – posting only real-time narrated painting tutorials – and talk about the results.

Let’s get going!

YouTube Experiment

Over the last few months, many viewers mentioned how what they are missing are full painting tutorials. Meaning – they didn’t want time-lapse vids. They wanted to hear my thoughts as I painted.

Following these requests, I decided to give this a try for six videos, which are two weeks.

This means that for the past two weeks, I’ve been only posting longer (40+ minutes) tutorials.

Feedback I Got

The vast majority of feedback was very positive. People were commenting how hearing my thought process is really useful, and how real-time allows them to follow along the action.

On the other hand, there were probably one or two comments saying how the videos are too long, and how they preferred shorter vids.

Results on YouTube

This is more about my YouTube analytics. I noticed several interesting things here.

First, one of the videos has done really well, gaining over 10K views. This is a lot for me, as I average at around 2K views, I would say.

Aside from that one, two other videos show some promise, and will perhaps gain more views with time.

I did see an immediate increase in watch time, which makes sense – as I was posting much longer videos.

But with that, there were also more views in general. This could be attributed to the 10K views video, but I’m not sure about that.

Also, I did notice an increase in subscribers growth, which was very slow for a while now. I averaged for a while around 40-50 new subs a day, and then increase temporarily moved the average to around 70, with the peak at 100+.

These are great results.

YouTube Channel Future Direction

My main insight from this experience was that I MYSELF am interested in variety. After such a long time period of posting only these longer videos, I started craving making shorter videos.

Another insight was that you can’t please everyone, which is 100% okay. So I might as well do what interests me.

My plan is to now incorporate what I learned over the last two weeks into my routine. We’ll go back to the normal series (The Paint Show, Painting Masters), but I’ll also try and do at least 1-2 full processes every two weeks.

Conclusion

I hope this experiment pushed the needle a little more in the direction of me improving as an artist and a teacher. And I’ll keep you updated on future experiments and new ideas I get.

And now, it’s time for today’s Artist Corner!

Artist Corner

In this episode I talked about Jasmine Huang, an incredible Taiwanese watercolor painter.

Her paintings have a beautiful realistic vibe to them. She uses a very unique color palette and is very well-versed in wet-in-wet.

Coincidentally, she is also the wife of Chien Chung Wei, who I featured in a recent episode of Painting Masters. I believe I will dedicate an episode to her as well (:

The best place to check out here work would be Facebook:
Jasmine Huang on Facebook

Here’s where you can find me

Check out my YouTube Channel – Liron Yanconsky

Or ask me questions on Instagram – @LironYanIL or Snapchat – @LironYan3

I hope you enjoyed this one. Take care, and we’ll talk again really soon,

– Liron

I’m Visiting The USA | Liron Yanconsky’s Podcast – Episode 37

Hi there! Today’s podcast episode is a personal / blog update about my upcoming visit to the USA, and some additional updates.

Visiting the USA

I will be visiting for the entirety of August (2nd – 29th). I’m visiting family in Cleveland, Ohio.

I’m really looking forward to this time. It will give me an opportunity to recharge and reset, and perhaps refresh my vision for the future.

In addition, I’m pretty happy to visit my family! (: We may also visit Canada.

YouTube Channel VS Painting

This is something that’s been on my mind for a while now.

I feel like I’m putting A LOT of work into the YouTube channel, and not enough time into painting and making art.

I think I need to rebalance this. I’m unsure if this means going down to 2 vids a week, or less, but it’s something in that range.

I’m actually considering taking 2 weeks of a complete break from YouTube for a hard reset, but we’ll see.

I don’t want to give up the possible upside / potential, but I do want to make sure I don’t burn myself out.

Results VS Expectations

This is something that pops from time to time. I sometimes feel like my progress isn’t “fast enough”, or that I’m not getting better as fast as I can.

This is of course a little ridiculous. I am working as hard as I can, and I am doing my best. I need to re-sharpen my gratitude and acceptance skills! (:

IGTV

Finally, just wanted to mention this awesome platform.

Instagram created an additional app called IGTV. It’s like YouTube, or a TV, only made for mobile. The videos are vertical, and it’s just fun to use.

I’m posting A LOT there (almost every day), so make sure to check it out. You can get there by visiting my Instagram page, and clicking where it says IGTV.

Artist Corner – Tim Wilmot

Finally, today I mentioned Tim Wilmot. He is an incredible watercolor painter from the UK.

He has – what I think are – some of the best YouTube tutorials out there. Be sure to check out his work:

And Here’s where you can find me (:

You can support me on Patreon

Check out my YouTube Channel – Liron Yanconsky

Or ask me questions on Instagram – @LironYanIL or Snapchat – @LironYan3

And this is it for today, I hope you enjoyed this one, and we’ll talk soon!

– Liron

Alizarin Crimson Permanent – SAA Watercolors | The Paint Show 27

Hi there, in today’s episode I want to review Alizarin Crimson Permanent by SAA watercolors.

Here’s the full review, scroll down for additional paint info.

SAA Watercolors

So far my experience with these was great. Their colors are strongly pigmented, lightfast and handle nicely.

This one is no different.

Alizarin Crimson Permanent Paint Info

Pigments: PR177 (Anthraquinone Red) and PV23 (Dioxazine Violet)
Transparent
Lightfastness: A (best)

The SAA brand doesn’t have any series. All paints are equally priced.

They do have discounts for members of the SAA. You can learn more here: SAA Membership.

If you live in the UK, I would especially recommend checking this out.

I hope you enjoyed this one, and I’ll talk to you again really soon!

– Liron

SAA Watercolor Paints | Review, Demo & First Impressions

Hi there! Today I want to talk to you about the SAA watercolor Paints.

I reviewed them extensively in this YouTube video:

If you want to read more, scroll below.

SAA Watercolor Paints

I was sent these by one of my followers, Chris. He recommended I give them a try and I absolutely loved them!

I’m writing this quite a while after publishing the video. With this larger perspective I can say these are really high quality.

These paints behave the way I want them to. I find I have great control with them, but they still do what they want.

They are strongly pigmented, easy to activate and are very fun to use. They also have great lightfastness.

The Paints I Got

I got three paints:

1. Indian Yellow
2. Alizarin Crimson Permanent
3. French Ultramarine

Individually they work great. I would, in terms of combos, maybe replace the French Ultramarine with a cooler Phthalo Blue, but that’s just my personal preference.

Detailed Paint info

1. Indian Yellow
A beautiful warm yellow.

Pigment: PY3 (Hansa Yellow)
Semi-transparent
Lightfastness: A (best)

2. Alizarin Crimson Permanent
A strong Alizarin Crimson.

Very well-pigmented and saturated.
Pigments: PR177 (Anthraquinone Red) and PV23 (Dioxazine Violet)
Transparent
Lightfastness: A (best)

3. French Ultramarine
A beautiful warm blue.

Pigment: PB29 (Ultramarine Blue)
Semi-transparent
Lightfastness: A (best)

The Results

Here are some still-life results I got with these. I really love them!

An apple still-life painting with SAA paints The three SAA watercolor paint tubes, next to the still-life painting A still-life of a pear and apple, done with Indian Yellow

Where to Purchase SAA Paints

These are very unique. SAA stands for The Society for All Artists. It is a UK based brand, that has a strong community around it.

They offer several plans that make their tools and paints significantly cheaper. They also don’t have series for their paints. All paints are priced equally.

If you reside in the UK I’d highly recommend giving them a try (although it’s worth mentioning they have an international plan as well).

You can learn more here: https://www.saa.co.uk/info/join-the-saa/

Conclusion

I’m really into these paints. I hope to share more artworks I did with these in the future.

I hope you enjoyed this review, and I’ll talk to you again real soon!

– Liron