Tag: success

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

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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

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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

Does YouTube Hate Me? | Liron Yanconsky’s Podcast – Episode 52

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Hi there, Liron here!

I recently published a YouTube video, discussing the recent decline in views. I wanted to share it here as well, in audio form, in case you’ve missed it.

Preface to “Does YouTube Hate Me?”

I would like to also preface this podcast episode by saying I’m super grateful for anyone who watches my videos. My intent is NOT to take current viewership lightly.

I want to thank you for watching, reading, listening, commenting and all the great things you do. This means a lot to me, and is the main source of my happiness (as well as income (: ).

YouTube Views

In the last while I’ve been feeling a steady decline in the YouTube views, as well as some slow down in subscribers.

In the video / this podcast episode I wanted to share this with you, as well as get some feedback as to why this may happen.

My YouTube Success Is MY Responsibility

I wanted to stress that I’m fully aware my wins and losses are 100% my own responsibility.

I produce the content. If it works – it’s my success. If it loses – it’s MY failure.

Conclusion

I want to thank you for listening. Again – I’m trying to tackle this from a positive perspective of learning and improving.

Your feedback on the video has been very helpful. And if you have any additional feedback I would appreciate it a lot.

You can do so by commenting below, or contacting me in any of the places I reside in (list below too).

And with that being said – now it’s time for our Artist Corner!

Artist Corner

Today I’m featuring Victoria Prischedko!

Victoria is a watercolor painter, working in a very loose impressionistic style. Her drawing skills are excellent, and this carries in an interesting way in her loose work.

One thing that really characterizes her work is her use of warms and cools. She paints with lots of reds and blues, creating an interesting contrast and plays of temperature.

You can check out here work here:
https://www.facebook.com/prischedko/

And you can read more about her here:
https://www.aquarellereimsevenement.com/index.php/en/viktoria-prischedko-gallery-en

And 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

Going All-in on Instagram & What I Learned (for Artists)| Liron Yanconsky’s Podcast – Episode 49

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Today I wanted to share this update regarding the recent changes I made in my Instagram routine / strategy / tactics, and the impact they had on my presence on the platform.

Two Main Changes on Instagram

I changed two main things in my Instagram routine:

1. Increased post frequency

This did prove to provide faster growth, and it didn’t seem my audience “got tired” of my content (:

I basically moved from 1 post a day to 2-3.

2. Tons of stories

I used to post 1-3 stories a day, and sometimes zero. Now I’m doing as much as 15-30 stories. I’m also making sure I use hashtags there as well.

One last thing I did, though that was a little while before all of that, was changing to a business account. I wanted to get the analytics (:

The Results & Impact on my Instagram Account

I’ve been feeling the acceleration in growth in terms of followers, no doubt.

But the more important thing is the amount of messages and genuine comments I’ve been getting, which really blew me away.

The engagement went crazy too.

So we’re not talking only about quantity, but also about quality.

Future Plans

My future plans are basic – keep this new baseline, and increase / go above it as much as possible. I’ve been doing the occasional 4 or 5 posts a day too.

I will keep you updated on how it goes! (;

That’s all I wanted to share today. We can now move onto the artist corner.

Artist Corner

Today I’m featuring Ilya Ibryaev, a Russian watercolor painter.

His focus seems to be light, and I don’t mean that in the usual sense. His great talent is portraying actual light shining through trees and clouds. He focuses on simpler landscapes with more complex and interesting skies, clouds and light.

What I noticed he does is play around with edges and contrast, to create a strong illusion of light. It actually FEELS like you can see the light itself.

If you want to see what I mean, I actually found a GREAT article written on him over at Seamless Expression – a website about painting and watercolor that I LOVE: Ilya Ibryaev on Seamless Expression

And 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

What Really Matters in Life – Being Present, Loving Others and Your Work | Liron Yanconsky’s Podcast – Episode 45

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Today I want to talk to you about what really matters in life, for me.

Today’s episode is a little special, in that it’s more “meta”. I wanted to share some old and new insights I’ve had regarding what really matters in life.

These are things that I found bring me happiness consistently, and over long periods of time.

Main Themes

Presences – experiencing every fully, as much as possible. This means taking in both pleasures and pain, both worries and relaxation.

I find that when I’m present, I feel a lot more at ease.

Love – giving yourself to others, having good intentions and making sure other peoples’ experience of you is a good one.

Devotion to work – doing what you love and loving what you do.

Letting Go

One of my key insights is about understanding that it all comes to an end eventually.

Every little thing we worried about, and every little thing that made us happy – they all come to an end eventually.

So might as well experience it fully (:

This is sometimes easier said than done, and that is fine. It’s a daily practice. Something to work on and aim towards every day.

Daily Awareness Routine

I start every morning with a daily awareness routine. I meditate, write my thoughts and read my vision to myself, so that I re-remember why I do what I do.

I find this to be incredibly important for my success, and for honing and preserving my motivation and connection to my end goal.

Final Words

I hope you enjoy this episode. Not that art-related, but it’s a few things I wanted to “unpack” by talking to the mic (;

Artist Corner

Today I talked about Lars Lerin. This is a watercolor painter I’ve been told about a long time ago.

He is a contemporary Swedish painter who’s work I really admire. His works are both loose and realistic.

He has this unique type of impressionism you don’t see very often. Very simple color schemes too.

Highly recommend you check his stuff out HERE and HERE (:

And 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