Patreon & Instagram - Any Insta Creators here?

Hello Creators!

I am curious if anyone has had much success converting from Instagram. I create solely on Insta and havent had a lot of luck converting people to patrons.

Would love to hear about someone doing it well!

-CB

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I keep getting told that Instagram and Tumblr are great for artists creating a following, but all I see are artists following me hoping for a follow back. That seems to be how the porn people market as well. They give you a follow and then within three days they dump you. At least, that’s been my experience. I can’t grow a following on either to save my life.

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Ive got almost 25k followers on Insta. They are very engaged (and real.) - way way above the average. 10% engagement typically per post. Problem is I do sketch comedy which only allows me to post once a week since its not my full time job.

My issue isnt growing my following because I’ve already done that. Its getting people to convert on Patreon from Instagram…

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I have a good instagram following but zero conversion and rarely any sales.

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I’m on the same boat. I’m a amateur comic artist just getting on Instagram so I barely have any followers. Tumblr’s better for me, but lately it’s been slowing down. And I really don’t know how I can get more followers besides paying for it. It’s very difficult.

I’ve got around 78K followers on IG and I can say that despite the large numbers I don’t see a significant conversion rate. While IG can be good for getting a lot of eyeballs, it sucks as a platform for creating a call to action. My best luck was with offering a limited time physical reward for people who pledged before a deadline.

Ultimately, the strategy for achieving the best results as a visual artist has been to diversify across as many viable platforms as possible. When it comes time to create a strong call to action, I don’t think it’s effective to rely on a single platform. My website has a sales conversion rate of about 0.4%. That’s 4 people making a purchase out of 1000 unique visitors. I wouldn’t be surprised if the IG to Patreon conversion rate is lower than that.

Spread out your bets and keep hustling. That’s the only way forward. The Internet is a big place.

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From what Ive heard from other artists, Instagram is not very good at making people take action and go outside of Instagram, but Facebook Im told is very good at this. But Instagram is my favourite platform soo I hope this will improve!
I “only” have about 6200 followers on Instagram but I have seen that larger accounts now can create links within their stories, have you tried this? Should be great for promoting Patreon! I hope they make this feature available to everyone soon ^^

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I think it’s just for business accounts, i.e paying ones… They know everyone wants to be able to use links, so they’re making it available at a price. Social media have become such a con.

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I use tumblr for a lot of my promotion, and it’s definitely made a different with my other outlets. I see it as a worth while tool.

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Not sure what you mean with “paying ones”? I have a business account and it doesnt cost anything.
But I have heard that it might be that only (business?) users with more than 10k followers get this feature, but nothing is confirmed.

The business accounts are free? I didn’t realize, what’s the difference between that and a personal account then?

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You can connect your Instagram account to your Facebook page which probably is beneficial somehow… But maybe thats possible with a private account too?
You get Instagram Insights (stats and such for your posts and followers), and a contact button on your profile (with phone number/email/address).
Hopefully more links and such in the future ^^

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Just saw this article, and thought of you ^^
https://later.com/blog/instagram-business-profile/

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Thank you, that’s kind! And useful!

Hi everyone! I’m seeing a lot of questions and interesting info and even confusion regarding instagram in this thread! I’m hosting a free 5 day instagram “bootcamp” next week specifically for creators, and I think it would answer a lot of these questions!

Personally I think Instagram is a GREAT platform to promote your patreon, and know many successful creators here who use IG either exclusively, or as their main social media.

If you have a great audience but are not seeing results I do NOT recommend branching out to other platforms, as you’re just continuing to spread yourself thin.

If you’re looking to gain patrons from IG you need to:

  1. Create an engaged following of the RIGHT people. So it was mentioned other artists, whom I love and are awesome, but could be considered at the ‘trade’ level. As in I like you, you like me, we are equal. What you need are the people who are your ideal AUDIENCE, who is your art made for? Why? Find them, create content catered to them, and love the heck out of them. THOSE are your patrons. Patreon is a place to bring in fans of your work who’d like to support you. If you haven’t yet done the work to build a community of fans, then you’re going to be hard pressed to bring them here.

  2. Give them a reason to join your Patreon. What can you offer specific to them that they want and are asking for and that speaks to what they want from your art that they can only get on Patreon? More than likely it’s more 1-on-1 access to YOU, the creator! But not necessarily. Do the research, ask questions, create giveaways and bonuses, mention Patreon and post CTA’s (calls to action) often, offer sneak peaks and share your goals. Make it clear that if they’re not on patreon they are missing the party!

  3. Make it easy to get to you. Yes - getting someone to click outside of any platform is growing more and more difficult. Definitely. Having a relevant link in your bio, or utilizing https://www.linktr.ee to provide more than one link (seriously, it’s free and amazing - check it out!) is one way to allow people to get to you, but doing the occasionally ‘boosted’ post where they can click the link right from the image is GREAT. Find something you’ve already shared and was really popular, and boost it with the link. As for the ‘Swipe Up’ feature in stories that is DEFINITELY the best way to get people from Insta to wherever you’d like! This feature is in fact only for business accounts (which IS free), and only available if you have 10k+ followers. There’s some pros and cons to switching to a business account though, which is a topic I’ll cover in one of the days in next weeks bootcamp.

I hope this has helped some and I would love to see you all there! Here’s more info on the bootcamp included each day’s topics and the sign up link:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1856681174451223/

I hope to see you all there!
XoXo
Jin

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