If you're new here, then hello! My name is Leo Mateus. I am an illustrator and I
have an instagram where I mainly post the stuff I do. It's very body positive, it's very queer, it's
very trans related, and I recently just hit 6000 subscribers... followers... followers! I thought
it'd be a good time to talk about how I plan my instagram, how I've grown it to this point,
and how I manage it. I know for a lot of people 6,000 followers,
it doesn't seem like a lot and sometimes I will compare myself to other people and be like:
"Why don't I have 100 to 200,000 followers yet when I work so hard on it?" but I think a lot of
what I do is sustainable, it is consistent, and it's probably more realistic and common for people
to grow slowly and sustainably over time. My art Instagram page is also my most successful social
media page that I've had in relation to time. I'm also able to earn a living off my Etsy store and
my Instagram is my primary source of promoting that and advertising that so I do think a lot of
why I'm able to work for myself right now is because of how I manage my Instagram/social
media sort of thing. At the end of this video I'm going to talk about a giveaway that I am holding
in celebration of having 6,000 followers so if you want to wait around and see how that works
then please do! One thing that's really important for me to think about is how I want my page to
be perceived and the boundaries that I will have with it. I try to see my instagram as a portfolio
rather than a personal social media page. I won't post anything that is super personal,
like selfies or life updates, unless it is related to my store or my art. If I want to post anything
like that I will save it for my personal Instagram or my stories, which are a little bit more casual
and I feel like that is my comfortable space. A major part of having my Instagram is
having a theme and a specific aesthetic that I like to stick to so that people who see my
content elsewhere will be able to know that it's mine. Most of my stuff is very neutral,
I stick to like beiges, whites, creams, a little bit of green. In terms of my
posts, I try to mix up posting things that look like scanned images versus photographs
and mockups for my shop. I like to think it helps a little bit when people are looking at my page to
follow me or scrolling through their own feed and seeing a difference in images rather than the same
style over and over again because that might get repetitive and boring. Even when I take
photographs I try and make it neutral as well so that it fits in with my theme. Some people might
think this is way too over the top but I like doing this, and I think it helps with my kind of
image and how I want to be perceived on that page. I've seen other artists do this as well, maybe if
you've got quite a sketchy or doodly style the images that they post might have little doodles
drawn on the top and that kind of again brings it back to the same cohesive style and it just
makes it a little bit more consistent. Another thing I make sure that I do is add a watermark to
my images. I didn't used to do this but I found that some people were reposting my art (with good
intentions). If I posted like an infographic, I don't mind people doing that! But others that are
seeing that and don't know who I am might not know where it comes from and then might repost that and
then I don't get credit for it when really if I have my instagram name at the bottom of everything
then people will know where it came from. I used to think that watermarks really
ruined how images looked but there are ways you can go around it without changing
the aesthetic of your images too much. I have a little stamp that I've made on procreate where I
just wrote out my handle on Instagram and I stamp it on my images, either at the bottom or somewhere
in the image that makes sense. I like to plan my content ahead and as far in advance as possible,
while still allowing myself time to be relative and up to date with current events, so my happy
medium for that is a month in advance. I have moved to Notion in the last couple of months,
and I found it really helpful to organise all of my work. I have a list on Notion
of different observances and special dates throughout the year, that's my way of staying
current whilst also being able to be prepared in advance. Sometimes this doesn't always work out,
there might be an event that happens where I feel like I really need to talk about it or I really
want to promote something different to what I've got planned and I make it so that I can change
different things if I want to, I'm not that strict with it, but it's there in case I need
ideas and I need something to go back to. So I have one main list of things that I want to post,
but I also have a view where I can see it in a calendar and in a table. So the calendar view
helps me visualise when things are going out, the table view helps me tick off when I've drawn
it or taken the photograph, and then again when I've scheduled it with my other app
which is Planoly. This is what has helped me be able to plan in advance so that I am able to
take time off if I get sick if I need it. Having everything done by the beginning of the next month
really helps with my stress because I like, don't need to panic about anything for the next month
and I can like, bash out four drawings in a day and that's four days worth of
work that I've done and I don't have to worry about that when it comes. I feel like Planoly
looks the nicest and is probably the easiest to use for me. Basically it allows you to upload
images in the app, schedule when it's going to be uploaded, and write out the caption. When it comes
to posting it'll send you a reminder and then you just click a button, it takes you to Instagram,
it saves the images at the front of your camera and copies the caption already from that post
so all you have to do is click the pictures, press paste, um tag people if you need to,
and then post it and it's basically done for you! I did start with the free version (which was fine)
but I decided to pay for the pro version because that allows you to auto post so
it'll do everything for you - if it's just one picture. It doesn't allow it if it is a video or
a carousel (is that how you say?), so if there's like four pictures or something you have to
manually post it like I described before but if it is just one picture it'll do it for you and
that is good enough for a lot of the things that I do. Another thing that the pro version does is
tell you when the most popular times to upload are. I found that it is usually around 7:00
p.m to 9:00 p.m in the UK for me, so when I'm scheduling it it'll just suggest some times for me
and I'll click one of them. So those are the main things that I do. Things that I've noticed perform
really well on Instagram are infographics, because people will share them um, to raise awareness of
different things. The other thing that I've noticed does really well is animations, which
is a really time consuming thing to do but it pays off! Some other things that I've noted from being
on Instagram is to tag people when I draw them, both in the caption and in the image. If you tag
people in the actual image it'll show up in their tagged photos so if you are drawing a celebrity
or something and people go to their tagged photos your image will be there, most of the time. That
can be really good for people finding you and it might also get the person you've drawn's attention
they might share it and bring more people to your page which is really helpful! I put all of my
posts in my stories the day that they go up, but I put a sticker or something on top of the image
so that it's partially covered up. That way, if someone is interested and wants to see it
they'll click on it but if I uncover it people were like: "I've seen it now, I don't need to
do anything else". When I feature products on my store I make sure that they're available
then and there because if they're not people might forget about it. I've heard that instagram likes
consistent uploads and I try and post every single day, which I know is not possible for
everyone but if I'm struggling to find something to upload I'll repost something else. It can
be really handy to do this when it is something like gift ideas for Valentine's day or Easter, or
you know Christmas or something like that, and you've got something that fits in with
that but you don't want to draw something new so you can just be like: "Hey, remember I've
got these things which are really great gift ideas for people!" and then it saves you work.
Hopefully this video has given you some ideas to take with you to your Instagram; don't worry
if not, everyone's different it's fine! I might be doing something that you think is silly and
not worth doing so this is just what has helped me and what I will continue to do until I find
other things that work better. So the giveaway! I would like to send one person a print of mine
from my store, any print that is either A5 or A4. This is an A4 envelope and A5 is half of this,
just to give you some idea on what that looks like, so you can still get a pretty big print!
All you have to do is subscribe to my YouTube and my Instagram, I will be checking so don't try and
be sneaky! After you've done that, leave a comment with the name of the print that you would like and
a way for me to contact you, because if you don't do that I can't message you to tell you
that you've won! If you don't know the names of the prints you can go to my Etsy store, which
I'll leave in the description and I will pick someone by next Sunday, which is the 7th of Feb
so enjoy! Thanks for watching this, I hope it was helpful in some way and I will see you soon. Bye!