I posted to Instagram (200k) for the first time in 1.5 years; This happened

Full reveal and visual insight into the story-reels + the results (and what I’ll do moving forward)

Hi there!

How are you?

Today I’ve got a fun behind the scenes story that I want to share. Mostly because it’s an extremely (for me) unexpected turn of events. It relates to Social Media, Instagram especially.

It all started on the 17th of July.

I shared a heartfelt chapter in my mother-artist column (frankly the hardest essay I’ve ever written to date), titled “The real reason I quit Instagram despite 200k followers”. In it I shared, you guessed it, the real story of why I fell out of love with Instagram apart from the regular doomscrolling, comparison, frustrating trap of an app that it tends to become…

For the past 4 years I’ve hardly posted to Instagram at all, and in the past 1.5 years not even once.

I genuinely thought I’d never go back. My husband even inactivated his account (we used to work together in the art business).

But with the release of that chapter from my system, it’s as if I let something free… Something that had held me back through all these years, limiting my freedom of expression.

It’s easy to blame the external factor (which I talk about in the aforementioned essay),  but at some point I admit that it was me limiting myself more than anything.

I am still not appealed to the platform, especially for its low conversion rates and ever changing algorithms. But thanks to having had such a long break, I realised that I’ve detoxed from the previously toxic relationship.

***

As my new Art Book project has sprung to life (which btw launches tomorrow Sunday 1st September!), I suddenly felt an itch… For the first time in years I thought “hey, what if….?”.

Especially because the art book will be curated primarily from my Instagram feed (Petronella.Art), along with features of my husbands work, I found myself looking through the thousands of posts…

Thousands of stories and artworks created over the span of 4 years.

You may have seen/read the story of how I also did a 180 flip from planning to host the crowdfunding for the book on Kickstarter to now hosting it all “in-house” here on Substack (though over in my Petronella.Art Magazine).

Timely, as destiny always has it, I fell into

Anna Vatuone

‘s social media marketing experiment for her new book “Lonely Girl”. She dedicated 30 days to post 1-3 times/day, which generated close to 300 new paid subs to her book PRIOR to launch of the first chapter. How AMAZING is that?!?!

For the record, she currently sits at about 35k Instagram followers (haven’t studied TikTok as I dont even have an account there and I don’t want to create one haha).

Anna’s experiment confirmed something that I had already been contemplating on,

While analyzing the conversions of other newsletter writers on here, I’ve noticed (also first hand) that to drive new subscribers from within the Substack Network (through Notes) is fantastic to gain email subscribers and free readers, but it’s more difficult to convert those readers into paying subscribers (and I imagine this to be due to most readers already having reached their budget limits and are more weary of which they sign up to).

Screenshot from the statistics page on Petronella.Art this morning, showing that the last 3 posts already generated 40 free and 2 paying readers… (235 indicated reads and 355 impressions).

Readers from outside of the network however, have no other reference but you and as a result chances are higher that you’ll find yourself with a paying reader sooner (or so is my hypothesis at least!).

I haven’t fully tested my theory yet (because I haven’t launched the book campaign yet… it launches tomorrow though!!), but I intend to try it out.

—> I can’t commit to 30 days of daily posts, but I CAN commit to posting whenever I have an idea or story to share. Creativity is more efficient when it isn’t forced, and I have no option but to be efficient with two young children home.

What I’ve done so far;

I posted these 6 reels throughout the past three weeks, which collectively racked up about 182k views, 8k likes and 145 comments.

Despite this screenshot of the reach in the last video, which truly shows the sad reality and why building community on Substack feels more rewarding… My efforts, in total, still brought in 182k views, 8k likes and 145 comments I wouldn’t have had had I not tried - I don’t have the data of book sales yet (only Magazine subscriptions, which I showed above), but I dare to say (based off comments) that I’ll have at least a small share come over and preorder the book from socials, and for this project, even if it’s one person, it feels worth the effort.

From experience growing significant social media audiences for my art (500k across platforms), I know that as much as its important to do the work behind the scenes, it’s just as important to show the behind the scenes work… Let your community into your process and you’ll have content + progress in one go.

Process = Content is by the way my approach to literally everything… SAVES so much time and bakes marketing into your practice with limited extra work.

So, I decided to not overthink what to share, (to not take away the fun of experimenting with visual storytelling again, and Oh I have to say how FUN the video editor is in Reels now?! I had no idea!), and start to test the waters with whatever came to mind.

After all… I hadn’t shared ANYTHING for such a long time, and for what I know Instagram likes consistency. So, I went in with really low expectations.

This was my first reel (OBS I was still in the Kickstarter idea when I created this one… and frankly, making these reels really helped me to gain clarity in NOT involving another external platform, but to rather drive the traffic right over to my new Art Magazine and host it all in the same place).

And it racked up an overwhelming response! I thought I was forgotten?! HUMBLED to say the least.

This platform that I had thought so little of for several years, still hold space for beautiful loving souls.

I followed up with this one (I almost instantly felt how driving traffic away from my own sites was counter-intuitive even though it still took another week before I fully changed course);

And the last two is when I fully settled into my new trajectory of experimenting with using Substack as a crowdfunding platform. I also fully leaned into the fun aspect of building a visual story.

The second to last was literally made from a 15sec video my husband did while holding baby in the other arm and the oldest was hiding under mine as I stitched… Can only imagine how fun it must have looked from the outside!

And the last one, which was the most experimental from me, was edited from a 2min clip I filmed of myself quickly in the morning while the kids were playing next by. For all they knew I was writing, when in reality I also captured this footage to edit after bedtime.

I’ve already noticed how trying to make a video without the story already clear is like rowing against the steam (or writing on Notes when you don’t know what to say…). Whereas editing it when you’ve already got the idea around the key concept makes it flow relatively quick and easy and not take up your entire evening).

I will document the experience of the crowdfunding from a behind the scenes perspective here in Follow Your Gut, including the strategic reasons for why I chose to do it (not just traffic based…). And who knows, it might flop? Or it’ll be a roaring success.

The only thing we all know for certain is that we won’t know until it’s done 💖

Warm wishes,

Elin, xx

Ps.

If a the concept of Travelling through the eye of a needle sounds exciting (and inspiring!!) to you, then I warmly invite you to come and follow the campaign over in the Petronella.Art Magazine so that you’re the first to know when the campaign goes live.

• You can learn more about the project and your two options when pre-ordering the book VIA THIS LINK.

• Or read the 1st book update HERE

Pps.

If you’re ready to take a stand for your own creative success story and look for a mentor on how to bring your art and business together (assuming that you think we’d be a good fit), you’re invited to sign to to my 1:1 mentoring WAITLIST. I’ll release one spot in September so stay tuned 🥰