The ONE thing you need to get right in Social Media Marketing to grow a large audience

And it has nothing to do with sharing your pretty face, if you don't want to

Welcome to Follow Your Gut, a newsletter about the artist life and business based on my POV from a soon decade long independent artist career, being a published author and adding 2 children to the ride.

85% of new letters are free to read for 3 days, whereafter they go behind a paywall. If this is our first date, I warmly invite you to check out the free archive first. I’m Swedish after all, don’t want to be too pushy (just a loving nudge ❤️).

Good evening (or day?)!

I didn’t intend to write about social media today. Not at all actually. But somehow the muse got tickled after I read

Bella Foxwell

‘s straight to the point article “Don’t buy the expensive social media course, read this instead” and the subsequent brief comment exchange in which we agreed that nothing much has changed through the years (despite everyone focusing on how much that HAS changed…).

This was follow by

Ted Gioia

‘s brilliant essay “Why creatives will win by thinking small”, in which he shares how even the gatekeepers are fed up with being gate-kept. True power is emerging at the grassroots and even more so being in charge of the distribution (for example publishing emails like this one directly to you, cherished reader).

As someone who has grown audiences in the hundreds of thousands across social platforms (200k on Instagram, 200k on Pinterest, 40k on YouTube) and most recently 0-2k on Substack in 5 months before importing any external emails (now at about 11k), I can only agree with both Ted and Bella.

A photo of one of my embroideries (the type of image I’d share on socials) - here a glimpse of an iconic San Fransisco Design

The Substack experiment

If you’ve followed the ride of Follow Your Gut, you may remember that I started this publication as a separate heart project to my main art business 7 months ago. I chose to start from zero, when I could’ve opted for the more comfortable choice of bringing my folks over right away.

The reason was simple: I wanted to regain my creative confidence and energy after a hiatus from entering motherhood 4 years ago. I wanted to see whether “my strategy would work again”, a couple years later and on a new (to me) platform.

And you know what?

It worked.

It worked brilliantly even. Thank YOU for being here! ❤️

I became a bestselling writer on Substack last month, currently split quite evenly between my two publications, which I’m really excited about as it means a lot of you really enjoy my writing on here - I’m humbled! Thank you 🙏🏼💖

So what did I do?

First, I think it’s important to remember that even though I metric-wise began at zero here on Substack, I had 7 years of experience growing on socials in my backpack. Experience using organic traffic to grow excitement around my art and even more so; Empower my audience and community to believe that they could make it too (the art).

I was nervous at first, considering Substack to be a long-form text based platform as opposed to the visual platforms I’d previously expanded on. But turns out, the foundations around human connection, trust-building and authentic exchange are still the same…

Disclaimer (because I seem to love those? 😅):

I am not someone who made my money from teaching how to make a business. I made it from doing my art, exhibitions (virtual and physical), art and writing commissions, art classes (virtual and physical), digital patterns and books (published by McMillan and self-published).

This newsletter, Follow Your Gut, is actually the first time that I’m opening the curtain about my experience and reflections around living an artist life and running an art business.

The main thing most courses get wrong about growing on social media (or online marketing in general):

To build a long-term sustainable independent business, there’s no quick fix to fame. In fact, it’s not until you reverse the narrative to focus on making your community rise as opposed to yourself, that you’ll truly grow.

It’s not about making people “want to be like you, or have what you have”. It’s about making them feel empowered to see that they’ve already got all it takes, and that you can potentially help them amplify their own geniuses, NOT copy yours.

This is key.

This, to me, is the answer for why so many creatives and artists continue to struggle. It’s not even about the starving artist mindset, which is more of a societal problem and pressure to make you think that being an artist is not a viable career path. That bit is external noise that transforms into internal noise, which obviously has to be dealt with to dare to go for it and listen to your gut in the first place.

But once you’ve come through the noise, you need to implement and take action. And I’m telling you, my dear reader, it’s not by turning the spotlight on yourself. It’s by turning the spotlight on the lingering muse in your potential buyer, where YOU act as the guide, not the hero.

A concrete example from my art business:

Which messaging do you think made more sales?

1. Look at this art piece, I absolutely love how it came out and it means so much to me. I poured my heart and soul into this piece.

2. Look at this art piece, it would be so stunning in a living room, adding a splash of colour and texture - and you know what? Spark conversations! How many have art-embroideries on their walls these days? You’d be a one of a kind.

Did you see what just happened there?

You can be personal and authentic without sharing your private life

The typical social media marketing message will tell you to be personal and relatable by sharing images of yourself and your family, friends or whatever you do in “your private life”. That this somehow will make you appear more of a real person and less like a business.

I get that. As consumers we want to know who’s behind a product and service.

But I’m critical of the need to “show your private life” as a viable marketing method. From my perspective, it creates envy-based following more than anything else (not good for long term healthy relationships) and it definitely blurs the line between private and public, PLUS disrupts attempts to work-life balance more than anything.

I personally have very strong boundaries around sharing photos of my children, i.e. I never do unless it’s in a drawing (I talk more about that in my paid mother-artist column by the way).

A photo I took on our walk today. A Vespa painted like a cow…Ha! Never thought I’d see a cow with wheels..

Look at this!

Even if we share the “raw and real” bits of our lives, it inevitably becomes a comparison trap as soon as it’s positioned as “look at me” as opposed to “look at this”.

“Look at me” invites for objective comparison, whereas “look at this” (and remember it can be the exact same image), is an invitation to the viewer to feel inspired/motivated/empowered (whatever the image or text is about).

For example;

Is it more or less efficient to:

1. Share pictures of yourself during your vacation, while sharing how amazing it is to, indeed, be on vacation for the sake of “being relatable” (or enviable…) Or;

2. Sharing an image from your vacation with highlights of things you learnt, cool stuff you’ve seen or a story with an encounter with a local, which can potentially be interesting and inspiring for others too…

I assure you, that as soon as you arrive to reframe the narrative and empower your community, you’ll become a sponge for attention regardless of platform, which makes it a Win-Win scenario for everyone involved.

Thank you for reading, as always!

Warm wishes this beautiful cow-ful Saturday,

Elin, xx

Ps. Do you look for 1:1 mentoring?

Upon demand I’m currently contemplating ways to best integrate mentoring, not a one-off course, into my offerings. I think there are enough generic courses and that what’s needed is specific personal support from someone who gets it.

If you’re interested in being mentored by me (think: voice-notes and chat format for absolute freedom and flexibility…. Because that’s what this art life is about). Be the first to know about it by joining below (No strings attached! It’s just to pop your email into the form to get priority access. I will only release very limited spots):

Pps.

If you enjoyed reading this essay you may also enjoy:

• For part-time artists and writers

• What I learnt from having 500k across Social Media

• Things always work out if you allow them too