Instagram isn’t for artists.

Not anymore, anyway.

I’m not going to go into all the details here, but this post that references photographers lays it out well. But I do want to tell you what’s been on my mind lately and why I’m officially taking most of my sharing back here to my blog, where it all started.

See that photo of me in a blurry, destroyed bathroom mirror? That’s what’s happening to my posts on Instagram now.

A bunch of noise blocking their views.

I’ve had so many people tell me that they never see my posts anymore. My own husband has had to type my name into the Instagram search bar to intentionally look for them, even though he had me marked as a Favorite account. I told him that there’s a way to view your feed chronologically again and just (supposedly) see people you follow, so maybe that will help. But that was one of the final pushes for me to take control of my “content” again.

If my own husband never sees my posts, people who are interested in my art probably aren’t seeing them either. 

Truthfully, I’ve been coasting on Instagram for many years now. It has brought me visitors to my website, buyers for my paintings, and new companies that wanted to work with me. I’ve been given art commissions and invited to participate in art shows from people who found me first on the Instagram app. But I don’t think that’s really happening anymore.

I don’t see how it can be happening, given that I have over 6,000 followers and am generally only getting 150-250 views of my posts. And that’s on a “good” day.

Instagram wants us to make Reels now. It wants to be TikTok. I don’t care about TikTok. If I wanted TikTok, I’d use TikTok.

Sometimes, I like to make Reels. It’s fun to share inspiration for a painting and travel using video format. But for you to really see and appreciate my art, I need to show you still photography – close-ups of details, works in progress, or how a painting would look on a living room wall. Unfortunately though, for Instagram to consistently show you my art, they want me to make more reels – “sometimes” isn’t enough.

So here’s what I’m going to do. Even though Instagram is catering to people with two-second attention spans, I still feel like I need to maintain some kind of presence there. So I’m not leaving altogether, but I am going to use it less often and differently. When I share posts or anything important there, it’s going to link back here.

I’m not going to assume that I’m going to be found or kept up with through Instagram anymore. I also can’t exist in a vacuum or just rely on Google searches to introduce my art to new collectors either, so I am going to have to experiment with new places to share what I’m working on. But I can choose this website as my home base. My main sources of information will be my artist newsletter and this journal. If you’d like to be notified when I post something new here, you can subscribe to journal updates here.

I may keep using my Stories sometimes, most likely. I don’t know, maybe I won’t…this whole plan is a work-in-progress. I’d like to stop relying on the app for so much of my entertainment and inspiration though. WHICH AREN’T USUALLY REELS! I’m not shouting, you’re shouting! 

I will use Instagram to talk to people. I like going to other people’s profiles and seeing what they’re up to. I like chatting with people in DMs. But I also have email…RETRO. :) Feel free use it anytime – melanie@melaniebiehle.com.

This is going to be really hard for me.

I am so used to clicking that little icon on my phone and quickly sharing things whenever I feel like it. Being in this space takes a little more time and planning. But, maybe that’s not a bad thing, right? Maybe taking more time and being more thoughtful will be good for us. Maybe I’ll end up sharing even more now that I’m back in my own space. Before I was an artist, this blog was my refuge. I collected and shared so many things that I loved and I wrote so much. I often miss writing and say I’m going to do more of it, so here’s my chance.

I hope you’ll join me in this new/old space. xoxo

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