My instagram is going crazy

[Cam]

Thanks. It would help to be successful before I die. I do not have kids, so I will not really have a legacy to pass on. It would be nice to be remembered for my art. Although, I would rather be remembered for being a good person.

[TheBenior]

"Oh, this wooden sculpture? It's a one-off piece by Cameron Porter. Great guy, the stereotypical Canadian overrode the stereotypical successful artist dickishness."

[Cam]

<3

[Cam]

Looks like Instagram is stymieing me again. In December, my following surged up to 89K. Over the past several weeks, I've gone backward again, losing a couple of hundred followers overall. At this point, I lose about 400 followers a week. It just so happens that I normally gain more than I lose. Alas, I seem to be stalled again. I do not know what I have done to deserve being put in IG purgatory. I only post original content myself, from the IG app on my phone. I've never used 3rd party apps to post. I've never bought followers. I've never used bots. I've never paid for social media services. I only use relevant tags and never just copy and past the same tags. Only about 10-20% of my followers are seeing my latest posts. That tells me IG is not showing it to them. It is frustrating. IG denies they do things like this, but you can find plenty of testimonials with a cursory internet search that indicate otherwise.

I do have a theory, however. Two things may be causing a problem.

1.) I often promote and attempt to redirect people to my YouTube channel and my Etsy shop. IG is interested in keeping users on the platform. I am sure they do not like the fact that I am always plugging my YT channel. I have a link to my shop in my bio. Instagram has its own competing long-form video service, IGTV. The last time I made an IGTV video, a mere 50 people watched it. Seriously, 50. I had at least 60K followers at the time. That tells me IGTV is irrelevant.

2.) I have never paid IG to promote myself on their platform. That is their business model after all. I am sure they see guys like me as freeloaders. They have no interest in seeing me do well without paying for it.

As I mentioned before, my growth on IG seems to ebb and flow. I just have to keep doing what I am doing, I guess.

[Blerpa]

About 1) Do NOT. It is the same on YouTube: if you merely cite that you also have a Twitch channel as well may lead to lose monetization for the video where you say so, or even bigger hurdles. Even worse if you just say that there's a live event at this time and that day on your Twitch channel, directly indicating what is the channel.
Just learn to give subtle and indirect hints.
Sad situation all around.

[Cam]

Yeah, I should probably stop doing that.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Be a scientist! Go test out your theories to either prove or disprove them!

However, remember your main focus should be your content though. If your content sucks, won't matter if you have all these social medias all figured out!

[Rare White Ape]

Are you making any money from followers on IG?

[Cam]

I do not make money from IG directly. The higher my following, the better chance someone will buy art from me.

[Rare White Ape]

Ok, different to what I thought.

I was imagining if you had 90k followers on YouTube you’d almost be making a living wage by just producing videos.

A lot of YTers use IG and Twitter etc to support their main activities on YouTube, as an external feed of-sorts. But your IG is your main feed and your YT is your external.

I never use IG so I don’t know, but do you upload videos directly to there, or is it still for pics only?