Instagram is the art world's most important social media network. According to the Hiscox Report, 79% of art buyers under 35 years old use Instagram for finding new artists. Developing your presence on the platform is key to gaining more visibility online.

This media allows you to develop your gallery of images, gain new customers and give access to your website. Following the latest update you can now even sell your artworks directly the platform.

In this article, we will explain to you how to communicate effectively on Instagram by “posting photos".

A good Instagram photo is a "captivating" photo.

It must meet certain criteria:

• Have good resolution

• Large size (1080 × 1080 pixels)

• Have character

• It should be bright

Your first instinct may be to take pictures of the surface of your painting and publish them.

This is a good strategy as your Instagram visitors will get a glimpse of what you are exhibiting.

However, we recommend that you do not limit your publications to a certain schema, it is important to diversify what you post !

Here are some examples of pictures you could post:

A picture that shows your activity:

A picture that humanizes your publication:

A picture that "shows another point of view":

The caption of an Instagram post should attract attention and be easy to read while reflecting the identity of your gallery:

• Write content that matches the identity of your public

• Be concise

• Start with the most important words

• And to finish, add hashtags (hashtags are keywords or expressions without spaces preceded by the "#" sign, which in just one click gives access to all publications that use this same keyword).

Unfortunately, it is not possible yet to post the link of your professional website, in the caption of your "posted photo". However, you can put the link in the presentation of your gallery at the top right of the page of your account. It is through this link that the visitors who are interested in your works will be able to contact you.

You can, also, specify in the caption of your picture that the link to your website is in your presentation by using, for example, the expression "link in the bio" or "link in our bio".

Here are some examples of captions that are adapted to your activity:

The caption that presents your artwork:

The caption that announces your exhibition:

For maximum visibility you can set up a "publishing strategy".

You have two options to do this:

• You can publish your photo at peak times: when more people are online.

      or

• You can publish your photo at off-peak times: at times when the brands publish less and when you will have less "competition".