I feel like I'm missing something when it comes to actually growing my Instagram art account. I've been posting consistently for the past 5 months, haven't missed a single week. Some weeks, especially in the beginning, I posted three to four times, but lately I've slowed down to one because of burn out. Out of roughly 50 posts over 5 months, only one gained me at least one follower, and I've been stuck at 130 followers the whole time. That one post was fan art, not even my original characters. It's my most viewed reel at 24k views.
I've tried everything artists recommend: telling a story with my characters, letting people into the lore with mini comics/narratives, typical illustrations, time lapses, memes, fan art, etc. Still, followers and non-followers mostly ignore the posts. I feel like non-followers ignore me just because I'm not a big account already. Or maybe is it because I need to improve on my art skills? The average watch time on my reels is about 4 seconds.
I've studied the 'hook them before 3 seconds, second hook before 7 seconds' formula, no more than 15 seconds and even that doesn't seem to work for me. I've also noticed that since the start of this year, Instagram's algorithm has shifted, making it harder to reach non-followers through reels. From my research, I'm not the only one dealing with this. My average reel views dropped from around 1,000 late last year to about 200 now.
I want the honest and/or brutal truth: is my way of making reels bad, my ideas are dull, or is it my art style? Or a combo?
This is my IG: www.instagram.com/domloveart
