To start off this blog post, I just checked when I last posted something to my Instagram account. I’ve been more or less consistently posting to Instagram until January 2024, which were still a couple of months after I wrote my first blog post about trying my “own” way of doing social media. After a long silence, my last reel was posted on 16th April 2024 and though I still have my account, I haven’t been there since, and it’s been SO GOOD. Now, let me tell you what happened in the meantime and how my approach to social media has changed since my last article. Spoiler alert: I haven’t returned to it and I won’t do so in the future.
What about my plan of trying social media MY WAY?
(See last blog post for reference)
Well, I tried to make it work, but algorithms hate it when you do things your way and so I got less and less views and likes – even on my Instagram stories. At the same time, comparing myself to fellow artists on my feed (silently, deep inside) grew and grew, until I felt really bad and knew I had to stop browsing on my business feed (I only follow a handful of artists with my private account), otherwise I might lose hope in my business, my abilities and get depressed. And so, I turned it off by the end of January and except for two or three occasions, I didn’t dare to return. I’m too afraid of falling back into comparison-ism and of feeling bad.
Instead, I decided to give a more forgiving, ever-green-ish, easier platform a go – namely Pinterest – and finally (at least I thought so) imagined building a business with marketing that doesn’t drain me all the time. Just as I’ve ever dreamed about, but kind of was hold back to try (because who am I, walking off the well approved paths?).
Is Pinterest A Good Platform For Artists Without Social Media?
And could you say you’ve got a business without social media, when you’re still marketing with Pinterest? It depends, I’d say …
How does Pinterest work? A short overview.
Some say Pinterest turned into a social media platform, others say it’s more of a search engine. I’ve always treated it like a search engine, and it worked pretty well, but I’m not deep enough into the topic to properly judge about it. The biggest difference between a search engine like google and Pinterest is that Pinterest still demands a lot – daily interaction (“pinning”) would be best. While google is fine about you writing a blog post every now and then, or weekly, or once a year. It’s more judgemental about your blog post than your consistency.
Anyway, what both have in common is that you can use keywords and properly structuring your space (into topics) does matter. Also, the more people interact with what you’ve published, the better. For someone coming from a background of blogging, it’s an easy concept to understand and work with. Still, to really learn about it, I joined a four-week deep dive course (by Rachel Emma Waring, sadly she doesn’t offer it anymore) in February, which was great and seriously helped me. You can read about how Pinterest works online for free, collecting info from blog posts and youtube viddys, but you’ll get much more and condensed information from an expert course.
How Did Pinterest Work Out For Me And My Art Business?
With the confidence build throughout the course, the first months were great and my learning curve with huge. At the same time, I let go of some limiting beliefs – like I have to create my own designs from scratch every time, which I stopped and now happily use what canva has to offer, mixing it with my own ideas. I designed and scheduled pins always a month ahead, which made me feel liberated from the tight tolls of Instagram.
The great thing about Pinterest is that it’s fine to bulk schedule your pins and then let the technology do it’s thing. For example, I sat down in the beginning of the month for one or two days, depending on the time I’ve got, and made everything happen. So I only had to think about it again in four weeks’ time. I chose a rhythm that fitted me (four pins a week, mixed topics, occasional videos), even though I knew it neither wouldn’t lead to going viral overnight, nor would it change my business all of a sudden. But it suited my daily doings and to-dos, so I could keep up with it, it grew slowly and steady, in the end Pinterest loves consistency more than spamming.
After a while, I saw things gaining traction and over summer I even had a tiny going viral moment. However, at the same time, I started to feel a burn-out creeping up and when my numbers started to buckle down again, without me having changed anything, until they were almost back where I had started in spring, I decided to also close Pinterest for a while and ignore it. I had to recover and I was running out of material to pin. My life had been busy and I hadn’t painted or written in months and there was an urge growing inside me that I HAD to create NOW. Sadly, the moment you stop showing up at least a little bit, Pinterest is not such a good fit anymore, just as all socials as well.
So, Am I Still Using Pinterest To Market My Creative Business?
What I learned only recently is that Pinterest had done an update over summer and a lot of accounts lost views. Many recovered quickly, but mine didn’t because it came at a time when I already lacked the energy to give it the attention it needed and then decided to cut it all down to zero to recover from a lurking burn-out.
The Future Of Pinterest And Why It Matters.
Also, I have closely watched the changes happening on Pinterest over the past months, and in my opinion it will soon get more and more difficult to spread your work organically, as they highly promote using Ads. It’s everywhere basically and I guess you know what happened to other platforms when they started doing that. Furthermore, Pinterest has trouble dealing with AI generated content because AI makes it insanely easy for anyone to design thousands of pins. So, Pinterest is floated with content. A growing amount of Ads and AI images taking up space means less space for smaller accounts who just pin a few times a week, which leads to less and less views.
Call me old-fashioned, but I still refuse to use AI to create any kind of marketing materials or else. I have a brain, and I can use it and I want to create humanly content. But that means that my content is (sadly) less likely to convert because my captions may lack the perfect number of keywords, or the most fitting keywords or else.
My Take On Ads.
Additionally, I don’t want to pay for Ads (for now). I don’t see why I should give rich people even more money. I know these platforms need a base to work from – in the end they need to pay their staff as well – but they’re not build fair enough in my eyes, for me to be willing to pay them.
Me, Pinterest and 2025
All this means – for me – that I will still use Pinterest next year for my creative business, but I will be open for changes. It’s not my top priority. I still like it, also because I know how well it serves me as a customer. I love to use it for interior or gardening inspiration in private and have found wonderful brands through it. Looking at my feed feels like looking at my vision board, and if there’s just a small possibility of my organic pins being part of someone’s vision board would be great.
What Else To Do As A Social Media Free Artist?
Hone the blog and connections!
When I look at my website statistics it’s obvious what drives the most traffic: my blog. It’s sitting there, doing what it does, very organically. I have a few blog posts that do SO WELL and I think – as if I haven’t seen it coming long before; blogger tries social media and comes back to … blogging – that that’s where my focus will lie next year, besides a few other spaces. Blogging still is a thing and even though google doesn’t care if your blog posts are written by AI or a human, AI only knows what already has been there. Unique can only be done by you.
We Need To Start Building Connections.
Artists are so bad in connecting and using each others platforms and reach. We all seem nice and friendly and as if we’re all friends, but are we connecting? I don’t think so. So, go connect, collaborate, share customers and online spaces, talk about each other. Recommendations are such a great thing (and so easy). Feel free to connect with me, if you like, btw! Just send me an email.
A personal list of my favourite ways to market as a social media free artist:
Below, I created a list for you to see what you could do, if you would like to grow your social media free creative business. What helped me a lot was reading the newsletter of Alexandra Polunin (only German) and her book No Social Media. Anyway, here’s my list:
Website – make it beautiful and easy to find and browse
Newsletter – love to your community
Blog – write a blog!
Connections – spread the word about each other
Offline spaces – find spaces (local or not) where you can show what you do
Pinterest – it’s still less annoying and demanding as TikTok, Instagram or Facebook and a lot more ever-green-ish
Youtube – if you love making videos, give it a try.
Podcast – I’m not into talking, but if you are, what’s holding you back?
2025 will be interesting for me, when it comes to marketing. Two years ago I wasn’t sure about how and where I want to market my works, but now it’s becoming more and more clear and I’m happy with finding my own way.
Note: The title image is a stock image from canva.
