It’s not without hesitation that I express frustration over Instagram.

Because without it, we would not be where we are today; Independent artists that get to work with our passion. Without it we wouldn’t have met such incredible people and get to share our passion with YOU.

I am grateful for all of the opportunities it has brought to us and others in the creative field. Simultaneously I also feel an increasing urge to recognise the reality; That it takes more than it gives. Frankly, it has been slowly draining us for the past 2 years…

But before I go into further details on our case, I just want to extend the intro a little:

Social media revolutionised the way artists can share and spread their work independent from the traditional galleries.

When it arrived, you were suddenly able to communicate directly with a potential buyer without a middle man such as a gallery. However, as time progressed so has social media.

In some way, the algorithmic developments have almost turned what used to be a “neutral image sharing platform” into a middle man that controls who sees what and when.

This doesn’t only apply to political messages, but also to small creative arts businesses (virtually to everyone who uses the platform).

A classic example is the chronological feed. From being able to see all the posts from people you follow in chronological order, to only see what the algorithm think you want to see is a huge drawback.

Not only for the user, but also for the creator.

Because suddenly (though this change happened already some years ago), you get influenced with what to share in reference to the potential spread it will have.

With each update (and there are new ones constantly), it becomes increasingly difficult to just share what you’re truly passionate about. Because if it doesn’t fit into the box of what is instagram-able, it will not be seen. If it’s not seen it cannot be interacted with. And if it’s not interacted with, there is no art business.

Furthermore, the speed of the changes keep increasing to the point where it’s close to impossible to stay on top of the game of what “works” and what “doesn’t”. In other words, what works today may not work tomorrow and you won’t know why.

No more photos

To give a concrete example; The CEO of Instagram announced a couple of weeks ago that photos will not matter any more. This means that you have to post videos if you want to have the chance to get seen and spread. More specifically reels.

But what if you just want to share photos?

Too bad.

A picture will not have as much reach as a video these days (speaking from experience too). And it’s not just any video – it has to be edited in a way that catches the viewers attention. Matched with a trending music. Have a story line that builds retention rate.

So what do I do if I prefer photos over videos (or just find videos overwhelming)?

One idea is to compile 20 photos into a “photo video”, where you share each photo for approximately 0,4 seconds with a fitting music background.

Personally I have done a lot of process videos where you get to see small snippets of the process and that’s ok…

Or, is it?

With this algorithmic constraint, the creative joy seems to fly out the window.

You quickly run out of inspiration and ideas of what to share. And when you do share something it doesn’t have the reach it used to and it’s difficult to not take it personal (as a reflection of yourself or your art).

Additionally, as you wait for inspiration of what to share to hit you, you will easier fall into the “death-scroll”.

Essentially, the never ending scroll of imagery that seems better, smarter and more beautiful than anything you do.

Simply put; you enter the paralysis of comparison which can be killing.

It’s been almost 2 months since my last Instagram post

Each week that I don’t post I get more and more lost as to what I can post.

If you’ve been an Instagram follower for a while you may have noticed a significant decrease in sharing the past couple of years.

Charles and I used to share every day.

If not a post or video, it would be at a minimum an Instagram story. But since June 2020, we have hardly posted.

It has been hard. Mentally. For many reasons.

What 300 000+ Instagram followers has taught us

As a couple with over 300 000 followers split between the two of us, I hope you may find some of our insights interesting and/or useful.

1. To have more followers doesn’t make you more special.

It doesn’t mean that you are rich. It doesn’t mean that you are more successful.

The only thing that I can confirm that a lot of followers facilitate is the social proof. By being able to show that you have a lot of people that likes you work, it is easier to bring new people on board.

2. You need to be prepared for criticism

First, I think a general point is that you cannot expect to succeed at anything without criticism. Critics and haters will always be there and they seem to grow exponentially along with your success.

So from the get-go having your eyes set on growth for your brand and yourself, you need to be prepared fro criticism.

But this doesn’t take away the reality that some haters do take the best from you.

In our case, it didn’t take the best from us (we are still fiercely passionate about arts and to get to share that with you).

But it did take the glamour off social media.

To post became a chore more than a joy.

3. People get unrealistic expectations

To add to the mix, we also became first time parents in June of 2020. And if you have children, you may recognise the feeling of being protective… If anything, all you want and care about is the well-being of your darling.

Charles and I decided already early on in the pregnancy that we didn’t want to share our daughter on social media. Because we want her to have the choice as to whether she wants to be there or not.

To this day I am so thankful for that decision. But you may find it astonishing that we had people reach out being upset that we didn’t share our baby publicly.

I can understand that you may get disappointed, but I also feel that it’s such a private and personal matter that owes to be respected.

Not your clients

What’s interesting with negativity and haters is that they take up most time and energy but with no reward. Because they are not your clients at the end of the day.

Taking the active decision to reduce our Instagram presence a couple of years ago was scary. I thought we would lose our business. But we didn’t.

It was fascinating to see. All this time and energy that we put into this little app on a daily basis…. and NO sign of impact on our sales.

WHAT?!?!

Now our minds were boggled to say the least. I couldn’t believe it. After 4 years of nearly daily posting…

Reality is that our clients had looked for more. They were the ones who had clicked on our website and joined our mailing list (maybe you too?!)

Ps. If you haven’t joined yet fill out your info below and we’ll send you a pattern for free ❤️

What happened was the inverse of what we had expected…

Of course, social media brings you traffic that can potentially expose you to new clients.

So by reducing our social media presence we also reduced potential new traffic coming through the door. But it was a risk we were prepared to take.

What happened was that by freeing up the time and resources that we used to invest into the app and placed it onto our existing customers and email followers, we actually increased our revenue.

So for the second half of 2020 (naturally take into account that many people also had more time on their hands, but with it was also increasing financial insecurity), we increased our revenue despite being less active on social media.

So what’s the plan?

Eventually we’d like to quit Instagram altogether and all other “social social media apps”.

What does that mean?

Social media apps can generally be considered in two categories:

Social social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, Tiktok, Snapchat are those where you get exposed to content ONLY on an algorithmic basis.
Searchable social media platforms such as Youtube and Pinterest allows you to use the platform to solve your problems via search (naturally still algorithms involved, but in a different way).

A couple of months ago I sent out a survey to our audience, where a majority of people reported they’d found us on the web, mostly through Youtube and Pinterest search… INTERESTING!

At least I found that extremely interesting considering our big Instagram presence – the majority of our clients still doesn’t come from that platform.

Why do people put so much weight on Instagram?

Naturally, your conversion rate varies depending on for example type of business and how active and engaging you are with the audience. And of course… How up to date you are with what type of content to create when, and how.
But perhaps a cynical perspective is that the platform allows for attention and validation.
It’s dangerous when you begin to count your self-worth in relation to the amount of followers or social media engagement you have. Yet, we see it happening all the time.

Personally, I find it quite sad and is another reason why (especially since becoming a mum) I have felt a need to distance myself from the app.

Self-Preservation

From a personal stand-point I also see limited social media use as self-preservation. I simply don’t feel good to go on Instagram too much.

Almost every time I log onto the app I just feel stressed out and I end up wasting valuable time that I could have spent doing for example the 10 Minute Magic stitching or frankly ANYTHING ELSE that would actually have a positive impact in my life. Whether it be art creation or just cleaning (which needs to be done whether you’re on Instagram or not…)

Self-care?

Now I know that many consider mindless scrolling relaxing and a way of getting a pause in the chaos of everyday.

But does your brain really get a paus in reality?

Consider all the visual impressions that gets pushed in your face?

Even if you cater your feed to accounts that brings you inspiration, the app will still find ways to propose new content and accounts that it thinks interest you…. and which can potentially (HUGE POTENTIAL if you ask me..) drag you down a rabbit hole.

The algorithmic loop hole

I didn’t suffer too much from this before becoming a mum. But since becoming a mum it’s as if the algorithm decided I needed to see every pregnant and post-partum mother out there.

And for each image I felt more and more miserable.

Truth is, we had a difficult baby who still at 2 years old don’t sleep through the night. For the first year she would wake me up almost ones an hour… Yep, you figured that right. I was hardly a human at the end of that year, so to see the picture perfect baby stories were just DIFFICULT and I felt like I was failing as a mother (even if I know I wasn’t).

Furthermore, something that I’ve also discussed extensively with my dear husband, is the other side of the coin. With that I refer to the “real accounts” that displays the hardships. For some people that may feel comforting, but for me I don’t feel any better seeing other people struggle too.

I would just feel better if we all felt better haha but maybe that’s a naive thing to say (and that’s ok too).

What Does The Reduced Instagram Posting Mean For Charles And Elin?

Over the past 6 months we’ve been working on some big changes of our business + relocated our family across the continent.

If anything, the last couple of years have brought about a lot of reflection (including social media usage), and it made us revisit the structure of the business and how we can best serve you in the community.

If social media has made us loose time and energy, perhaps it has done so for you too? As a result, we wouldn’t want to encourage you to go somewhere to consume our things that does not align with our values.

We primarily focused on two things:

Where do we ACTUALLY put most of our time and does it serve the audience?
Where do we WANT to put our time and how can that transform our students lives?

The answer is always the same. We really want to spend our time creating valuable content about life’s pleasure: ART. And we want to share it with you so that you get to enjoy a creative and happy life too ❤️.

Our ultimate dream (and what we work towards) is that the Academy becomes a space where you look forward to log onto at the end of a long day (off social media).

We want to fill it up with inspiring and encouraging tutorials that not only teaches you practical skills related to embroidery, arts and creativity at large, but also give you that boost that makes you feel awesome.

Arts has incredible healing powers. It invites for relaxation, reflection while simultaneously bringing new energy, inspiration and ideas.

It’s true – creativity fuels creativity, which is why it’s so important to incorporate it as a regular part of your daily life.

To place social social media at the bottom of our priority list, means that we have more time to focus on what matters:

You who really care.

And you who care search for the information you are interested in and you most likely join our email list.

I ADORE to write and I love to be able to communicate to you over email and blogging as it feels much more intimate than for example an Instagram post.

Hopefully with re-organisation of my priorities I’ll also be able to create more frequent blog articles that invite for even deeper reflection and conversation that can simply not fit into an email.

Last but not least, the shift of the Academy to focus on the Membership also frees up time and energy. Because now we can focus on developing and improving one thing instead of a million things.

Everything we create from small workshops, livestreams to bigger Masterclasses will all be added to the Membership to turn it into a growing resource.

In short,

the Academy will be your guide on your embroidery art journey from Newbie to Artist.

And to realise that we still have tons of practical art lessons to create PLUS develop a new section of how to take the next step… We hope you want to come and join us for the ride (I think you’ll love it).

What could be the next step?

It’s been 6 years since we started Charles and Elin and I dare to say that we have learnt a thing or two that could be hugely useful for you who may have a dream to explore your artistry further.

This would not only involve developing a road-map for how to go from newbie to confident creator. But it would also include lessons on how you could potentially earn money from your art too.

To give a couple of examples, it would include things like copywriting (email, blogging, social media posts, video scripts, outreach for exhibitions) and even tutorials on how you could host your own workshops too.

I have ventured down this road a couple of times before but haven’t made the jump, so I’d love to hear your feedback and thoughts in the comments below!

Here are some more questions that I’d love for you to reflect on and maybe give me your thoughts in the comments:

What is your relationship to Instagram and what do you think/feel about it?
What would you like to see more of from us?
What would your dream online art school include?

The Dream

I dream of Charles and Elin Academy to turn into your dream online art school. The art school that you wish you went to when you were younger but you didn’t have the chance to do it for whatever reason.

You can see the Academy like a gym membership but for creative nerds instead of fitness nerds haha. It’s simply A NECESSITY to feel great!

If you haven’t joined us yet, have a look at how the Charles and Elin Academy can benefit you.

See behind the scenes

I am also working on the development of a Behind the scenes series, where I intend to film regular updates of the most recent updates on the platform.

The aim is to be as transparent about the process as possible, so that you become a more involved part in the growth of the Academy.

The videos in the Behind the Scenes course is available for free preview, so anyone can check them out and see if the developments fits your needs/desires. It’s also a good way for members to follow the growth in real time and to easier give feedback and wishes for added material.

YOU are important

To join the Charles and Elin Academy is not like joining any course platform. To join our Academy means that you join the family.

You become a part of the development and can influence how it’s being built out so that it satisfies and serves all your needs.

We know who you are and YOU matter. It’s thanks to you that we are able to continue to share our passion and expertise and allow more people to find their way back to a creative life.

Quit Instagram?