I couldn’t have predicted this…
In the last few months, I’ve completely restructured how I write online.
In February (the shortest month of the year) I wrote 16 articles — a normal output for me at the time. In March, I was traveling the US and UK competing in Jiu-Jitsu, so I “only” wrote 10 articles.
In April, I only wrote 4 articles on this website, and I used all of them for my personal newsletter as well. In May, I only wrote 4 articles again.
In June, I only wrote 2 articles.
On paper, this seems like a prolific content creator’s nightmare. However, I’ve still been writing the same amount every day, and I’m making more money than I was before.
The reason? I’ve been writing on Instagram every single day since April. It’s been working really well for me. It’s my new secret writing sauce, and maybe it can be yours too if you know the right play.
Here’s how I decided to write on Instagram, how I’ve grown there, and how I plan to use Instagram going forward to grow my digital writing reach.
What performs best on Instagram?
Booty pictures? Unfortunately. Travel clips? Duh. “Food porn”? Naturally.
However, despite what people might think, there is a lot of room for growth on Instagram as a writer. The only caveat is that as writers, we have to learn how to create content that fits the Instagram platform.
For a handful of writers, such as the popular poet Rupi Kaur, Instagram is a place to promote work, write short blurbs, announce tour dates, and even sell books. Rupi has hit the next level of fame, but there are a lot of other writers following the same suit — like this page, called “Writers”, which has over 1 million followers.
I’ve managed to build a small following in just a few months through writing Instagram articles using a writing tool called “Typeshare”. I also post my Typershare posts on Twitter as well.
My page looks like this:
