Self-Promoting on Instagram and Threads
We already wrote about our first months attempting to self-promote on Twitter and how, more than 2 years later, we still haven't been able to find the path to success. Well, let's just say that our experience with Twitter has been a lot more rewarding than our time on Instagram and now Threads.
INSTAGRAM ROUND 1
When we joined IG, we thought it would be a perfect fit; after all, we're promoting a digital comic. However, we immediately realized that there were several issues apart from our usual incompetence. First, the shape of IG posts is fixed. Twitter may not always show the full image, but it lets you post it and then people can click to expand it. IG, on the other hand, forces you to crop everything to fit a square. Then, there was also the impossibility of adding text to the images directly on the app. We used the Stories to do it at first, which must have been very confusing for whoever checked them. Later, we started doing it directly on Clip Studio Paint, but it just wasn't the same thing as tweeting a panel with an accompanying text. There isn't enough room in that square for an image and the equivalent of a Twitter post. So, a lot of it must go into the caption. Except, most of the times not everything is visible unless people click to expand. And sure, we could make a multi-image post, but it’s not the same thing, because then we're dependent on people swiping to see the rest of the images. We did try, though, because there was nothing we could do. We were shocked to find out that the links in the captions weren't clickable, which is very much not a good thing when you're trying to tell people where they can download your book. Besides this, you can't complement your own posts with re-posts like you can do on Twitter. You can re-post other people's posts, but the process is ridiculously complicated (and how ironic how mindful IG was of forcing the re-poster to ask for permission of the original poster when they're now feeding users' content to teach their AI). It was just too much trouble and while IG generated more immediate feedback – the first Likes we got were there – it never translated to the steady growth we experienced on Twitter. On top of all this, the platform just felt weirdly compartmentalized, and we could never break the walls separating our ignored account from the rest. By the time we called it quits, we had 1 follower that had never liked any of our stuff.
We fully acknowledge that we were just terrible at it this first time, and really can't complain about lack of followers or engagement. The second time, however, was quite different.
INSTAGRAM ROUND 2
While we still believe the news of Twitter's demise have been greatly exaggerated, we decided we needed an alternative. Yes, our first experience on IG had been a complete failure, but it was a known quantity, and our experiences in other platforms weren't any better. This time, however, we had over an year of experience on Twitter and Blogger. We also had Canva, which made things a lot easier (and symmetric). It allowed us to do more professional-looking promos and freed us from the uncertainty of whether a particular image would fit the square. As much as we like Canva graphics, we never felt comfortable using them to promote our own books. We did have fun making some weird posts, though.
Once more, Horror was the key, and by the time we stopped posting on IG again, we had around 115 followers. While we could never shake that feeling of compartmentalization, we managed to find more interesting people to follow, both writers and artists. At first, we just focused on books/short stories, posting a quote with a nice background to make it stand out and the review in the caption. To make things more efficient, we used the same reviews on both platforms, though we always made sure to use different quotes. It did feel awkward doing our quote/review thing while everyone else was posting their own writing, though. Later, we started diversifying, and created several designs for specific types of posts - WIP update, film review, and so on.
We did our best, but that was clearly not enough. From the start, the posts about our books had the least views, sometimes close to zero and no likes. Since the only reason we were there in the first place was to promote our work, that was a big problem. Later, for some reason, the views and likes for the other, non self-promo posts started dwindling. IG stats are more detailed than Twitter's, so we could see that, at one point, the only views we got were from non followers. How is that even possible? Our Reels fared even worse, though we tried really hard. To be fair, videos never worked for us on Twitter either. The Baby Jesus Christmas video failure was particularly frustrating as we spent a lot of time making it and were sure we had a hit.
Honestly, we have no idea what happened, as we kept trying and looking for ways to improve. Even working with Canva, which had started as fun, turned into a desperate struggle to try to come up with a new design, more appealing than the previous ones. Really, just how many combinations of fonts, backgrounds, panel selection + placement, and blurbs can there possibly be? Juggling social media, blogging, and our WIP was becoming increasingly harder, and in the end, IG was just too much trouble and limiting when compared to text-oriented platforms. By the time we decided to stop posting and focus on Threads, instead, we were still on Twitter and had already joined Bluesky. We've since deleted most of the posts about An Introduction to the Fine Art of Monster Slaying because of the Meta AI crap, but all the others are still there. Sadly, we ended up deleting most of the videos, including Baby Jesus, but you can see it below. It was originally posted on our Stories, and though we're not quite sure how it's going to look here, it looked fine there.
THREADS
Feeling that IG was very much not an alternative to Twitter, we started looking to other platforms, and this time wasn't going to be just an experiment. Threads would've been the logical choice, as Bluesky was still invite-only at the time. However, we felt it looked a little too interactive, so we applied for an invite code instead. We finally ended up joining Threads less because we saw it as part of a self-promotion strategy, but more because since we had already joined so many platforms that we might as well try this one, too.
At first glance, Threads was pretty good and certainly easier to manage than IG, as the posts have the same structure as tweets. All we had to do was copy/paste what we were doing on Twitter. The greater character limit meant we could add a little more details to our reviews, but the single hashtag reduced the posts' reach. Every time we open the app, it tells us to follow more accounts, and it's probably right, but, although they're very different platforms, it has the same compartmentalized feel as IG, and there's something... unfinished about it. Bluesky lacks a lot of functionalities, but doesn't look like it; Threads just looks like it's missing something. What that might be, we don't know. What we do know is that the engagement is almost 0 and we really wished we hadn't finally found out how to check post views. It's getting somewhat better on that front now, but it still feels like we're yelling into the void. We're not saying we want people to start talking to us, but a like or a re-post once in while would be nice. As usual, our self-promo posts aren't exactly popular even when we were posting panels from our books, and now that there won't be any more pretty pictures it'll probably get worse. Not that the others are doing much better, even the horror quotes, which is pretty shocking. Also, it seems posting links is the kiss of death for a post, which is very much a problem for indie authors trying to promote their books. On top of that, despite its name, it looks like Threads users aren't that keen on checking the other posts in a thread. We haven't had a tweet with 0 views in a very long time, but most of the time on Threads, the only post that as any views is the first one.
We've never had any problem with content guidelines in any of the platforms so far, but we were surprised to find out that the first post about crappy Netflix French series Anthracite was flagged because it didn't conform with Meta's guidelines on depictions of nudity and sex.
Since there's nothing on the post text, we're guessing it has to do with the trailer for the series that we added. We don't even remember what it was like, but we don't think it was bad enough to warrant a warning. By the way, we posted the same trailer on Twitter and Bluesky and neither platform cared.
Right now, we're more on Threads because we're still worried about Twitter and we're not that sure about Bluesky, but for us it's not working. There's plenty of writers there who seem to be doing fine, so maybe we and Meta are just not compatible?
