How to Grow on Instagram as an Artist: Learn the Language

"On TikTok they dance, but I don't dance, so I won't post on TikTok." LP Lucas hears that from artists all the time, and his answer reframes the whole problem: the platform is just the frame. What goes inside the frame is yours to decide, but you do have to understand the dimensions of the frame you are putting it in. That idea, learning each platform's language instead of fighting it, runs through his Social Media for Artists course on Twotap, and it is the most practical way to think about growing an art account on Instagram.

Lucas is a Brazilian illustrator with around 800,000 followers across his platforms, and the advice below comes from three lessons of that course. None of it involves a trick setting or a posting schedule that burns you out.

Speak the platform's language, not a guru's

For short-form content, which is what grows Instagram accounts now, Lucas keeps the mechanics small and specific:

• Descriptions carry your searchability. Put the words people would search for in the first sentences of the description. On his own posts that means terms like "illustration" and "art style" up front, not buried under a paragraph.
• Three to five hashtags, not thirty. Piling on twenty hashtags does not summon reach; he says it can actually make a video harder to place. Use only tags that describe the post.
• Steal your hashtags from your community. Look at what artists in your corner of the medium actually use, or check Google Trends for what people are searching around your subject.
• Skip the title obsession. Thumbnails and titles decide clicks for long YouTube videos. On Instagram nobody sees them; they exist mainly to help the platform categorize you.

The carousel trick

The single most concrete Instagram tactic in the course is about carousels. When someone sees the first image of your carousel and does not swipe, Instagram will recommend the post to them again, starting from the second image. If they stop there, it can come back a third time with the next slide. A carousel is effectively multiple chances at the same viewer.

Lucas builds his illustration posts around this. The finished piece comes first, then close-up crops of the details, because people are judging your work on a phone screen and the details are where the labor shows, then the process: sketch, color, lighting. One illustration becomes eight or ten slides, each one a fresh entry point.

Cut the noisy communication

The growth blocker Lucas spends a whole lesson on has nothing to do with the algorithm. He calls it noisy communication. Early on he posted everything he loved: music, filmmaking, photography, comedy, art. Nobody knew what his account was for, and nothing grew. He describes it as a gap between him and his audience, and the fix as a bridge: choose one main subject so people know what to expect from you.

The part artists usually miss is what happens to the other passions. You do not amputate them. You fold them in. Lucas still uses his filmmaking training in how he shoots, scores his videos with classical music, and keeps the comedy; they became the flavor of his art content instead of competing subjects. His side interests stopped being noise the moment art became the one thing his account is about.

Repetition is the second half of the bridge. He runs recurring formats, "every artist ever," "artists can't relax," "changing your art to fix mistakes," and fills each one with new material, the way a cartoon reuses the same dynamic with a new story every episode. Someone finding you for the first time, and someone always is, should land on a post that already shows your essence.

Know what Instagram is actually for

In his platform-comparison lesson, Lucas is clear-eyed about Instagram's place in an artist's setup. Its strengths: it is where brands look, so it drives brand deals more than any other platform; it is the natural home for static images and animation; and it is the easiest place to share process and behind-the-scenes material without producing a whole video. Its weaknesses: monetization is close to nonexistent, and a post's lifespan is roughly two weeks, with none of the resurgence old YouTube videos get.

His practical conclusion is not to choose Instagram or anything else. Post the same content on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. His own career turned on a video that got 900 views on Instagram and 100,000 when he re-posted it, unchanged, on TikTok. One platform's silence tells you almost nothing about the work.

Be skeptical of formulas, including these

Lucas ends the language lesson with a warning aimed squarely at the growth-hack industry, and it is worth quoting as he said it:

"Even if you know the algorithm very well and you understood the language of each platform, nothing matters more than having something well crafted, something cool to show people."
LP Lucas, in the lesson LEARN the LANGUAGE from Social Media for Artists

There is no setting you can enable that makes an account grow, and anyone selling one is lying. Hashtags, descriptions, carousels and a clear identity lower the friction between your work and the people who would love it. The work still has to be worth arriving at.

Where this comes from

These three lessons are a fraction of Social Media for Artists by LP Lucas on twotap.art. The rest of the course covers choosing your platform with his full pros-and-cons chart, finding a posting frequency you can sustain, recording process videos, reading your analytics, and reaching out to brands with the actual email that landed his first partnership. If the frame metaphor clicked for you, he spends fourteen modules showing you how to fill it.