Getting started when it comes to Instagram and poetry, isn’t an easy thing. There’s a lot of nervousness and worry when it comes to posting work that comes from the heart. And sometimes it seems like a hill that you can’t climb because there’s already so many poets out there and who would want to read your work? Wrong. There is space for you in the Instagram poetry world and their are plenty of people that want to read your work!
Personally, I’ve just started on my journey when it comes to Instagram poetry in the form of my own Insta titled Poems by Lyra. It’s been a place for me to express my desires, work on my mental health, and test my creativity. And below, I’ve provided everything I know so far to help you on your journey to joining this fascinating and fun world!
Do – Follow other poets
To get to know your community better, follow other poets. Besides increasing your circle and the amount of people that will check out your profile because you followed them, it’s a great to learn what is trending or popular at the moment. It’s also a good way to find accounts that have prompts you can follow and fill out. And it’s a great way to read, learn, and appreciate the craft of poetry in the first place.
Don’t – Follow and then unfollow other poets
It kind of feels like this one goes without saying but you’d be surprised at the amount of people that do this on Instagram. They follow a poet. Then the poet checks out their work and follows back in return. In turn, the person who followed in the first place, unfollows because they already got what they wanted; a follow. It’s bad form to do this and people will notice when you’re just trying to get follows.
Do – Leave comments
Everyone wants to feel appreciated for the work that they put out there into the Instagram world. So, take time out of your day to leave comments under poems that you appreciate or have connected with. Sure, having a like or pressing that little heart seem like the easy thing to do. But if you leave comments on people’s work, they will repay the favor and you’ll start building a community of your own in the poetry world.
Don’t – Beg for others to check out your work
You don’t how many times I’ve seen people use the comments section to beg other people to check out their work. And it’s definitely bad form to do so when the comment section is there to build community by leaving comments and not begging for the poet, who put so much hard work into that piece, to check out your work. Seriously, some people don’t even leave a compliment, they just beg. And everyone ignores those comments, guaranteed.
Do – Use hashtags and handles
How are people going to find your work? Through hashtags and handles that you use! From “instapoet” to “poetryisntdead”, there are plenty of hashtags that you can use to get recognized on Instagram. So, do your research, find out what works best for your poetry in particular, and go from there. Plus, it’ll make it easier for other poets to find like minded people that they want to be a community with.
Don’t – Randomly tag other poets
This is something that has started happening in more frequency to myself. A person will post a poem and go about tagging everyone and their mother on the actual photo. It doesn’t matter if I’ve never spoken to them in my entire time on Instagram. They will tag me and a whole bunch of other Insta Poets as a means of getting eyes on their work. And it doesn’t work unless a handle you are tagging SPECIFICALLY asks for that to be done because they are a feature account.
So, listen to my do’s and don’ts and post your poetry on Instagram!
