Yap vs. Hook Reels - There might be another way

1. Updates: What’s going on with my different ventures…

   1. I️ just dropped new prints and you can bundle and save!! Bundle any mix of prints and save: Buy 3+ save 20% / 5+ save 30% / 10+ save 40% / 15+ save 50%

   2. My Artist Intensive one day event in Alabama is filling up! Snag your spot here.

2. Reading - Look what landed in my inbox on Tuesday while I️ was finishing this draft

3. Wearing and Wanting (Beach Day edition)

   1. the hat you need

   2. the best sunscreen

   3. a good book

   4. The perfect tote

4. For Your Home

   1. the cutest martini napkin set (under $10!)

   2. I️ love unique wrapping paper and this is on sale and can be used for anything!

   3. cute plate set for your next get together (under $30)

   4. don’t underestimate the impact of a small change like a colorful bath mat!

This Substack contains affiliate links, meaning I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you if you make a purchase—thank you for your support!

Dear Creatives,

Out of the five most-viewed posts on my art account this month, four were carousels.

Ironically one of those posts was the most low-effort thing I’ve made in months. After my Atlanta show two weeks ago, I had a camera roll full of pictures that were not necessarily Instagram-grid-worthy on their own. A shot of our dinner the night before, A photo outside from when the power went out (yes, the power went out the night before our show, which is its own essay one day), cookies for dessert, you get the idea. Nothing “cover photo worthy for an art account” but together told an interesting story.

I sat down on a Wednesday night, opened Instagram, made a ten-slide carousel out of those photos with one to two sentences of caption on each, scheduled it, and went to bed. By Friday it had four thousand views. My last four reels combined did not have four thousand views (another issue for another day).

(Also - carousels are going viral again and again on my TACC account, but those are educational, so we can discuss another time, but more proof that carousels work!)

The reason that post worked is not the photos, but the format. Specifically, the one mechanic Instagram has built into carousels that no other format has, and which almost no artist I follow is currently optimizing for. I’m walking through that mechanic and the rule that comes out of it below.

The mechanic that makes carousels different

When you post a carousel and a viewer sees the first slide in her feed and does not engage (no like, no save, no comment, no share), the algorithm does not retire the post. It serves her the second slide the next time she opens the app. Your one piece of content gets two shots at her attention. If slide one was a swing and a miss, slide two gets a brand new at-bat with the same person. (I️ think most of you know that)

But, what I️ don’t see enough people doing is using this knowledge to their advantage. Let me introduce:

The two-hook rule

Slide one is a hook. Slide two is also a hook. They are not the same hook. They are not redundant. They are two independent attempts to stop a scroll, because the algorithm is going to use them as two independent attempts to stop a scroll.

The test: if somebody saw only your slide one, would she stop. If somebody saw only your slide two, would she stop. Both have to be yes. If only one is yes, you have lost half the post’s potential audience. Below are three examples:

In the first example above, I️ have a cover page/hook on each slide

Slide one: “How to style are in your home”

Slide two: “As an artist and gallery owner, I️ have seen a lot of walls…here is what actually makes a home feel collected”

Both are hooks that lead to the same information later. Together, they give the algorithm two clean shots at every potential viewer. Slide three is where the actual story starts.

If I had written slide two as “here is the first tip… ,” I would have lost the second-chance hook. Instead people would see a random tip without context.

Most artists, including me until very recently, treat slide two as the first information slide. Slide two has to be a fresh hook in its own right.

Below I’m walking you through the three carousel formats that work for artists with real examples from my account (the educational, the story, and the showcase), the in-app editing tricks that make Instagram favor your post, and the real view counts from my last seven posts so you can see the format-vs-format math for yourself.

If you have been pouring hours into reels that are pulling four hundred views and wondering what you’re doing wrong, this is the fix.