You have five thousand followers on Instagram. You post three times a week. Your stories reach a lot of people. And when someone asks for your website, you say: “I have Instagram.”
That is a problem. Not because Instagram is bad, but because you are confusing a distribution channel with a property.
Instagram is not yours
When you post on Instagram, the content becomes part of a platform that belongs to Meta. You do not control:
- What percentage of your followers sees each post
- Whether the account can be suspended by mistake or because of an algorithm change
- Whether the platform decides to reduce organic reach (it has done so multiple times)
- Whether tomorrow they change the terms of service and your content ends up with different restrictions
In 2022, a Meta technical error left millions of business accounts inaccessible for hours. In 2021, the Facebook and Instagram outage lasted six hours. In 2019, Instagram changed its algorithm and many artists lost between 30 and 60% of their organic reach overnight.
None of these problems has ever affected a website you own.
The search problem
When a booker, a casting director, or a journalist wants to hire you or interview you, the first thing they do is search your name on Google.
What do they find?
If your only digital presence is Instagram, Google may show your profile — or it may not. It depends on whether your name is unique, on your account’s privacy settings, on whether you have a professional profile activated. And in any case, what they find is your feed: posts designed for your followers, not for the professionals who want to hire you.
Your own website is different. It appears in Google indexed under your name, it shows exactly what you want to show, and it has a URL you can share in any professional context without the person having to open any app or have an account on any network.
What you cannot do on Instagram
Instagram is excellent for many things. But there are things it cannot do.
It cannot host a press kit. A journalist who wants to interview you needs a biography in two formats, high-resolution photographs with usage rights, streaming videos, and a direct contact. All of it at a URL they can share. Instagram is not that.
It cannot have a structured professional history. The Instagram feed is chronological and ephemeral. What you did three years ago is almost impossible to find. A website can have a career page that is ordered, clear, and permanent.
It cannot be independent of the person’s device. Many professionals over 45 do not open Instagram to look for artists. They search on Google, open a browser, visit websites. If you have no website, you do not exist for them.
It cannot have a professional contact form. “Message me on DM” is not equivalent to a direct email with a subject line, body, and conversation thread. Professional contact requires professional channels.
Instagram as a channel, not a home
The correct relationship between Instagram and your website is this: Instagram brings people to your website, not the other way around.
Instagram is excellent for generating discovery: new people who find you through a hashtag, a recommendation, a Reel. But once they discover you, where do they go? If you have no website, they stay on Instagram. They look at your feed, maybe they follow you, maybe not. And if they want to hire you, they look for your email and cannot find it — because Instagram does not allow clickable email addresses in posts.
If you have a website, the logic changes: Instagram generates discovery → your Instagram bio has the link to the website → the website has your press kit, your history, your dates, and your contact. The professional who wants to reach you can do so in two clicks.
The single-platform risk
Imagine that one day Instagram blocks your account because of an automated moderation error. It happens. It happens far more often than it seems. The recovery process can take days or weeks, and during all that time you do not exist digitally.
If you have your own website, you still exist. You have your URL, your content, your contact information. The Instagram incident is an inconvenience, not a professional catastrophe.
When is the right moment to have a website?
The question is not “when will I be important enough to have a website?” The question is: are you already getting paid for your artistic work?
If the answer is yes, you need a website now. Not when you have time, not when you finish the next project. Now.
A professional website does not need to be complex. It needs three things: who you are, where people can see you, and how to contact you. That is enough to exist professionally in the digital world.
If you want us to build your website or evaluate what you already have, tell us about your project.