Social Media Tips for Visual Artists

Your website is an archive

Think of your website as a file cabinet which houses a career retrospective of you as an artist. In the context of your website,  your artwork is presented in a polished, formal context that shows the scope of your studio practice. Content on your website should be heavily curated, and provide an overall look at your artwork. Less is always more on a website, so aim for quality content over quantity. 

A website isn’t a place for interaction or the day-to-day. Once your website is set up, updates can be done once every few months, usually when you have a major professional development you want to add to your CV, or when you complete a body of work. 

Social media is where the party is

Social media is where people go to see what you did last week, and to find out about what’s coming up. It’s where you’ll see visible daily traffic, and have the chance to interact with your audience through conversations in the comments. This interaction is hugely important in terms of building up a relationship with your audience, and growing your followers. 

In general, there is a casual atmosphere to your social media accounts that is not present in an artist website.  Your artist website should be curated, neatly presented and well organized.  Social media has a completely  different structure that allows for more flexibility in terms of content and interaction with your audience.

Customize your social media to your studio practice

The way you use social media, your choice of platform(s) your content, etc. all has to be customized to your studio practice. An installation artist will have a different social media strategy than a photographer.

A sculptor might have a solo exhibition only once every 3 years, so they may want to emphasize their works in progress in the studio whereas a painter could for example have a “painting a day” exercise that allows them to post quick studies on a daily basis. 

Social media is always changing

One of the challenges of social media is to stay on top of what is current. For example, Twitter used to only allow 140 characters per tweet, and recently changed to 240 characters per tweet.

A decade ago, a Facebook page would have been a good idea for visual artists. Today, Facebook is no longer the most effective platform for the vast majority of visual artists. Right now, Instagram is by far the biggest bang for your buck if you are a visual artist. Perhaps in 10 years Instagram will get replaced by another platform.

On top of that, social media platforms are always changing and adding new features. Snapchat was the first platform to introduce “Stories,” which are images and video that disappear after 24 hours. Soon afterwards, both Facebook and Instagram implemented the exact same feature.

Social media takes time (years)

There is a common misconception that just because something is on a phone or computer, it must be really fast.  Nothing could be further from the truth. Setting up and maintaining a social media following requires serious hours and focus, you’ll be amazed how many hours and thought you’ll need to pour into this to get results. 

Being an artist is a completely different skill than social media, having good artwork has nothing to do with how effective your social media skills are!

Don’t expect to set up an Instagram account and to have 3,000 followers by the end of the week. Why aren’t you getting any followers?  Chances are, you’re not interacting enough on social media, and therefore your account is not visible enough to others.  (scroll to the bottom for info on the importance of interaction) 

Building a following takes time and an ongoing effort on a long term basis.

Social media is a potted plant, don’t water little or too often

Aim for posting to social media a minimum of once a week. If you post too infrequently, people will forget about you.  If you post too often, say, 3 posts a day on Instagram, people are quickly annoyed and will unfollow you.

Artist Website & Instagram Video Critiques

Prof Lieu can create a video critique of your artist website or Instagram and show how to increase your online visibility, create smooth navigation, structure your content in an organized way, provide practical tips for format options and techniques for writing text, communicate with your target audience, and more.

10 business days
30 min: $150 USD
45 min: $200 USD

2 business days
30 min: $200 USD
45 min: $250 USD

Who is your audience?

Figure out who you are trying to reach with social media. Curators, art educators, art dealers, gallery directors, buyers, journalists, artist colleagues, art educators? Your social media strategy will vary tremendously depending on who you want to reach, 

Tip: curators generally do not have public social media profiles and they never attend local open studios events.  In fact, they are trying to stay as far away from the general population of artists.  They are hiding in a solid steel bunker in a far away foreign country, hoping that you never discover their secret location.

Consider the age demographic of your audience, and their profession

In general, certain age demographics and professions tend to use specific platforms.  People ages 40 and up tend to use Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. People ages 30 and below use Instagram and Snapchat. People ages 30-40 is a mix. 

For example, if you are a high school art educator, your audience might be teenagers, in which case Facebook is not as relevant. If you are an elementary school art teacher, and you want to share your lesson plans, Pinterest could be a good platform to use. The most effective way to get in touch with a journalist if you can’t find their email (which is likely) is to interact with them on Twitter.

Choose your platform based on the type of content you produce.

There are specific platforms where people expect certain types of content.  Although technically speaking, you can post images on Twitter, people generally do not go to Twitter to look at images; they go to Twitter to ready witty comments, and find links to articles they want to read. Format wise, Twitter is not ideal for images because when an image pops up in your Twitter feed, it’s cropped.  For someone to view the entire image, you have to tap on the image; another step that people often times don’t want to bother with.

People expect to see images on Instagram, they don’t look at Instagram to read. While you do have the ability to post a text caption with your image on Instagram, people tend to prioritize looking at the images, and the text captions are seen more as an accessory.

Your content format determines which platform is best.

Pick your platform based on the type of artwork you make. If you work in video, you’ll want to let people preview your videos on Instagram in order to pull them to your website and to your YouTube channel. (Instagram limits videos to 1 minute)  If you don’t work in video, don’t even bother with YouTube.

Don’t bother with a blog unless 1) you are an excellent writer 2) you have a specialized topic that you can write endlessly about that you are an expert in and 3) can write thoughtful, high quality posts at least once a week on a long term basis.  For most artists, a blog is not necessary.

Content: short and sweet

Most people view social media on a phone, and boy do they scroll fast. Distill your content to the essentials. Writing long winded posts risks people not reading the post at all.  There’s a reason why TLDR exists! (“Too Long Didn’t Read.”)

Look at the difference between version #1 and version #2:

#1
Hey guys! I’m so totally excited, I have this new body of work that I’ve been working on really hard for the past year, and this new gallery in town, Gallery Smith will be doing a solo show for me!  The opening reception is going to be really fun, snacks, drinks, even a band will be there.  Would love to see all of you there, the reception is next Tuesday from 6-9pm, would be so great to see all of you!  Hope to see you there!!!

#2
Solo Show, Gallery Smith!  Opening Tues., Oct 8, 6-9pm!

Purge your feed by archiving select posts

Now and then, it’s a good idea to archive posts that have visibly low engagement. For example, if your posts average about 200 likes, and you have one post that has only 25 likes, you can archive the post with very few likes. For a person scrolling through your feed, seeing a post with only 25 likes can make your presence appear to be much less than it actually is.

Archiving posts is much better and safer than deleting posts.  If you ever change your mind and later and decide you want to bring posts  back, you have that option if you archive as opposed to delete.

Artists live and die by their photographs

You’ll need accurate, professional photos of your artwork. Poor photos will misrepresent your artwork and can be the difference between whether someone chooses to follow you or not. The vast majority of the time, people will see your artwork on a screen well before they see your art in person. (if they ever even get the chance to!)  The way your artwork is represented on a screen may well be the only format people ever get to experience your artwork in.

Now that you can edit your photo on a phone, fixing the cropping, brightness, color, etc. is really easy and fast.  There are tons of apps that allow you to do more complex editing, and Instagram offers many filters and options for adjusting your photos. Take the time to adjust your photos and make them clean and well composed, it’s something you can do that isn’t very time consuming but goes a really long way.

Have excellent lighting, especially on 3D artwork

2D artwork needs to have bright, even lighting whereas 3D artwork should have soft, diffused shadows and minimal shadows. For 3D artwork, always select the background color based on the color of your piece. A grey artwork should not have a grey background. Here are tips for how to photograph 2D & 3D artwork.

Add a scale reference to show the scale of your artwork

Adding a hand or another reference for scale can be a great way to accurately represent the size of your artwork. Especially if you are interested in selling your artwork, showing the scale is really important for your audience to see clearly.

This is especially important for three-dimensional artwork which can be easily misrepresented in an image, as well as artwork that is on a larger scale and site specific, such as an installation piece or a mural.

Show your works in progress

People love seeing artworks develop over time, show a piece as it progresses over time at different stages.  Your audience will feel invested in your creative process, and seeing the final artwork will have more depth for your audience.

Show the drips, fingerprints, and mess in your studio, it creates an intimate look into your artistic process which can be fascinating to your audience. Tell people what kind of pen you use, what kind of paper you enjoy and why.  These details make a big difference and feel less generic.

Photograph yourself in the studio

Today, people want to know who the artist is. Not showing your face makes you seem anonymous and keeps your audience from connecting to you as a person.

Show your artist hands

A great way to introduce a human element to your photos is to take close up photos of your hands, handling your materials and tools. Most people know very little about the artistic process, especially techniques and materials that are specific. If you’re a photographer, show people the lenses you use and why they are useful. This is another way to diversify your feed.

Photos of yourself in professional contexts

Show yourself outside of the studio: at an exhibition, giving a lecture, teaching a workshop, and more. Naturally, not everyone lectures, but if you do, make sure to get someone to document it. This allows you to look more legitimate and is different than a casual selfie that you take of yourself in the studio.

Photograph images of your exhibitions without people in the gallery space

As artists we always joke how the opening reception is the worst time to see the artwork, this is true for photos as well.  Get some clean shots of your exhibitions that really show off the artwork installed.

Photograph your exhibitions with people inside the gallery to show scale

Photos of the opening reception, with people present are just as important as they are another measure of scale. Especially for paintings and other two-dimensional artwork, it’s nearly impossible to understand scale without placing the artwork in an image that has a context. 

Avoid photos where a person’s face is very large and obvious, either crop out people’s faces or try to shoot photos that have people’s backs.  You don’t want to post a photo of someone’s face without their permission.

Create an image queue

Consider creating a queue of images so you can have your images you’d like to post on social media lined up and ready to go. This approach cuts back on needing to think about and find an image for your weekly (or more) post. You can queue up say 8 images for the month so that you can control in advance the order the images are posted, and ensure a lively and diverse feed.

Videos are not a requirement

While videos can be highly engaging and effective, they can also be really boring and unnecessary. Don’t post a video just to post a video. People frequently post videos that would actually be much better as a still image. Unless there is a really compelling reason to post a video, stick to a still image.

Social media is a 2 way street:  you have to interact with other people

Posting is just the beginning, interact with your audience, follow other accounts and comment on their feeds.  You get what you put into it!  

Be strategic about who you choose to follow.  You may want to follow a gallery because you are interested in showing there and want to know more about what types of artists they show. Or perhaps you want to see what is trending in NYC art galleries so you follow Roberta Smith, Co-Chief Art Critic at the New York Times. You can follow other artists simply to get inspiration from their posts.

Tagging etiquette

Always get permission in advance if you want to show an image of an artist and/or their artwork on your social media sites. If you want to mention an artist in a social media post, or if their artwork is in a photo on your social media account, make sure you tag them if they are on social media. If the artist is not on social media, at the very least add their name to your text caption. Same thing with organizations. For example, if you have an exhibition at the Cambridge Art Association, not only should you tag them, but you should tag their location as well.

The proportion between who you follow and who follows you matters

People do get quite judgmental about numbers, many people do notice the ratio between the number of followers a person has vs. the number of people they are following. When you see an account for someone who has 200 followers but who follows 459 people, you will look at that person differently than a person who has 3,860 follows but who follows 50 people.

Those artists who have 598k followers, who you have never heard of before, who have terrible artwork?  Chances are they used a bot like Instagress to buy followers. So don’t believe everything you see on an Instagram account.

People notice comments much more than likes and follows

Commenting is more time consuming, but it’s by far the most impactful form of interaction.  While some people can be obsessive about tracking who likes their posts, it’s an intelligent comment that will really call attention to you. Most people do not track who likes their posts, whereas a comment stands out and gets noticed. 

Always reply to comments

If someone comments on your account, always reply, even if it’s a one word reply or something very simple. People want to be acknowledged when they take the time to comment on your account. 

Hashtags

Use hashtags that are specific, but not too specific. Very broad hashtags like #art are pretty much useless, whereas hashtags that are super specific like #liverofsulphurpatination are not helpful either. Strike a balance and aim for hashtags like #charcoaldrawing, #lifedrawing which are broad, but also have some specificity.

You don’t need to add 50 hashtags to every text caption on Instagram. Having that many hashtags quickly can turn into an ugly, distracting block of text that can take away from your post.

Maintain a diverse feed.

Switch up your photos so you aren’t posting the exact same type of photo every day. Post a work in progress photo, followed by a photo of you working in the studio, followed by a finished artwork, followed by an exhibition image. Posting several photos in a row that are very similar get repetitive and cause your followers to think that they’ve already seen your image before. People will be quick to unfollow you if they see that every photo is almost the same as the last. One option if you want to post many photos are once is to embed several images into a single post, for example, Instagram allows you to post up to 10 photos in a single post. 

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