EFFECTIVE SOCIAL MEDIA
by Michael Yochum
Managing Partner, Arc Gallery & Principal of Arc Fine Arts Consulting
1. Establish a mobile-friendly website (easy to see on a phone) with artwork organized in a comprehensible way such as by media, current vs past, or if you are a multiple media artist, works curated as online exhibitions.
2. Edit your artwork on the website. Include only your best work.
3. Set up Facebook accounts (both business & personal); Instagram and Linked In. Twitter is a waste of time. Invite your email lists to all your social media accounts.
4. Build contacts in a targeted way. Follow galleries you would like to be in. "Friend" art professionals, artists represented by those galleries, artists that you admire and people who attend art events. Friend one or two people everyday. Follow a lot of people on Instagram. Use hashtags to search for who to follow/friend.
5. Be interesting. Post art world things in a good citizen way. Talk about shows you've seen, artists you admire, studios you've visited.
6. Post your own stuff less than 20% of the time.
7. Post something on Instagram everyday & share it to Facebook. Use hashtags.
8. Go to gallery openings and schmooze. Take photos. Post. Use hashtags.
9. Load Dropbox on your phone. Organize photographs of your work in a way that mirrors your website, but possibly with even more work. When you run into someone who is interested, it is much faster & higher-res in Dropbox & much easier to share files.
10. Have work professionally photographed.
11. Create online catalogs. I use In-Design to create mine, but any program works when saved as a PDF. If you have an iPhone, open the PDF on the phone and save in iBooks - easy to open for show & tell. Post on ISSUU. It's free.
12. Spend half your time marketing your art. That's right 50% making art, 50% marketing.
13. Participate in any Open Studios that you can.
14. Make yourself easy to contact. Do not worry about people spamming you. Set up an art only gmail account and use that for your artist email. If you have a studio, let people know where it is. My phone number is on the web. Hiding is counter-productive.
15. It's social media. It's "out there". If you don't want something "out there", don't post it. Social media is not private.
2. Edit your artwork on the website. Include only your best work.
3. Set up Facebook accounts (both business & personal); Instagram and Linked In. Twitter is a waste of time. Invite your email lists to all your social media accounts.
4. Build contacts in a targeted way. Follow galleries you would like to be in. "Friend" art professionals, artists represented by those galleries, artists that you admire and people who attend art events. Friend one or two people everyday. Follow a lot of people on Instagram. Use hashtags to search for who to follow/friend.
5. Be interesting. Post art world things in a good citizen way. Talk about shows you've seen, artists you admire, studios you've visited.
6. Post your own stuff less than 20% of the time.
7. Post something on Instagram everyday & share it to Facebook. Use hashtags.
8. Go to gallery openings and schmooze. Take photos. Post. Use hashtags.
9. Load Dropbox on your phone. Organize photographs of your work in a way that mirrors your website, but possibly with even more work. When you run into someone who is interested, it is much faster & higher-res in Dropbox & much easier to share files.
10. Have work professionally photographed.
11. Create online catalogs. I use In-Design to create mine, but any program works when saved as a PDF. If you have an iPhone, open the PDF on the phone and save in iBooks - easy to open for show & tell. Post on ISSUU. It's free.
12. Spend half your time marketing your art. That's right 50% making art, 50% marketing.
13. Participate in any Open Studios that you can.
14. Make yourself easy to contact. Do not worry about people spamming you. Set up an art only gmail account and use that for your artist email. If you have a studio, let people know where it is. My phone number is on the web. Hiding is counter-productive.
15. It's social media. It's "out there". If you don't want something "out there", don't post it. Social media is not private.
