#ArtFieldsAtHome Social Media Tips

Right now your online presence is more important than ever. In today’s digital landscape, a strong social media presence can be one of the best tools at an artist’s disposal for marketing themselves. So today, we looked to our friends at Blue Ion for some quick social media marketing tips geared towards artists!

Create specific social media accounts to promote your art. 

It’s best to set up profiles that are specifically geared towards your art vs a personal account when using for promotion. Additionally, on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, setting these up as business pages vs personal profiles will allow you to access insights on your engagement and follower demographics. Checking in on those analytics will help you to learn more about your audience and what kinds of content promote engagement—truly, a gold mine of information!

Make it easy for people to find and recognize your brand across different platforms.

Help people recognize that each profile belongs to you and help with your ability to show up online (SEO) by doing the following:

● Use the same logo/image for your profile picture

● Use a consistent tone of voice in your bios and descriptions

● Use the same handle across all platforms

Connect your social media accounts to your website.

If you have a website, make sure you point to your social media accounts from that website so that it’s easy for folks to find you on social. Additionally, you should do the inverse to ensure that you have a link to your website from your social media accounts.

Link your Etsy account to your social handles.

If you’re on Etsy, make sure you add your social handles to your profile. That’s one more place to advertise your accounts!

Differentiate your content across accounts.

This is a tip that we know isn’t super fun to follow because it’s much easier to just link up your accounts and hit post one time. That said, there are a few reasons this is important. For one, each platform is really different in terms of content style and the audience that is active in the space. You should “read the room,” so to speak, and put out content that aligns well with that platform. Additionally, if you’re looking to grow your audiences in these spaces, even your super fans might not want to follow across each platform if the content is exactly the same as what they’re already getting on a different platform. Spending a little extra time to tailor your content to each platform can really help boost your engagement and following in the long run. Taking advantage of scheduling apps can help alleviate some of the extra work this might add as well.

Consider showing your works in progress.

Most likely your website is going to show your works in their final form. Since it’s a good idea to offer up something a little different on each platform, you might like to consider teasing some in progress photos/videos of your work. For many artists, these kinds of posts actually drive higher engagement than final finish posts and can help you to create more assets to have at your disposal for use on social.

Pay more attention to engagement than following counts.

Social media platforms are designed to keep users online and engaging with the platform. To do that, they scan posts to see what is driving engagement and push those to the top of feeds. To get your posts in those coveted top spots, you want to encourage that engagement. There are a few ways to do this. The easiest way is to pose questions directly in your posts. Additionally, you can make an effort to engage with your top fans through their own posts / DMs so that they know you’re looking for a two-way dialogue on your handles! If you have artist friends, you can help each other out by taking a moment to comment on each other’s posts when they pop up.

Use Hashtags strategically.

Hashtags can do one of two things. When used well, they can help to expose you to new audiences. When used poorly, meaning lots of or irrelevant hashtags, they can make you come across as spammy so there’s a line to toe here. Take a look at the hashtags other artists you admire are using and consider adding some to your posts to reach new audiences. Never use ones that are not a fit with what you’re posting and avoid using too many.

Post consistently and stay on top of comments and DMs.

Think of your social media accounts like a houseplant you need to care for on a consistent basis. Posting is like watering your plant. You need to determine a sort of regiment for how often you plan to post and try to stick to that consistency so that your audience knows what to expect from you. When you’re not actively posting, you need to be checking in on your accounts—think checking the soil for moisture, seeing how the leaves are looking. These check-ins are important so that you can flag anything you need to attend to and respond to comments and DMs in a timely manner. Social media platforms actually keep track of how speedy you are on average in these responses and will demote your posts in the future if they deem you unresponsive. So, even if you’re posting killer content, if you’re not staying on top of your notifications less people are going to see it.

Keep an eye on what other artists are doing in the space.

Artists are naturally creative and a great group to learn from by observing. Additionally, social media landscapes change quickly so it’s important to stay on top of the latest changes. Taking a few minutes here and there to see what others are doing can help you stay clued into important new features and trends. You even might like to make a quick list of the accounts you admire so that you can quickly toggle in to check in on what they’re doing regularly without searching around.