eBusiness Weekly
Arts Correspondent
Social media has become the most powerful tool when promoting businesses online. Business practitioners have generated social media pages so as to promote their business online in a manner which reaches global demographics. Artists and Art Institutions are beginning to promote their works and services online, and this has proved to be a lucrative means to engage clients as it can be used as a tool to advertise an artist’s artworks and promote services offered through the promotion of artworks online.
Engagement of artists and art dealers is also possible through these digital platforms as association with other practitioners is easily established. The internet is a good place for an artists to initiate recognition from museums or galleries that might potentially find their bodies of work interesting.
Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and Google + offer an opportunity for artists to market their work. An artist can use either of these platforms to advertise their works to the public and be able to have a large following provided their works interest appeal to their followers. Instagram is one such that one can use to advertise their works. Instagram is an application that allows its users to share pictures and videos with their followers.
The platform has become one of the leading destinations for the masses to post, share and discover new things. Instagram is the leading platform for artists to utilise as it offers visual based sharing.
This means that Instagram users are able to like and share pictures either privately or publicly. An artists can use this platform to showcase some of his artworks through pictures. An artist can add a hash-tag on his or her posts so that the followers are able to discover more of his/her works.
Another great advantage of using Instagram is that it has over 200 million users and this means that an artist can get a huge following on Instagram through sharing their works.
Highly followed artists can amass over 150 000 followers on Instagram and this can aid them to manage the platform to share their works, moreover that, use the Business Profile component of the framework to create Calls to Action which may form the generation of income for the artist or organization.
Molly Phiri Winckelmans is a Belgium- based Zimbabwean artist who also runs the Art Move Gallery in Bornem, Belgium. Phiri Winckelmans shares her works on Instagram, to positive results in audience building on the ground, and purchases from her establishment. With over 2 000 followers the Zimbabwean born, Belgian-based artist ensures to tag the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in a number of her posts, which in turn is shared to a wider network by the National Gallery.
Social media platforms when used well they generate more followers for an artist and can make them popular online. The platforms can also help artists get recognition from famous museums and galleries. Platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are good for marketing art business.
They should be used for promotional and entertaining reasons and a creative artist should be able to balance the two. If the Facebook pages become too professional this might put off your followers as there is nothing entertaining. The artist should be able to post content that is engaging at the same time fun to read and view. These will increase art sells at the same time opening doors to a million followers and better ways to keep fans engaged.
Twitter is another great platform to use in marketing artworks. With a limited number of characters to use, this allows one to post shot sentences.
Not everyone wants to read long paragraphs of information thus the posts should sweep your followers off their feet and into your world of art. The platform also allows one to post short videos and these could be in form of a gif (short video of about 6 seconds). These videos could be of an artist’s latest works or promotional adverts and these are best at capturing the viewer’s attention.
“As an artist myself and owner of a creative company, I’d say my number one tip is to pull back the curtain and show the behind-the-scenes work that takes place,” says Mark Ley, managing director at Copper Blue Creative.
This helps followers feel as though they are part of the creation. Social media can also be used to engage with other business practitioners through tagging. When the artist tags potential buyers, business institutions, galleries and museums this will increase chance of the artwork being purchased if they view the post they are tagged in and it is of their interest.
Galleries might be end up being interested in exhibiting some of the works. It also allows the artist to see the kind of content the followers respond to the most and the best time to post.
That being noted social media in the right hands can be used to market art by an artist and this in turn will promote their works in the art and business world and gain more popularity online.
