7 Social Media Marketing Strategies For Artists

Online shopping is the new norm. 

What could be better news for a visual artist? 

However, there are always two sides to the coin. 

With more people shopping online comes more competition. 

Emerging artists art starting an online art business every day.

How does this affect you as a selling artist?

Building name recognition becomes more challenging with the abundance of artists showcasing and selling art online.

Developing effective social media marketing strategies is crucial if you want to continue to reach your audience.

7 Effective Social Media Marketing Strategies for Visual Artists

All the benefits of social media marketing make investing your time in designing and strategizing a plan valuable. 

Who wouldn’t like to have more visitors to their site or more emails saying, “You’ve got a sale!“?

As online sales continue to increase, more competition will join the playing field. 

Staying ahead of the curve will give you an upper hand over your competitors. 

Continue to build your online presence and take advantage of every available tool to help you develop your online art business. 

Social media is one tool you will want to promote your artwork and art business.

A UPS Study was released on June 8, 2016, showing that the avid online shopper leads a retail revolution.

The study showed for the first time in the study’s five-year history that more than 50 percent of all purchases made by respondents are made online, up from 48 percent in 2015.

It makes sense that shopping online would become the norm. 

Purchasing merchandise online:

• Saves time 
• Convenient
• Easy to search for the best prices
• Open 24/7
• You can buy products from the comfort of your home

Teresa Finley, Chief Officer at UPS, brought up an excellent point:

“This year’s UPS study revealed that 45 percent of online shoppers love the thrill of hunting for and finding great deals and that physical stores continue to play a major role in that experience. The challenge is how to engage best with shoppers to fulfill their desires.”

Who doesn’t love to save money? 

How often have you been excited about a great deal you have found online or in a physical store? 

Now that it is so easy for people to bargain shop and the internet is becoming overpopulated, the question is, “How will you be able to continue to grow your art business while making a profit?“

There is hope. UPS also found:

“Social media’s influence on purchasing decisions is up to nine points (to 34%) in the last year with nearly a quarter of respondents (23%) having made purchases through social media sites.”

Some people think the only way to reach their audience on social media is by buying ads or boosting their posts. 

The best way for you to build your art business is by learning how to grow your organic reach with social media platforms and search engines.

Let’s go over simple tactics that you can start immediately that will cost you nothing but your time.

Social Media Marketing Strategies

Selling art online starts with a plan.

Write down your business goals before you dive into a social media marketing plan.

Think about what you want to achieve with your Facebook page and Instagram account.

Knowing your objectives will help you be more productive with your marketing efforts.

Now that you have your goals written down let’s go over how to develop a social media strategy.

Marketing Strategy Outline

Create Great Content

How often have you heard, “You have to create great content to build your online audience?”

• What does that mean?
• What is great content?
• How do you learn how to create great content?

Many articles will tell you that creating great content will drive tons of traffic to your site. However, very few articles explain what great content is.

I am going to tell you the secret.

Content is only good when the reader enjoys what they are reading. It is that simple. When your audience feels that they have to share what you have posted, you succeed in creating great quality content.

Your audience will be the judge.

How do you know what strikes your audience?

You have provided quality content when your post receives likes, shares, and comments.

Writing content that your audience will be waiting for will take a lot of time and effort.

To start, you will want to become a great listener. Read all the comments and observe what they like and share. That will give you all the information you need, and it is free. This is such a simple tactic that so many people are not doing.

Most people post what they want to post and lose perspective for what the post is actually for, the audience’s enjoyment, not theirs.

Research Your Competition

Whether you are new to selling art online or a veteran, studying your competition is an effective marketing strategy you will want to implement.

Every successful business, large and small, knows what its competition is doing. 

Studying your competition does not mean you are copying them or stealing their ideas.

You are just trying to figure out what is working for them to execute a similar plan.

How do you find your competition?

Start by going to your personal Facebook page and Instagram account and type words that describe your art business.

For example:

• Equine Artist
• Wildlife Artist
• Oil Painter
• Pastel Artist
• Nautical Artist

You will receive a list of business pages and groups.

Visit each page and group to see if any artists create similar art.

Create a list of the business names and groups and put them in Google Spreadsheet or Excel.

Include the URL with each page so you can effortlessly search their pages.

Take note of how often they publish posts and what type of content is receiving the most engagement.

Try some of the hot strategies to see if they work for your fans.

Curate Great Content

Writing fresh content takes time.

The good news is that you can save time by curating other experts’ blog posts and videos.

Curating content is a tactic used by businesses and professional bloggers to help build their audience.

All you have to do is find content that is already popular and includes your views.

For example, if you find a video with a high number of views and thumbs up on YouTube that supports your brand, upload it to your social media sites with a few words on how it will help them.

Always give credit and provide a link back to the author and the article.

Curating content provides value to your followers and does not take much time to create.

Some artists and businesses do not feel comfortable sharing other people’s content.

The best way for you to build trust with your audience is by providing them with content that helps them solve a problem.

Create Micro-Content

People are bombarded with a large amount of content every day. 

I shared how much content the average person consumes in a day in the article I wrote: “What is Your Target AudienceSearching For?”. 

If you have a few seconds, look at some statistics, and you will be shocked.

After you have finished reading some of the statistics, you will realize that more is not always better.

You might get confused with the hype on the perfect length for blog posts and higher search engine rankings.

Instead of writing for a particular word count, write for your reader.

Everyone has a busy life. 

There will be times when micro-content will be what your audience needs.

Provide both in-depth content for when your audience has more time to absorb what you have to say and offer quick and easy to consume material for when they are on the run.

You could record short 30-60 second videos of you finishing a project or DIY projects that will please everyone. 

Be creative and see how other people are providing micro-content that goes viral.

Blog Posts

You would be surprised at how many people do not consider blogging a social media platform.

Brian Clark wrote a great post about this subject in copyblogger.

After providing a Wikipedia definition of social media, he went on to say:

“In the “modern” social media sense, blogs came way before social networking exploded with Facebook and Twitter. Blogs pioneered social media well before MySpace and Friendster came and went.”

Your art blog allows you to share your story as an artist and your art business.

The more you allow your fans to get to know you as an artist, the more they will trust you. 

Connecting people to your artwork personally will increase your art sales.

Always include links to all your new blog posts you publish on all of the social media platforms you are using. 

Share your story with everyone.

Create Engaging Content

What is engaging content? 

Engaging content is content people share and comment on. 

The more engagement a post receives, the more people the post will reach. 

Building brand awareness with hundreds or even thousands of people is possible. 

How nice would it be to have thousands of people see your latest painting?

There are many ways to create engaging content. 

The simplest to receive engagement on a post is to ask your fans a question.

If you ask someone a question, they feel obligated to answer. 

When someone comments on a post, the post lives longer in Facebook’s news feeds. 

The longer you can keep your posts higher in the news feed, you will receive more organic reach.

Motivational and inspirational posts do well with engagement. 

Take a look at your Facebook news feed and notice how many shares an inspirational image receives. 

Videos are becoming more popular on social media. 

Take advantage of the organic reach you can receive from videos while it lasts. 

The average engagement rate for Facebook video posts is 6.13%. Remember that the average engagement rate overall is just 3.6 percent. That’s strong motivation to incorporate video content into your marketing strategy. (Source: Hootsuite)

Engage With Your Audience

Social media is an excellent way to build relations with your audience.

All you have to do is comment back on every comment someone posts.

Engaging with your audience might be one of the most straightforward, effective social media marketing strategies you will want to implement during the day.

If you have a smartphone, you will be notified when there is engagement on your social media posts.

When you have a spare thirty seconds throughout the day, reply to any comments.

People will notice you take the time to respond to comments and encourage other people to start engaging in your posts.

Learning

If you want to be successful with your social media marketing strategies, you need to continue learning and adapting to all of the changes that will arise.

Nothing stays the same, and you need to be willing to change. What works today might not work tomorrow.

Final Thoughts On Social Media Marketing Strategies

Start now and take action on these 7 effective social media marketing strategies today.

To get the best results, focus on one at a time and become the best at each strategy.

Soon you will be watching your social media audience grow more abundant than you could have ever imagined. When you have completed the top strategies, try these 10 social media tips.

There is a lot that is involved in art marketing.

Focusing on all of the tools available like email marketing, content marketing, and social media marketing will help you develop a successful art business.

Art sales will increase when you pay attention to what your art collectors are talking about.

Study your competition and listen to your fans.

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