Note This Is A Guest Post by Nicole Garrison. You can learn more about Nichole at the end of this post.
As rewarding and fulfilling an artist career can be, it also has its challenges. Managing to sell your pieces and actually make money out of your artwork isn’t always easy. However, in today’s digital times, branding yourself and gaining exposure has become more convenient with the help of the online environment, and more specifically, with the help of social media.
Social media channels have become a great source of publicity for businesses and freelancers and they also provide a welcoming marketing environment for artists. Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest – the list of networks easily accessible to you is quite vast.
“Booming” on social media will help you create a name in the industry and actually start making a living out of your art. The way you sell yourself on these channels is critical here. Each art piece should be put in a great light through a compelling description.
How to Write a Description of the Art to Increase Selling in Social Media?
But how exactly should you write a description of the art?
Here are some guidelines that will help you improve your practices in this department:
Include the inspirational bit
You should start writing your description by focusing on the inspirational bit. What does that mean? The component of the description that refers directly to your artwork, the thought and creation process behind it, the actual story of the piece.
This is where you can actually compel users to understand your work and vision better, to get to know your art more in-detail. While there isn’t an exact formula to follow here, the inspirational part of your description should always be engaging.
You could consider mentioning these few things:
- What was the source of inspiration for your art creation process?
- What techniques have you used to make the piece and why?
- What are you trying to express through it and what does the piece mean to you personally?
- Where does it stand in terms of artistic work?
Because you are selling art, a bit of “fluff” here and there can work in your favor. When you are writing copy for your art, create an emotional buyer experience. Write things that tap into the emotion you want to trigger in your readers, whether it’s curiosity or passion. Determine them to see that you are offering them something they desire – create a verbal picture that determines the buyer to actually envision what it would be to own that particular piece.
Put together a writing toolbox
As great as one of your pieces might be, and as beautifully as you’ve captured its essence through a professional photograph you’re planning to post online, if your sale description is hard to read, full of spelling and grammar mistakes, you will be losing credibility in front of an interested buyer.
The quality of your written descriptions should always be on-point, regardless of how short or long they are. What you need to do here is put together a writing toolbox. Access services and tools that can help you boost the quality of your posts. Make your content bulletproof by relying on writing services and tools, such as Grammarly, Trust My Paper, Hemingway Editor, Best Essay, Pro Writing Aid, GrabMyEssay.com
After proofreading your descriptions and using adequate resources to create them, it will become easier to draw, but also maintain the interest of your followers and actually determine them to convert.
Add sufficient info to the factual bit
A potential buyer browsing social media and coming across your work should have available the physical details of the piece. You need to include in the description relevant info on what the customer will receive if they decide to purchase your piece.
Spend a little more time writing this part of your description, just to make sure you have given potential customers all the purchase factors they would want to know. The same listing can be used on each social media platform if you’ll be advertising the same piece on multiple channels.
The factual bit should incorporate the following details:
- Size – add the dimensions on both inches and centimeters, for extra clarity regardless of targeted group.
- Materials – include every material you have used to create the art, from canvas type to pencils and pastels.
- Packaging – be clear about the packaging process ensured. Customers will want to know that the art will be delivered safely, so you should explain how you are planning to handle packaging.
- Delivery – state what shipping service you’ll be using to deliver the package. Add info on return possibilities, as well.
While the factual bit of your description might not be the interesting one, all of these details are relevant to potential customers.
Focus on a great title
A description title will also be needed here. This is the first thing social media users will read and can influence them on whether to continue reading the rest of the description or not. Choose a title that actually encompasses the meaning of your finished project. It should be representative and memorable.
However, because you need to make it “searchable” online as well, adding a relevant keyword is also recommended. Choose something buyers might look up, so your social media post can easily show up in search results.
“Successful description writing starts with a great title. This should summarize the message you are trying to convey with your content. The title needs to be equally, if not more, compelling that the actual product description and relevant to what you are selling” – explains Brenda Jones, writer at Studicus and Huffington Post collaborator.
Include keywords
Your descriptions should also be optimized for search engines, and an essential factor here is adding keywords. Doing keyword research, and incorporating one or two key phrases or terms in your description will make it easier for art buyers to come across your pieces.
These key phrases should be distributed naturally across the text, in places they actually make sense. Don’t use the same word or phrase more than 2 or 3 times.
You can use Google AdWords as your primary keyword research tool. This allows you to find the best option for your target audience, showing you the data you need to know in order to make keyword selection successful.
Make the description sharable
Because you are aiming here to sell your art on social media and not anywhere else, your descriptions should be sharable, most of all. If you use an interesting and compelling writing style, even if a certain user might not actually buy your piece, they could share it on their own social media account, and help you create most exposure for your work.
Go over your description and answer this question: Is this the type of post text user would actually spend time to read?
Final thoughts
These are the main factors to keep in mind when you are writing art descriptions. Your success with social media promotion could depend on the approach you adopt here. Selling your artwork and reaching exposure on the right digital channels is possible as long as you take the necessary steps.
Nicole D. Garrison is a content strategist, writer, and contributor at a number of platforms for marketing specialists. She is a dedicated and experienced author who pays particular attention to quality research. In her free time, Nicole is a passionate runner and a curious beekeeper. Moreover, she runs her own blog LiveInspiredMagazine.
