Showcasing your art on social media for the first time can definitely seem a little overwhelming, especially when there are so many myths surrounding artist marketing that paint it in a bad light. But we’re here today to debunk those myths and let you know why marketing your work on social platforms is a smart move, as well as an essential part of being an artist today. Think of this as a little sneak peek of our #ArtistMarketing webinar on Jul 25 @3pm
1. Using Social media for Artist Marketing is “Selling Out”
This is probably one of the biggest things we hear from our clients at SMA. While you may think that putting your work up on social media is the equivalent to selling your soul to the big marketing machine, it really isn’t. It’s simply the way that things are done today, and it’s an absolute critical process in getting your work in front of the right sets of eyes. Merely using word of mouth and telling friends and family is just not enough anymore.
The tools now exist to show your art to the right audience with ease, and plenty of artists are taking advantage of this. If you are truly serious about turning your passion into paychecks, then accepting this reality and getting on the same level of your competition is a necessity. With proper planning and execution, your online artist portfolio can still hold true to your creative self image, and after time, the only thing you’ll see that your selling is your work itself.
2. Artist Marketing Takes Too Much Time
Would you say you have at least 10 mins of free time in a given day? Then you have enough time to market your art. Social media platforms have made it extremely easy to navigate and utilize their advertising tools with plenty of helpful tutorials and extremely user friendly interfaces.
Creating an advertisement on one of these tools typically takes no longer than 10 minutes if you know the type of audience you are looking to reach. After your ad has been created, checking it’s performance each week takes next to no time at all and can give valuable insights into how your post is doing, who is engaging with you, and ultimately who your new fans are.
Using social media management tools such as Hootsuite or Buffer are also great ways to help manage your time. Tools like these allow for posts to be scheduled with ease across multiple platforms at once, and allow you to monitor engagements and analytics of various social platforms all from one place; talk about a time saver!
Reserve my spot!3. Artist Marketing Costs Too Much Money
If you have enough money to go buy that grande Starbucks latté every morning before work, then finding the money to market your art is the least of your worries! Paid advertising on social media can cost as little as a few dollars a day.
When creating a paid advertisement on social media, you get to set the maximum budget you wish to spend on that ad. Based off of the goals you aim to achieve as well as the advertising tool you are using, a specific algorithm will be used to put your ad in front of your target audience as frequently and efficiently as possible while staying within that set budget.
[Tweet “If you have enough money to go buy that grande Starbucks latté every morning before work, then finding the money to market your art is the least of your worries”]
4. People Online Might Steal My Art and Sell it as Their Own
If you’re just starting out in the world of social media and marketing your art, then this really isn’t something that you have to worry about. Unless you are a big time artist with an enormous following of thousands of fans, then worrying about somebody stealing your work and claiming it to be their own is not a pressing issue.
This almost certainly won’t happen
However, if it is concerning for you, using something like a watermark on your pictures or a disclaimer at the beginning of a musical track is something that can easily and quickly be done to prevent people from hijacking your masterpieces. Just keep in mind that an Instagram feed doesn’t look so pretty with watermarks. Consider the risk and act on it.
5. There’s Too Much Competition Stopping My Art From Reaching the Right People
We aren’t going to lie to you, you will have a lot of competition. But by using social media marketing tools to finely tune and define your target audience, getting your work to the right people is definitely an attainable goal.
Social media advertising tools such as Facebook Ads have changed the way that advertising is being done. Every time you go on a social media platform, you’re giving very valuable data about the pages you visit, your interests, hobbies, location, and so much more. All of this data is then utilized by these advertising tools to make finding the right target audience and marketing your work an absolute breeze.
For example, say you want to market your indie rock band that has a style inspired by artists like The Smiths and The Pixies; you can then use Facebook Ads to target people who are 1) Into indie rock, 2) Fans of The Smiths, and 3) Fans of the Pixies. This only scrapes the surface of the targeting options given to you on these social media advertising tools, but the end goal is a specific target that is best suited for your work.
See, artist marketing doesn’t seem so overwhelming now does it? We hope that this list eliminated some of the fears you may have had about presenting your work on social media, and that you feel confident and ready to create an online presence for your art. Thanks for reading and if you’re interested in taking your #ArtistMarketing skills to the next level – you don’t want to miss this webinar:
Reserve my spot!