Social networks have become a business tool, and their visual capabilities have become a great chance for artists to connect with their potential fans. And perhaps social networks, especially Instagram, can be the best place to begin your professional development and start earning an income from your art. However, you need to make sure that your posts not only consist of a single image, but they are also interesting, engaging, searchable and selling. In this article, we will figure out how to do this.
Decide on a Purpose
In order to sell your art on social networks, you don’t have to focus on sales in each post. In fact, you shouldn’t do this. At the same time, art is about the spiritual, emotional component, and only then about money. Too much marketing, obsession, or constant attempts to sell will not please your target audience.
Therefore, you need to keep a balance and follow the logic of the sales funnel — and let your relationship with subscribers develop gradually. It also makes sense to create personal posts, show your personality, create welcome posts for every thousand new subscribers, share ideas and even sneak peeks of an artist’s highly anticipated unfinished work. Then your social profile will be a place for fans to watch the range and development of the art, artists, and your point of view, not just about sales.
Provide a Background
Do you still remember learning in high school the key elements for writing an essay? Well, writing a post for a social network also has certain key elements and recommended methods. Starting your post, it makes sense to familiarize readers with the theme of the artwork you are showing, provide them with brief background information. In other words, you need to make a first impression — and at that moment your subscribers will decide whether to continue reading your post and learning about this artwork.
Tell a Story
Storytelling is a marketing technique. Since our goal is to sell paintings, we can absolutely use a story to work in your favor. Tell the story of the artwork. Describe the artist’s inspiration, theme, difficulties encountered, and emotions experienced when creating it. In other words, everything that relates to the art and can be turned into an interesting story suitable for creating a selling post for social networks.
Evoke Emotions and Draw the Picture With Your Words
You are not selling a physical object — you are selling emotions. This is true for any product, but for art, it is almost a guarantee of successful sales. After all, art is actually about emotions, feelings, experiences, and the inner world. And when a potential buyer understands that the artwork portrays his emotions, he makes a decision about the purchase. Each of us subconsciously wants to surround ourselves with things that are close to our spirit and inner world. Show the inner world of the artwork with words — let everything unsaid in the picture become clear in your post. And it will resonate in the hearts of your subscribers.
Relate the Art to Something Actively Discussed and Essential
This is also a marketing ploy that successfully works on social networks. You need to provoke a discussion and thereby increase user engagement. Therefore, if it is possible, then you should find a way to combine the work of art and any hot, discussed and controversial topic. Since all ideas implemented in art come from modern realities (or utopian fantasies based on them), then most likely it will not be difficult to find the relationship between the artwork and something that can get users thinking and posting.
And what’s more, you need to invite subscribers to share their opinions with a call to action. Sometimes even a simple phrase like “What do you think about this? Share in the comments” may trigger a wave of discussions.
Create a Catchy Headline
You don’t necessarily need a headline for Instagram, but most likely you will need it for Facebook and Twitter to promote posts on your site. And by the way, Twitter with its 140 characters is the perfect place to practice creating attractive headlines. There is no universal advice — practice shows that something controversial and hot (yes, by analogy with the previous paragraph) is of the greatest concern. Plus, you need to use the correct and popular hashtags, but we’ll talk more about this later.
Pay Attention to the Photo Quality One More Time
It is always good to use a photograph of the artwork that is high-quality and attractive. Practice taking attractive photos and use a photo editor if the desired result cannot be achieved given the capabilities of the camera or smartphone.
In addition, you definitely need to present a single style for the artist in the social profile. This is especially important for Instagram because here the visual perception of the profile as a whole plays a very important role. In general, if the artist adheres to one style in the art, then posting that style on social networks will not be difficult.
Show How the Art Fits Different Interiors
Besides showing the art as a finished piece, it also makes sense to show how the work fits into different interiors. This takes a bit of planning, but worth the outcome. The first thing to do is to understand where the target audience will place the work. Will they hang it on the wall in the bedroom? Or is it more suitable for business spaces, night clubs, hotels, or restaurants? Find the answer to this basic question and show your followers images of how the artwork looks in multiple settings.
Use the Right Hashtags
Social media hashtags also work like keywords in search engine optimization. Therefore, in order for your posts to be visible, and to constantly receive an influx of new subscribers, you need to use the hashtags correctly. Here is a workable strategy.
You definitely need to use your brand hashtag to create the right associations and increase the recognition of your gallery, your artists, and their work. You need to use some common hashtags to increase your reach, such as #art, #modernart, #streetart, #artforsale.
Plus, add another three to five hashtags that are very specific. Do some research before choosing them. We recommend using hashtags that display the name of the artwork, its main theme, a social component, a controversial or hot topic to engage users, for example, #abortion, #womenrights, #ecology.
Add a Link
And of course, be sure to add links to your website, blog or online store. If you do everything right, your site will work as an auxiliary tool to your social networks. And don’t forget to promote and advertise your posts, engage users through contests and quizzes, and work with influencers.
Get started and see what you can accomplish using social media as a tool to drive your sales.
Nancy P. Howard has been working as a writing expert at Online Writers Rating for a year. She is also a professional writer in such topics as blogging, IT and marketing. She loves traveling, photography and always welcome to meet new people.
