It’s no surprise that social media is a top marketing channel for art businesses.
You can exercise your creativity in how you showcase your work on these platforms, helping you build a strong brand. The reach you have on social media is unlike other marketing channels.
You can also make more meaningful connections with current and potential customers because you can interact with people on a more intimate level.
That said, all of the wonderful benefits of using social media aren’t guaranteed just because you’re on the platforms. You must become adept at creating digital content. You must also be mindful of the many challenges that can arise as you build a social media presence.
Let’s dig into how to navigate different social media challenges and market your art business effectively on these platforms.
Set Goals for Social Media
So many businesses make the mistake of jumping on social media and posting aimlessly. There’s no consistency in their content or publishing schedule. They have no foundation for their social media strategy and the results they’re getting show it.
You need direction to grow a strong presence on social media. You need to define what you’re doing and why to ensure that your actions on social media inspire purchases and elevate your art business.
Before you do anything on social media, set goals. What do you want to accomplish using social media? How will achieving your social media goals impact your business? By answering these two questions you can create definitive goals that are easier to create a step-by-step plan for.
For example, you could say that you want to increase awareness of your art brand and drive traffic to your store on your website. By achieving these social media goals, you’ll establish a stronger reputation in the art industry and increase revenue in your business.
You can then move on to how you’ll achieve the aforementioned goals. You can increase brand awareness by posting great content consistently on your audience’s top two social media platforms. You can break this down even further by discussing what great content is and how often you’ll publish it.
In regards to the goal of driving traffic to your store on your website, you could put the link to your store in your social media bios. You could also do two sales posts a week that mention your store and link directly.
Settle on three main goals for social media so that you don’t overwhelm yourself.
Identify Who Your Audience Is
Many art business owners try to reach a general audience with their social media content. If a million people love art, they want to reach every single one of them. This approach only leads to their content missing more than it hits.
When you identify who your audience is on social media, you can create content for them. When you create content that resonates with your particular audience, it’ll inspire them to take a desired action, like making a purchase or signing up for your email list.
Start with the question, who do you want to reach on social media? Think about who your ideal customers are and who’s on social media regularly.
Keep in mind that your audiences might be different on each platform. For example, the part of your audience ready to purchase might be on Instagram while people still new to your brand are on Facebook.
Fill in the details about your target audience, like:
- How they think;
- What their pain points are;
- What their lifestyle is like;
- What their purchasing behaviors are;
- What they do on social media;
- What kind of content they’re attracted to;
- Why they would be searching for your kind of art business;
- Demographic information, such as marital status, occupation, education level, and age.
The best way to inspire people to engage with you on social media is to create content that seems like it was made for them. To do that, you must know your audience inside and out.
Create Compelling Content
One of the biggest challenges of social media is standing out from the competition. There are hundreds of thousands of artists and art-based businesses across all social media platforms. They’re competing for the attention of the same people you are.
So, you must do something to distance yourself from your competition and create a lane of your own on social media.
We suggest becoming the best digital content creator you can be. Compelling content is key in separating yourself from your biggest competition. You need to know how to create and promote it on social media to incite consistent engagement from your audience.
Start by choosing the right platforms. You should be on the social media platforms your audience frequents the most and that allows the kind of interaction you want to have with your followers.
Purchase the necessary equipment for creating high-quality content, like a smartphone and lighting equipment. Also, define the specific style and personality you want to be known for on social media.
Then, get into the rest of these tips for creating compelling social media content.
Attach a Goal to Each Piece of Content
Everything you post on social media should have a purpose. It can be as specific as driving traffic to your latest product page or as general as improving your brand awareness. No matter the piece of content, make sure it has an objective attached to it. Setting SMART goals – or goals which are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound – can help you track your progress as you create content for social media. It also ensures that the goals you have for your art business are action-oriented.
Creating a document that tracks goals specific to each social media post is a good idea. You can keep them all in one place and refer back to them when it’s time to check your content’s performance.
Tailor Your Content to the Platform
You can post different kinds of content on all social media platforms. However, some content types do better than others on each platform.
For example, short-form videos are popular on TikTok. Reels and long-form videos do well on Instagram. A combination of written content, images, and videos tends to do well on Facebook.
You should tailor your content to the platform in addition to your target audience. For instance, let’s say the platform is TikTok. You’ll share videos that illustrate how your art pieces come to life and how people can use them to decorate their homes because that is what’s relevant and interesting to your target audience.
Study the types of content doing the best on your chosen social media platforms and how you can make this kind of content for your unique audience.
Prioritize Visual Content
Visual content is all the rage on social media. People seem to gravitate to visuals, such as videos, images, and infographics, more than they do written content on social media.
Lucky for you, artists are already in the habit of creating visual masterpieces. Transfer that creativity over to the visual content you create for social media, and you’ll be on your way to capturing and keeping the attention of your audience.
Think about the visuals your audience would be attracted to. Would they love process videos that show how you create your products? Would they like image carousels that share tips on how to style art in their home? Would they be interested in polls and surveys about art industry trends?
Refer back to the target audience details you defined above to determine what visual content you should create.
Master Writing Captions
The caption for your posts might be more challenging than anything on social media. Most people have no idea what to say in their captions, let alone how to use them to spark meaningful conversations in the comments.
Captions are another opportunity for you to stand out on social media. So, learn how to write them well. Use the first sentence to hook the reader. Tell a story about what’s happening in the post and the inspiration behind it. Then, end the caption with a call-to-action (CTA) or a question people can answer in the comments.
Track Your Performance
You need to know if the content you’re creating is resonating with your audience. You’ll know it is if it’s getting a lot of engagement. Most social media platforms have built-in analytics tools that you can access if you have a business account.
Check these tools regularly to see metrics like views, comments, likes, and average viewing time. Make notes about what you learn and mirror what’s working in future posts.
Engage With Your Audience
Your visibility on social media gets better when your audience engages with your posts. If you want them to keep engaging with you, you need to engage with them.
This means answering every comment, even the negative ones. You should also thank people who repost and share your content. And go live regularly to engage with your audience face-to-face and develop a more meaningful connection.
Couple Offline Marketing With Online Marketing
If businesses hate one thing on social media it’s the algorithm. Its ever-changing nature can impact your visibility on social media platforms and make it hard to grow a following organically.
Leveraging offline marketing tactics can actually help your social media presence when things are slow on your platforms. You’re still making connections with customers and increasing brand awareness. You can encourage customers you meet offline to engage with you on social media.
For example, you could hand out stickers with your Instagram QR code on them for free at your next art market. Create tiny pieces of art as pins that you can hand out to in-person customers. Make a banner for your market booth that’s a mashup of your favorite digital art prints you created with your social media handles on it.
Use traditional marketing tactics at events and networking opportunities to build brand awareness offline, and you’ll be surprised at how much it helps your online presence.
Conclusion
We won’t say that your art business won’t survive without a social media presence. But it will absolutely get better faster with one. So long as you adopt social media best practices and understand how to overcome common challenges on the platforms.