Social Media Friend or Foe?
By Dean Cameron
In the world of art marketing today many will proclaim the virtues of Social Media for marketing theirworks and rightfully so. It is where all the people are, right? The skyrocketing figures of how much time hundreds of millions of people spend on Facebook, Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube and many more is staggering!
So why not just post you art to the masses and let them beat down your door to buy your products. It should work, right? Sorry to say...most likely not.
Like any other marketing plan you have to get your product to the correct audience in the correct way in order to achieve success. As an example, when you post your work on Facebook in hopes of creating a sale you are putting your artwork in front of the viewer in a news feed with a political rant above it and a picture of Grumpy Cat below. Hardly a venue to create a sale.
Now let’s look at Social Media in another way. What if your goal was to gather true believers and lovers of your art (prospects) into a separate venue away from all the distractions that the Social Media sites hypnotize us with? What if the true fans of your artwork made a commitment to follow your passion for expression in a more focused environment? This would allow you to maximize your time and effort to share your work to those who have already made a statement to say “Wow, I would like to see more”!
The answer to the question in our title above is Social Media is our friend. However, Social Media is our friend only if we establish a sound marketing plan and use the right tools to get us to our goals. There are billions of people in the world and the vast majority own artwork in their home or office. This means there is a customer base, now the goal is how do we reach those potential clients with our product? Social Media has the broadest reach and it does not look like it will ever slow down.
Many artists have a Website. Once again, just having a Website does little to make a sale unless there is traffic and interest. So how do you create traffic to your Website? Social Media can help us get there, however, once again you will need focus. Please see the following graphics:
This is the wrong way to approach Social Media”
Now let’s look at a graphic that shows the correct way to use Social Media to market your artwork:
Make sure you point your customers to where you are selling your artwork. It may be your web site or
an art sales site or even a partner Gallery. If in your social media posts you include the map for them to find you, you will realize a much better focus on the business side of the art sales world.
Remember these points:
Remember these points:
Selling artwork is like any business.
1. You DO have customers out there. They just may not have met you yet.
2. You cannot “Go fishing with a blindfold on” and hope to catch many fish. You need a plan and
you will need to put in the effort to execute that plan in order to be successful.
3. Find a way to MARKET your artwork and it will lead you to sales.
4. Make systems work for you. You want to create your artwork and not spend all your time trying
to sell it. Find the easiest way to gather those prospects with the least amount of effort and
then share your works with them in a structured professional way.
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Having a successful Marketing Career for over 30 years in several industries and as owner of American Fine Art Company for the past 10 years as an agent, publisher and online gallery, Dean Cameron has developed a new and innovative art marketing website https://www.flootie.com where “Marketing Art is our art”.
Artists Blogs would like to say thank you to Dean Cameron for helping our subscribers to have 90 days free marketing through flootie.com
