Share Art Online

Share my art to get seen by the right people

Who are the right people in this question? I guess there are several possibilities:

• The right collectors who can buy your art,
• the right curators who can bring you to a show,
• the right agents who can mentor your career.

You need different strategies to attract different people. No matter who you have in mind, you can try your best to increase your chances of being seen.

3 rules to help you get seen by the right people

#1: Traffic

The first rule, traffic is the key! If you want your art seen by the right people, you have to get your art seen by enough people. If the right person is one out of a million, you need to get a million views! Only having your art in a small local gallery is not enough. You can ask the gallery owner, or check yourself, how many people are coming into the gallery every month? A couple of thousands at most, I guess? And the visitors might not pay attention to your work. Go online instead! There are a lot more people out there. Get them to visit your website and follow you on social media.

#2: Target

Know your target. Who are the right people? Are you trying to get in touch with collectors, gallerists, curators or other artists? What do you know about them? Where do they go? What do they like to do?
According to a study, on average people spend 5 years in a lifetime on social media websites, more than eating and drinking. So I would catch them on social media instead of going for some networking cocktail parties.
Meet them on their social media. Perhaps some of you don’t like Facebook or Instagram, but you need to meet them there! If you don’t want to do it ‘organically’, you can pay for a campaign targeting specific groups.

#3: Patience

Be patient. It takes years for a business to build a customer base. Artists are no exception. You put your website online, it takes time for it to show up on Google. You make a social media account, it takes time to grow.
Restaurants are expecting to lose money for the first two years until they get known by the local foodies. If you are serious about your art venture, you have to be willing to spend that money and time. Perhaps you will be spending the two years building your online presence, which you will be able to cash out later.

The fishing metaphor

I would compare this to fishing. First rule, traffic. You need to go to a place with a lot of fish so you can catch a big fish. The second rule, target group. You need to know the habits of this fish you intend to catch and offer the right bait. Last rule, patience. Even for an experienced fisher, it takes time to catch the right kind of fish. The fish is gonna bite the hook when it feels like, regardless of how long you have been waiting for.

When to share your art

One artist answer with eager:

No work of art is ever entirely finished. Stop tweaking it when it’s about 95% done.

Another artist answered:

When it stops getting better and starts getting worse.

Another artist compared making art to cooking a piece of meat:

There is a range between bloody and well done. You don’t want to serve or overcooked meat.

The 80/20 Rule

My personal take on this would be the 80/20 rule. It is also known as the Pareto Principle, this rule suggests that 20% of your activities will account for 80 per cent of your results.

Sometimes it also means 80% of your activities will account for the rest 20% of your results. I would call it the inverse 80/20 rule. We often spend a lot of time trying to reach the last bit of perfection. When you paint for 10 hours, after the first two hours it was already fine. But as a perfectionist like you, you went on and spent 8 hours tweaking it. No wonder you don’t have time for anything else!

Don’t wait

Don’t wait until it’s perfect to share your work. Do it when it’s 80% perfect. If you can be less of a perfectionist, you will save so much more time. Use that time to learn new things, create new works and market your art.

Share the Process

There is another important thing when it comes to sharing your art. Share the process of making your art, like if you are sharing the making of’ behind the scene videos of a film. Put a time-lapse camera over your drawing desk and share these videos. It’s fun, it’s spontaneous: you don’t have to go out of your way to make such videos.

Unfinished

Many artists are worried about sharing the “unfinished” work when they are not ready. Think of it as a process of your journey. Today’s work is like a step in your overall artistic life. Share your work every day, then you will look back after 10 years, you will be able to demonstrate how much you have grown. Each day is like a frame in a movie that tells your story.

Share it now

There is never a better time to share your work than right now. Because it takes time for other people to discover you and your art. The sooner it is online, the more chances you have to get the right people to see your work. If you don’t feel ready, just put a caption saying ‘unfinished work’ and share it on social media instead of your website. It shows that you are working on your art every single day.

Where to post art

#1: Your goal

Let’s first talk about what is your goal of sharing and posting your art?

• Do you want to sell your art?
• Do you want to gain influence on the Internet and get the right people to see your art?
• Perhaps you want to get some feedback from other artists?

Write them down so you can keep track and plan your communication with strategies.

Selling on art platforms

To sell your art, you can post your art on platforms with payment methods. You can use Saatchi Art or ArtFinder, and pay 40% commission. Or post your art on social selling sites like Facebook Market. You will be selling your art alongside other stuff, like secondhand furniture and clothing. I am not sure if you want to do that!

Is there a place you sell without commission?

Yes. By selling your art on your own website. Once you set a web store, you are good to go. You don’t pay commissions and you have total control over when, where, to whom and at what price you sell your art. You can collect the contact details of your potential clients and keep them informed of your upcoming events.

Online presence

If you want the right people to see your work, you need a lot of people to see your work. Therefore, you have to post your work on social media websites which most people are using, such as Instagram and Youtube.

The numbers don’t lie

More than 3 billion users are visiting Instagram monthly. Over 25 billion users are visiting Youtube, not to mention the shorter URL YouTube also contribute to an additional half a billion. Post your artworks on Instagram and your timelapse videos on Youtube, there is no ceiling for your success.

Feedback

There are many places you can share your art for peer review, here are two: Reddit and Facebook. On Reddit, you have the Artist Lounge and ArtCrit. On Facebook groups, you have so many different groups. In general, Facebook groups are very encouraging, they mainly point out the positive points. Reddit is a more critical with higher quality responses.

#2: Your style

The platform to share can be very different from one niche to another, like manga art to street art. For example, if you do political art, you can post your art on Twitter. If you focus on growing your fandom, Tumblr is a better place for you. If your art sells well on Etsy, use Pinterest. There is no magic formula for all. Look for special platforms, do plenty of research in your niche. Don’t rely on generic information because your case could be very different from others.

Where is the best place to post my art regardless of my goal or my niche?

The best place to post your art is definitely your own website. Because your own website works like an airport, where all your social media channels, sales channels, and brand identity meet. People can go to different destinations passing through this portal. You are the air traffic control, and you are in full control.

Share art without bothering

5 tips on how to share your art with people who would like to see your work, without bothering them

#1: Share quality photos

There is nothing that bothers me more than a bad photo of someone’s art. I would rather see a good photo of an average artwork, than a bad photo of good artwork. It literally hurts my eyes to see them. Having bad photos of your work shows that you are not professional and you are not serious.

Product photography

I am sure you have seen the advertisement for iPhone. It’s one of the best examples of good product photography. It makes you want to buy the product when you see the photo. On the contrary, I can show you some not so great photos. They are not the worst I have seen, but there are so many ways to improve without spending a penny. I will be making a video on how to take photos of your artwork in the future, stay tuned.

#2: Share with a professional profile

Perhaps you have a personal Facebook profile to connect with family and friends, Linkedin profile to network with colleagues and other clients. But when it comes to your art, you need to create a new profile, a business profile. This way, you avoid bothering your contacts who are connected for other reasons. You can make a business Instagram account, then set your personal profile as a “private account”. You can switch between them easily. This way you are protecting your privacy, at the same time appear to be professional.

Get your art noticed on Instagram

‘My art is good. Why don’t people notice my art? How to get the attention I deserve?’

How to grow your online presence on Instagram as an artist.

Introduction: Our story

About two years ago we started a new Instagram account with 0 followers. We chose Instagram because we want to help emerging visual artists. What is the most popular social media for emerging artists? Definitely Instagram. I had absolutely no clue whatsoever. We started this project as two partners, so one of us worked almost full time on social media. After two years, we are reaching 50K followers. This is still a small account compared to these in lifestyle, fitness, and travel. But in terms of the art market niche, we are happy with this amount of influence.

#1: Consistency

Whatever kind of work you do, the first thing first. This applies to anyone: post at least once a day. If you can’t do this, the chances of you being noticed are very little. Working on your Instagram is like buying lottery tickets, one post equals one ticket that provides you with one chance to win. You have different prizes, you can get noticed or go viral. The chances are low in general. If you buy a ticket once a year, the chances are even lower: 1 in 45 million.

#2: Time management

Posting once a day can be time-consuming, but time is the most equal thing on earth. We all have 24 hours a day. If getting your art noticed on Instagram is important, put in the time and you will be rewarded.

Making your Art Go Viral

First, I wanted to share with you our experience in getting ‘viral’ in the art niche.

David Bowie’s art

One day, my partner Greg (in life and in this project) got upset and told me:

‘David is dead, I can’t believe it, people are selling his portraits on Etsy making money out of his death. That’s so wrong.’

I was on my mobile, at the same moment I saw this post on WeChat, a Chinese social media about David Bowie and his artworks. I told:

‘Did you know he is a painter, and a good one. Look at his work!’

The article about his art

At that moment, we knew we had to do something about it. So we did some research and created an article on David Bowie’s art. We also got in touch with David Bowie’s friend, the pianist Mike Garson. Mark his assistant sent us a photo of a painting he had at his home and gave us permission to publish it. Shortly it went viral, got featured in the Guardian, the New York Times and Vice. We rank first on Google search results for the keyword ‘David Bowie Art’. Even 3 years after, we are still receiving a lot of visits to our website.

Viral Elements

From our story, we can see that there is luck, but there are some elements that helped our article to go viral.

Emotion

We had genuine emotion and the urge to transmit this emotion. It wasn’t It was quite unexpected to have this article go viral because we were not aiming for viral content. The emotion is pure in many ways.

Event

David Bowie’s death was a huge event in the music world. It was probably the most talked-about event on that day. Reaction to a well-known event, in a timely manner, also helped us to get the attention.

Originality

We created original content that is not copy-pasted from anywhere else. The photos of his artwork, some we found in WeChat, some we got from David Bowie’s inner circle. We had our own source of information.

Cross-community

Visual art is a relatively small niche. But there are so many more possibilities outside of art. When you combine art with technology, with pop culture, sports, and politics… You can reach more people from another community.

Surprise factor

When people think about art and David Bowie, they think of a portrait of David Bowie sold on Etsy. But we proposed a different possibility – David Bowie as a painter. It added this surprise factor to our story.

Being featured

We got an extra boost from other big influencers such as The Guardian and New York Times. Being featured gave us validation and brought a lot of traffic. If your content gets shared by a big account, it has a lot more chance to go viral.