5 Strategies Art Professional Use to Engage with Followers
Go online to get inspiration from great artists and galleries!
Identify successful artists, galleries, magazines and businesses that are targeting the same kind of clients you are targeting.
If you are looking to build a following amongst young professionals, check out the feeds of magazines that they read or artists that appeal to them. If you are targeting high-end art collectors then look at the feeds of the top auction houses. If you want to be a fashion photographer check out the feeds of fashion photographers.
Get a sense of how they are keeping their customers engaged and active, what they are posting. You will begin to see some patterns.
Art only takes up a small part of the messaging – it’s not what really engages buyers – the want to get. Art is not enough,
People connect to people
Show follower who you are and help buyers engage with you! Photographs of you in interesting locations and videos of you communicating your passion can help you really connect to collectors. Get in front of the camera!
The buying experience is important –
The buying process can be memorable, story-worthy, exotic. You can showcase this with interiors and other shots of your studio, shop, or gallery. Create videos of your space and events at openings. Is it intimate, efficient, professional, luxurious, let people know.. Show people what they are missing out if they don’t come to you!
Followers like special treatment and access –
Providing behind the scenes access to exhibitions, sneak previews of new works, videos from inside the studio of your creative process, will help your community understand that you care about them.
Let people in and they will move closer to you automatically.
Sometimes, shock, intrigue and surprise followers with the unexpected –
Out-takes, bloopers, candid moments, slow motions videos of you working, art in the wild, performances, carefully crafted videos.
Going viral is very difficult – but – worth it (in small doses – crazy can be great).
Social Proof is vital
Discussion by experts, Images of you at awards, events, being interviewed, at openings, events, with clients, celebrities.
This can helps buyers understand the community that you are part of. That you and your work is prized by people like them and/or people whose taste they respect.
Make people understand they are not only buying into you and your work, but also into a wider community.