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Among art buyers and artists, Instagram is now clearly the social media channel of choice.

I was recently perusing the 2017 Hiscox Online Art Trade Report, and the following section jumped out at me:

[In 2017] Instagram overtakes Facebook as the preferred social media channel for the art world. Instagram has emerged as the most important social media channel in the art world, with 57% of art buyers surveyed saying this is the most frequent social media platform used (up from 48% in 2016 and 34% in 2015). In contrast, 49% said that Facebook was their preferred social media platform,down from 54% in 2016.

And further down, this gem jumped out:  

Among those under age 35, this share is significantly higher, with 70% saying Instagram was their preferred choice

It's pretty clear that if you are going to market your art via social media, then you need to be on Instagram.  My recommended focus would be both Instagram and Facebook.  For art marketing, don't worry as much about the other platforms (Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc) unless you're blessed with lots of free time.  Facebook and Instagram are by far the top two platforms that art buyers utilize.  They each excel at marketing different things, and marketing in different ways.  And, importantly, there are some extremely cool things you can do with targeted advertising that only work if you link your Instagram and Facebook accounts.   What I do NOT recommend, is setting up your Instagram account to cross post to your Facebook account [1].  

Everybody focuses on the importance of the social part of "social media."  But people often forget that the media part of social media is just as important.  And an important concept in Social Media marketing is to utilize each platform natively.  This means crafting your media to best take advantage of that limitations and expectations of the platform.

While this post is not intended to be a "how to use social media" guide, I'll briefly overview the differences:

On Instagram, using the platform natively means utilizing beautiful images (mostly of your art and yourself), minimal text, liberal use of hashtags, and not linking out to your website or blog on each post (They do allow a link in your profile and it can be utilized creatively).  It's also important to engage people right within the platform.

On Facebook, using the platform natively also means using beautiful images of your artwork (and I recommend you do every post as a "Photo" post as they look and engage much better than a standard "Link" post), but it's OK, and even expected, on Facebook to add longer form text to your posts.  It's also OK to link out to your website or blog in a Facebook post (although some people theorize your post isn't seen by as many people if you link out).  And, for the most part, hashtags are useless and distracting on Facebook.

I mentioned that each platform excels at marketing different things.  To explain, I'll refer back to the Hiscox survey:

Hiscox asked survey respondents what their preferred social media platform was for 8 different types of art-related activities.  Here are the categories and the winners:

Discover new artists (Instagram)

Follow artists I am familiar with (Instagram)

See what's popular or trending (Instagram)

Interact at art fairs (Instagram)

Share art I like (Instagram)

Find art to purchase (Instagram)

Art Related News (Facebook)

Find Openings or Exhibitions (Facebook)

You see?  Each platform plays to different strengths.  Instagram won 6 of 8 categories surrounding the "consumption" and interaction of the artwork itself.  However, Facebook won in the news and exhibitions area:  activities about interacting with the artist, especially interacting with the artist in the real world.  If you think about the idea of using each platform natively, this makes sense:  Instagram is about images, Facebook is about news  (Although you should share your art on Facebook too!).

As an anecdote, I personally am personally using  Instagram a lot more than Facebook these days.  I love beautiful art and I'm tired of the "cat/dog videos" and "love/hate Trump" rants on Facebook. [2] 

I strive to make my life inspiring and calm and Facebook mostly works against that...Instagram supports it. 

I'm not alone in the desire to make my life more inspiring.  And I'm not the only one who's moved over to Instagram.  You need to be on Instagram.

Once you join, let's connect! 

Follow me (@clintavo):

https://www.instagram.com/clintavo

Or us (@BoldBrush) at

https://www.instagram.com/boldbrush

See ya there!

Clint

PS - I have many more thoughts about utilizing these social media platforms.  It's way too much for one post.  Plus I'm still experimenting with the some of the newer, amazing tools both have.  Stay tuned and I'll share my findings and my journey.

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Footnotes:

[1]  If you really don't have the time to post natively to both platforms, cross-posting from Instagram to Facebook is light-years ahead of doing nothing.  Luan Udell recently wrote an article that explains how to best utilize the time-saving cross-posting features in a way that minimizes the downsides.  You can read it here.

[2]  As an artist you are your brand.  People want to connect with you as much as your artwork, and, they look to Facebook to do that.  Remember: Instagram for the art, Facebook for the news and events about the artist.  So please, if you're posting political rants....stop.  You're not going to change anyone's mind with a Facebook post.  You're likely harming your career, and losing valuable contacts who want to know about your art.