Imagine you built a castle. You worked on it for years. Put blood, sweat, and tears into every brick. You worked tirelessly until it became everything you’ve ever dreamed of. Then the landlord says he needs you to leave so he can tear it down to build a Super Wal-Mart. That’s exactly what happens when you rely on social media to build your art business. It’s also one of the main reasons social media is bad for artists.
Why Social Media Is Bad for Artists
I’m 26, I grew up somewhere in the middle of the transformation into this digital-focused world. The iPhone came out during my freshman year of high school. Unlike kids only a few years younger than me, I remember what it was like when my phone only called or texted people, and then I had to find something else to do. I didn’t have to advertise my life to be cool. I showed up and went home. Sure, I had a Myspace that I liked to code on Friday nights, but it was nothing like it is today.
Of course, as an artist, the ability to put your work on social media and have the opportunity to share it with thousands of people who you’d never cross paths with is amazing. On the flip side, there are a lot of reasons why social media could be detrimental to your art business. Especially if you focus all of your energy on one platform.
You Don’t Own Anything on Social Media
If you’ve ever bothered to read the Terms & Conditions you agree to when you sign up for a social media site, then you’d know you sign your life away the moment you hit accept. Let’s be honest, none of us have read those things cover to cover, so I bet we don’t even know everything we traded to participate.
Here’s the long and short of it: YOU OWN NOTHING on social media.
That’s right. Nothing. Your data? Nope. Your images? Nope. Your face? Nope. Your platform? Definitely…. Nope.
As an ex-beauty influencer and a current social media manager for an advertising agency, I can tell you without a doubt that you own nothing on social media. Mark Zuckerburg doesn’t care how hard you work. He doesn’t care how much your fans love you. He doesn’t care how many hours you put into your craft, your photography, building your community, editing your face and body to fit the mold.
Impossible algorithms aside, one little glitch, and it’s all gone. No one will help get your page back. There are muddy rules and limits that if you step a toe over the line, you can get shadowbanned forever with no hope of redemption.
All I know is I went from steadily growing organically and working hard on my page. To watching my followers drop by thousands per month, no matter what I did.
Lesson Learned: Never put all of your eggs in one basket. Especially if that basked is owned by Mark Zuckerberg.
You Lose Your Creativity and Drive Chasing Likes
Followers are the thing on social media and it’s truly a mind-blowing concept. People can become celebrities without ever leaving their house. What makes social media a problem for artists is that the platforms have created an assortment of hoops you need to jump through to gain access to the people you’re hoping to impress.
You have to jump on trends, interact constantly, and never let anything slip by. Even when you start analyzing your own work, you’ll notice that the accidental coffee spill doodle did better than the piece you put months into. So then to get the same results you start trying to reproduce the coffee spill and end up miles away from where your creativity wanted to take you.
If you’re about to say “Kailey, followers don’t matter.” They don’t. Until you’re running a business and your paycheck is directly related to your follower count and engagement. Then it matters to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars. So yes, you end up chasing your tail to make them happy because, at the end of the day, they’re paying your rent.
It Expects and Inhuman Output from Creators
The new algorithms on every platform are designed for two things.
1: To sell advertisements.
2: To keep as many eyeballs on the advertisements as possible.
This creates a problem. People working as 1 man bands are expected to maintain an output that matches a fully staffed production studio. If you fall short, your access to the followers you worked so hard to build is removed. It’s that simple.
On Instagram you’re expected to:
Create at least 1 Feed Post Per Day
Create at least 3 Story Posts Per Day
Use IGTV often
Create at least 1 Reels Post every day
Participate by liking and commenting on other feeds
Respond to as many of your notifications as possible
That’s a minimum. All of this with flawless quality. Just for one platform.
If you can’t keep up they show your work to less of your followers. So maybe on a great day, 10% of your followers will get to see your work. But the average visibility rate on Facebook and Instagram is 0.9%. You read that right, and yes, 0.9% of your followers.
Creators who’ve built their livings on these platforms are killing themselves trying to keep up with demand. I keep watching people who seem to have it all reaching their burnout points because they simply can’t create that much in such a short amount of time. So really guys, what are we fighting for here?
My Business was Destroyed by Instagram
If you’ve gotten here you might’ve guessed I hit a few roadblocks myself. It was one of the biggest and hardest lessons I have learned in my creative journey. I built my entire makeup art business on Instagram. I worked hard, improved, earned each follower, and was getting more opportunities than I thought possible. Until Instagram changed their business model and it became impossible to get my work in front of people. So after tearing my hair out trying everything I could think of I had no choice but to abandon my page and continue to watch my followers drain by the thousands. I could, and have, whine and complain about how unfair it is, and it is, but the truth is it was my fault.
So let me save you some time and frustration with the tips below.
How to Make Social Media Work for Your Art Business
Start with Your Own Website and Email List
Creating your own website is similar to buying a house as opposed to renting one. You can decorate it however you’d like, you make the rules and no one can kick you out as long as you’re paying the bills. It’s a place where you control everything and you’re not subject to anyone’s money-grabbing whims. This way, if something changes on one of your social platforms, you’ll have a list of people who want to see your work and you can reach out to them directly. It also creates a warm introduction when you create a new piece or product.
Diversify Your Social Media Platforms
If I had spent as much time posting on YouTube, Twitter, and Pinterest as I was on Instagram I would have reached a wider audience and I wouldn’t have so much to lose if one of the platforms failed. What’s silly is you don’t even need to make completely new content for each platform, you can use the same photo on each site with a few adjustments. You can use Canva to adjust the size of your images to the standards for each platform and a posting tool, such as Buffer, to schedule them to post every day. All of that for free. Which means it wouldn’t have even been that much more work. I could have then used the audiences I built on each platform to drive traffic back to my website and build up my email list. If I did that, when my Instagram turned into a dumpster fire, I would’ve had a pool to jump into.
Focus on Getting Your Work in Front of People in Real Life
There’s not really anything that compares to building a personal relationship with someone. While it is possible to build a connection online, sometimes things just click faster and make a bigger impression in person. A giant canvas on a wall might reach fewer people than an Instagram post but it will leave a much bigger impression on the few people who did get a chance to see it. A couple of minutes chatting with someone at a party could lead to an opportunity for your dream job. In a tech-driven world, never doubt the power of interpersonal connection. Get out in your community, make a list of businesses and groups that relate to your business, and work on building meaningful partnerships with them. Of course, it’s tempting to want to take over the world, but if you focus on your community and build your way out, you’ll be building on a foundation that won’t crumble at the slightest breeze.
“Ah, how quaint, a brick house.” - The Big Bad Wolf, Muppet Classic Theater
Don’t Let Social Media Tank Your Art Business
Social media can be a great opportunity. But please, don’t make the same mistakes I did. Make social media work for you, don’t work for it. Don’t let a quest for followers and the ever distant art career cost you your joy or mental health. Create your own website, build an email list, diversify your platforms, and get out and build relationships in your community. That’s how you can make social media work for your art business.
How do you use social media to share and promote your work? How has it effected your creativity and output?
Looking for some fun, holo, inspiration? Check out my print shop!