The Birdbath: Digital Tips & Trends, Fall 2022
Greetings from The Birdbath! This newsletter from Bower Blue takes a look at digital tips & trends impacting the visual arts & design communities.
That was it? Summer is over?! Here at Bower we are excited to be sharing news about some long-in-development new client projects, as well as new projects for continuing clients. But as they say in the news business: First, the news…
Thanks for being here. Let us know what’s on your mind.
#1. $70M AT MoMA FROM IRL ART > DIGITAL
The big story recently was about MoMA shifting $70 million in speculative assets from real art into digital art and other digital initiatives. To be fair, the MoMA isn’t selling work in its collection to fund this digital initiative — the works have long been on loan to the MoMA from the Paley collection. So we are not quite sure if this move says more about the importance of digital initiatives to MoMA or about the calibre and range of the Paley collection (apparently not worth hanging on to?). Regardless of the source of the funds, $70 million is a huge commitment to what also reads to us like a very vague purview, in that, “most of the proceeds are earmarked to expand the museum’s digital presence, from possibly launching its own streaming channel to potentially buying more art, digital or otherwise [all emphases ours],” per the Wall Street Journal.
#2. VIDEO KILLED THE PODCASTING STAR
Remember the summer? Barely, we know. In our last newsletter, we were talking about how to get your podcast on to YouTube and the various advantages for doing so. The Guardian takes a deeper look at how “‘It’s the way the industry is going’: how YouTube is transforming podcasting.” Pointing out that it is not just YouTube, but that TikTok is also part of the shift to video podcasting, they ask the important question, “Video podcasts are booming, giving creators access to new audiences. But does this risk ruining what made the audio format so satisfying?”
#3. SOCIAL MEDIA, BRIEFLY
- Instagram native scheduler: many of you may have already noticed a native scheduling option now appearing when you post to Instagram. We’ve been toying around with ours and will get back to you on what we think. It probably meets a huge demand for the most basic feature of being able to draft a post then schedule it go up later. In so doing it also bypasses some of the biggest challenges of third-party apps such as tagging in carousels, some location features, and a few other Instagram-native tools that the third party platforms can’t access. However, it is still pretty rudimentary in terms of the add-on features of the third-party apps, and Instagram continues to play pretty nicely with those platforms (e.g., adding the ability to schedule Reels) so we don’t really see it replacing those any time soon.
- Instagram continues to pretend to be helpful, regularly updating their guides for businesses on Instagram, with a heavy emphasis on marketing, and using Reels (see below).
- Instagram also continues to push Reels especially hard. Frankly, of course, because Reels continues to struggle against TikTok, but our advice is that you can use the challenges that Instagrams is having with Reels to your advantage, as they pour resources and (more importantly) algorithmic and UI-driven attention into Reels. Instagram Shares New Tips on How to Use Instagram Reels for Marketing
CLIENT UPDATES!
We are thrilled to be working with the Jack & Shanaz Langson Institute & Museum of California Art at the University of California, Irvine. We recently started production on our first video, part of a larger digital media strategy we are developing and implementing for them. Our first shoot was last week with the Langson’s director Kim Kanatani, as well as artist Kevin Appel, professor and chair of Art at UC Irvine and Langson IMCA interim associate director, at the recently-opened exhibition Echoes of Perception: Peter Alexander and California Impressionism.
Bower Blue produces digital strategy & content for galleries, museums, & cultural nonprofits. (Take a look at some of our clients.)
Follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn for updates, and see more of our productions and other work on Vimeo. And of course we’re always up for saying “Hello.”
