The Birdbath: Digital Tips & Trends, May 2022
Greetings from The Birdbath! This monthly newsletter from Bower Blue takes a look at digital tips & trends impacting the visual arts & design communities.
This month, we’re sticking with Instagram. Plenty of news to look at, so let’s dive in. Any questions? Let us know.
#1. CH-CH-CH-CHANGES… TO THE ALGORITHM
They’re at it again! On April 20, head of Instagram Adam Mosseri announced new changes to the Instagram ranking algorithm, meant to put more focus on original work (also via [checks notes] Twitter). A well-used — if unadvised — path to growing your Instagram audience has been to repost popular content, effectively leveraging other people’s popular post to grow your own audience. Instagram is cracking down on this practice by instituting changes to its ranking algorithm to highlight original content. While this is surely a move in the right direction, we do feel it is a bit of a half-measure in that it does not appear to address the other side of that equation that we in the art world are all-too-familiar with — uncredited use of artists’ original content. Social Media Today has a summary of the announcement and what it means, including some important clarifications.
#2. SO YOU NEED TO POST MORE ORIGINAL CONTENT?
We hear a lot of our clients talk about the challenges of creating enough original content to keep feeding into their social media platforms. Although Instagram likes you to use their own in-app tools to create content, it’s important to point out here that Instagram clarifies that original content that is edited outside of Instagram, then uploaded to the app, won’t be penalized under this change. Creating great content can be a lot of work. That’s why at Bower, we put a strong emphasis on having multi-purpose, evergreen content as a key element of any content strategy, to ensure that our clients get maximum benefit from the content we create with them. Want to learn more about evergreen content? Head over to Buffer for a solid explainer, or ask us.
#3. FILE UNDER: STRANGE BUT TRUE
Recently, The Art Newspaper’s Aimee Dawson, in her blog Insta’gratification tackled the question, Why do art worlders Instagrams keep getting hacked? And there’s a good lesson in it, because it might not be why you think. Is it because as art worlders we are perceived as wealthy targets for a ransom? No, it’s because as art worlders, we love our Instagram. Many art worlders’ Instagrams have a very high engagement rate, which is what makes them an appealing target for hacking. Head over to Dawson’s post for more details and some ideas about what to do if you are targeted — mostly, good luck — but if you get stuck, reach out.
RECENT WORK
Legendary performance artist Marina Abramović was recently featured in her ninth solo exhibition with Sean Kelly, Performative. In this video, Abramović talks us through the exhibition which acts as something of a mini-retrospective of her five-decade career. Watch the full video here.
Bower Blue produces digital strategy & content for galleries, museums & cultural nonprofits. (Take a look at some of our clients.)
Follow us on Instagram to see more of our productions and other work. And of course we’re always up for saying “Hello.”
