O brave new world
9 rules to help you get over your reluctance to participate on social media & make online conversations meaningful
Image via mkhmarketing.
A beginner’s guide
Artists need to reach their audiences, always. Fortunately for you, this is a veritable Golden Age of audience engagement and global conversation. Fans and critics can talk to their favourite (or least favourite) artists from halfway around the world. Artists can reach their fans, patrons and supporters easily. They can find inspiration anywhere and they can share it from home.
So what are you waiting for? Get on Facebook. Get on Pinterest. Sign up for Instagram. Tweet, for God’s sake! Why aren’t you doing it already?
Are you afraid? Of what? Spiders? It’s not that kind of web.
Are you afraid of technology? Have you used a telephone recently? A computer? Camera? Paintbrush? Hammer? You’re not afraid of technology. You use it all the time, and even the most revolutionary technical advance is incremental, and doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Most of it is designed in a way that’ll make you comfortable with it. It may be built by geeks, but it’s built for civilians.
The same is true of social media. Most of you have a Facebook account, so you’re familiar with how this works. People follow you, or they don’t, and they can see what you share, or they can’t. It’s like a conversation. People listen and respond, or they don’t.
Is it that you don’t have time for social media? That’s not true. Many of the conversations that you already have are happening via social media. It’s not a question of making time for new conversations; you’re just moving the conversations you already have to a new forum, and potentially reaching more people at the same time. Have the conversations you already have, just have some of them online. It’s easy for one of your regular customers or fans to enthuse about your stuff to other people (“You’ve got to check this out! It’s like…), but it’s easier for them to share it online (“You’ve got to check this out! Here it is: <link>).
Is it money? Well, social media are free (to the user, anyway). You can pay for help with using social media to promote yourself and your work. However, I’m going to help you for free.
Why do it?
The most important reason is to share. You want to reach your audience. But how, you ask. You already reach your friends and family. Start there. Talk to your friends, your family, the people who already know and love your work. You’re going to do this the same way—it’s the same technology repurposed. I can’t guarantee that your audience will expand if you start using social media to promote your work. But I can guarantee that traditional media reach traditional audiences in traditional ways. While tradition is great, doing the same things the same way almost guarantees the same results. The results you’ve likely been complaining about for years.
How do you do it?
The astute reader will notice a recurring theme in this piece: conversations.
Social media’s first name is “social.” That’s ostensibly what it’s for. It’s not for advertising (not for the average user, anyway), it’s for people to make connections and stay in touch. Use it for that. Go ahead and plug your work, or mention your show, or post pics of your paintings, but first and foremost, be social. If you’re looking to broadcast, go to broadcast media. If you want to be social, social media is where it’s at.
Many artists feel that their work starts or is part of a conversation. I don’t know if that’s the way you feel. But if you want to share your work on the web, then you need to be a part of the conversation that is already happening.
If you’re honest as an artist, the things that interest you will inform your work, just as it informs your conversation. The people who are drawn to you as a person because you are into queer theory or cyborgs or Outlander will be drawn to your work because it reflects your interests. If you talk about skateboarding and you shoot skateboarding videos, your audience will self-select. I’m not saying that it all happens without you, but it ought to feel effortless.
How does this translate to more work sold? Directly, it won’t. Here’s the worst that’ll happen: you’ll talk to interesting people about interesting things, read interesting articles, watch interesting videos and maybe go to interesting events. What else could happen? You could become the centre of a thriving online community, like Neil Gaiman. You could connect people with really cool stuff, like Cory Doctorow. You could become an Internet phenomenon like Stephen Fry or George Takei. You could get enough support to crowdfund an album like Amanda Palmer. You could inspire someone else to create something awesome.
Go ahead and promote. Tell people about your work. Talk about what interests you. Share your victories. Get support with your setbacks. Ask for help with what you’re doing. Just don’t make that the whole conversation. You know the people who only talk about themselves? Those people are boring jerks, and nobody likes to be around them. It’s the same online.
If you’re going to do this (and you’re going to), do it right. So here are some rules you ought to follow:
- Start with the people you already know. As one does. In real life. You have friends, and they introduce you to others. It happens organically. Let it happen organically online.
- Have conversations. Two-sided conversations. Listen at least as much as you talk.
- Offer something. Find stuff that interests you and share it. Tell stories. Provide criticism. Be supportive.
- Meet people. Make friends. Form relationships.
- Promote. But not all the time.
- Have a personality. If you’re a person, we hope you’ve already got one. If you’re an organization, it’s a little trickier. The best work-around here is to have one person responsible for your online voice, and they can make it a version of their voice.
- Be genuine. You don’t have to be you, exactly, but that’s the sort of thing that works best.
- Keep the conversation in one place. Don’t use Twitter, for instance, to drive someone to a conversation on Facebook. Cross-posting is fine, but the communities are different, even though they consist of many of the same people. Twitter conversations happen on Twitter; try to accept it.
- Have fun. This is supposed to be a good time.
Incidentally, this goes for businesses on social media, too.
So now what are you waiting for? You’ve got the know-how, you’ve got the tools, and you’ve got access to a computer. Get out there.
Be social!
