Social Media Research
According to Paul Weiner in "Navigating the art world Professional practice for the early career artist" (2020, p29) the emerging art audience is changing. He conducted a poll on his Instagram account asking what the art world looks like today for emerging artists online, with about 400 respondents for each question. He stated "Polling for this piece revealed 94% of the audience wanted to see real exhibitions by the artists who they follow online, 79% see more art online than in person, and 57% think the art they find online is as important as what they see in person. With this online audience growing rapidly, massive image-quality improvements on the horizon, and a digital-native generation coming of age, a significant shift is in progress towards accepting the virtual as real." I have struggled with accepting the digital shift that has been imposed on us due to the pandemic because nothing will compare to face to face interaction and the impact of larger pieces of work are lost in the tiny squares that lie on an Instagram grid.
Many of the respondents were discouraged by what they perceived as a top down system in the art world's historical power centres that don't introduce enough new artists. "On social media, by contrast, an almost unlimited number of artists are accessible at the tap of a finger. Unlike their Artforum reading forebears, the virtual public finds new artists through direct interactions without guidance from trusted art world gatekeepers. This audience looks for emerging artists who they can identify with or admire and raises them out of obscurity with little regard for prior media coverage, education , curatorial interest, or commercial success." (Weiner 2020, p30). This means that artists can grow a big following by appealing and connecting to the individual interests of the consumers rather than by proving to the professional art class that they conform to elite preferences and biases. This change in the art world is still not free from control by preference and bias however because the algorithm that selects what is shown to each individual consumer is riddled with rules that restrict the reach of certain accounts without explaining what is impacting said reach.
Social media has merged the term "artist" with "content creator" which has inevitably had an impact on the quality of the images posted because of the pressure to post every single day to maintain engagement through the algorithm and grow your following. This leads to artists overly editing the photos of their artwork or curating an internet persona to go along with their work which creates a disconnect between the artist and the audience because authenticity is often the first thing to disappear in an online persona in the pursuit of popularity. "The physical object is a carrier for a digital interaction and becomes a relic of digital life. Artworks exist in a different context for each viewer and are viewed in lockstep with documentation of everyday life and constructed social personas: food photos, memes, selfies, half naked people in swimsuits, party shots, targeted ads, and the most attractive eye candy influencers can make. As such, these works interact as much with social medias visual and algorithmic history as they do with the white walled, white cube art history" (Weiner 2020, p32).
Reference:
Social media is known to be a breeding ground for overly perfect curated versions of our lives and it was a really big step for me to put myself out there authentically because I am an overthinker with an unnecessary need for perfection. Allowing myself to post unpolished images and works in progress that showed me failing as well as my triumphs portrayed to the audience the authenticity of human imperfection where the aim of the game is to try and try again rather than be amazing all the time. I have created genuine connections within my fanbase and this has fed my motivation to keep posting once my deadlines have been submitted. By humanising my portrayal on Instagram and Facebook my audience are getting to know the real me and because of this I have already had fans invest in me as an artist because they believe in me, rather than just buy the artwork for the aesthetic qualities.
I have discovered scheduling apps for Instagram such as Plann where you can upload draft posts onto a grid that is linked with your Instagram account but lets you rearrange the tiles to create the visual display you want before uploading them. I have been able to plan my feed a week in advance and prep all the posts that I wanted to make so that I could just click "copy and post" in the app and it would transfer me directly to Instagram where I could post the image and caption in seconds. I was able to use informal captions and ask for opinions/solutions to problems I was facing directly to my audience. This reduced stress levels greatly to keep up with the account because the pressure of doing a post everyday was gone due to the forward planning and the informality of my captions opened the conversation to those that may not have the knowledge to talk about art formally but could give me practical advice that would relate to my issue. I will bring this new discovery to the social media team because it has absolutely transformed my social media account and I managed to post consistently for 46 days before the pressure of deadlines started getting to me and I decided to take a break to focus on getting everything submitted.
On your Instagram account you want "comments, reposts, direct messages, and likes - ideally in that order." When it comes to comments, you want to be leaving thought out comments that are varied and go beyond the ubiquitous "great work" in favour of something more human (Murphy and Thompson, 2020 p36). I tried to apply this advice when I was commenting on the other artist's posts in the exhibition. As the project manager I made a conscious effort to give every artists post a comment to make sure I wasn't showing any favouritism or preferential treatment to anyone in the team. It allowed me to give genuine compliments to the artists because I had taken the time to think about my comments and therefore felt more connected to the work and the artist. In their "Driving Engagement" section, Murphy and Thompson (2020, p37) assert that "As well as encouraging engagement on your own account, you should be giving what you hope to receive across other peoples accounts too." Some of the most successful accounts are those that regularly share other artists work and engage with the creative network that surrounds them. I reaped the benefits of taking the time to engage with everyone else' posts because when my post went live I received lots of engagement from many people I had previously engaged with and it proved this theory in my eyes.
Reference:
Many of the respondents were discouraged by what they perceived as a top down system in the art world's historical power centres that don't introduce enough new artists. "On social media, by contrast, an almost unlimited number of artists are accessible at the tap of a finger. Unlike their Artforum reading forebears, the virtual public finds new artists through direct interactions without guidance from trusted art world gatekeepers. This audience looks for emerging artists who they can identify with or admire and raises them out of obscurity with little regard for prior media coverage, education , curatorial interest, or commercial success." (Weiner 2020, p30). This means that artists can grow a big following by appealing and connecting to the individual interests of the consumers rather than by proving to the professional art class that they conform to elite preferences and biases. This change in the art world is still not free from control by preference and bias however because the algorithm that selects what is shown to each individual consumer is riddled with rules that restrict the reach of certain accounts without explaining what is impacting said reach.
Social media has merged the term "artist" with "content creator" which has inevitably had an impact on the quality of the images posted because of the pressure to post every single day to maintain engagement through the algorithm and grow your following. This leads to artists overly editing the photos of their artwork or curating an internet persona to go along with their work which creates a disconnect between the artist and the audience because authenticity is often the first thing to disappear in an online persona in the pursuit of popularity. "The physical object is a carrier for a digital interaction and becomes a relic of digital life. Artworks exist in a different context for each viewer and are viewed in lockstep with documentation of everyday life and constructed social personas: food photos, memes, selfies, half naked people in swimsuits, party shots, targeted ads, and the most attractive eye candy influencers can make. As such, these works interact as much with social medias visual and algorithmic history as they do with the white walled, white cube art history" (Weiner 2020, p32).
Reference:
- Weiner, P. (2020). Social Media and the Art World. In B. Murphy & N. Thompson, Navigating the Art World Professional Practice for the Early Career Artist (2nd ed., pp. 29-33). Delphian, Foolscap Editions.
Social media is known to be a breeding ground for overly perfect curated versions of our lives and it was a really big step for me to put myself out there authentically because I am an overthinker with an unnecessary need for perfection. Allowing myself to post unpolished images and works in progress that showed me failing as well as my triumphs portrayed to the audience the authenticity of human imperfection where the aim of the game is to try and try again rather than be amazing all the time. I have created genuine connections within my fanbase and this has fed my motivation to keep posting once my deadlines have been submitted. By humanising my portrayal on Instagram and Facebook my audience are getting to know the real me and because of this I have already had fans invest in me as an artist because they believe in me, rather than just buy the artwork for the aesthetic qualities.
I have discovered scheduling apps for Instagram such as Plann where you can upload draft posts onto a grid that is linked with your Instagram account but lets you rearrange the tiles to create the visual display you want before uploading them. I have been able to plan my feed a week in advance and prep all the posts that I wanted to make so that I could just click "copy and post" in the app and it would transfer me directly to Instagram where I could post the image and caption in seconds. I was able to use informal captions and ask for opinions/solutions to problems I was facing directly to my audience. This reduced stress levels greatly to keep up with the account because the pressure of doing a post everyday was gone due to the forward planning and the informality of my captions opened the conversation to those that may not have the knowledge to talk about art formally but could give me practical advice that would relate to my issue. I will bring this new discovery to the social media team because it has absolutely transformed my social media account and I managed to post consistently for 46 days before the pressure of deadlines started getting to me and I decided to take a break to focus on getting everything submitted.
On your Instagram account you want "comments, reposts, direct messages, and likes - ideally in that order." When it comes to comments, you want to be leaving thought out comments that are varied and go beyond the ubiquitous "great work" in favour of something more human (Murphy and Thompson, 2020 p36). I tried to apply this advice when I was commenting on the other artist's posts in the exhibition. As the project manager I made a conscious effort to give every artists post a comment to make sure I wasn't showing any favouritism or preferential treatment to anyone in the team. It allowed me to give genuine compliments to the artists because I had taken the time to think about my comments and therefore felt more connected to the work and the artist. In their "Driving Engagement" section, Murphy and Thompson (2020, p37) assert that "As well as encouraging engagement on your own account, you should be giving what you hope to receive across other peoples accounts too." Some of the most successful accounts are those that regularly share other artists work and engage with the creative network that surrounds them. I reaped the benefits of taking the time to engage with everyone else' posts because when my post went live I received lots of engagement from many people I had previously engaged with and it proved this theory in my eyes.
Reference:
- Murphy, B., & Thompson, N. (2020). Navigating the Art World Professional Practice for the Early Career Artist (2nd ed., pp. 34-41). Delphian Gallery, Foolscap Editions.
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