social media for visual artist

Social Mediafor Visual Artists

Diana Mounter29 March 2010

A quick story of how social media might be your gallery door.

Social Media for Visual Artists

It started with a tweet.


Led to Facebook.


Which led me to their website.


And I looked him up on Flickr.


Within a few minutes...

I’d started following them on Twitter, Flickr, Facebook and subscribed to email.

4 different places they can can grab my attention


Networks of people connected to more people connected to more people!

How artists use social media

(that I know)


Artists I know...

Meet Chris, Scott, and Nathan.

What do they get out of it?


People, jobs, inspiration, feedback.

“...I like to stay in touch with people I know...

network with people who might give

me a job...

for inspiration from blogs and aggregators...

and post to some work if I wanted

feedback...”

Chris: design and illustration


Notify people of new work.

“...notify and generally publicize when I am in

an exhibition or a book, and any new work

that I have finished. I can bring attention to

my work, a sort of folio/WIP.....”

Scott: design and photography


An invaluable resource.

“...finding people all over the world who

publish/save/share/curate content that relates

to me and my work. Put 20/50/100s of these

people together and I have a invaluable

resource...”

Nathan: design, visual art, computers


Facebook - broadcast news and events.

“...Good for befriending galleries and

organisations who then broadcast

upcoming events, opening nights, calls for

entries and other useful things....”


Delicious - let other people find you links and be a filter to the junk.

“...build a network of people with similar

interests to you and let them find and

bookmark great stuff on the net for you. Also

a useful search tool (only looking through

sites that other people have marked as useful

can cut out a lot of the junk)...”


Twitter - a stream of media/inspiration/news.

“...I use Twitter to build a network of people

with overlapping interests. Follow innovators/

leaders in different fields and receive round

the clock stream of media/inspiration/

news. A great way to find out about

exhibitions/openings/events...”


Tumblr - a scrapbook and a source of inspiration.

“...a fairly random but constant stream of

inspiration (photos, video, writing, audio etc)

from a tailor made network of people. ...”

“...I use tumblr as a scrapbook of things i

find interesting...”

Social Networks can lead to face-to-face collaboration


Dorkbot!

“...My social networks brought me information

about a Dorkbot chapter starting in my

hometown. This lead to me going to

meetings/talks/presentations and building a

real-world art focused network. This led to me

collaborating with a group of about 8 or 9

artists to put together exhibitions in Canberra

and Newcastle...”

Nathan: design, visual art, computers

Social Media can be used in Art too


We feel fine

Interactive visualization created from peoples status updates.

And at events


Visible tweets

Use hashtag’s for your events and create visual interactions.

How can galleries use social media?


Entry points: Twitter and Facebook

Follow Artmonth via Facebook and Twitter.


Find out what your audience wants...

Or experiment and see what people like.


Ideally you want this to happen

Be in the networks where your audience lives.


co-create

tell people what’s on

send your ideas out into the world

share your resources/art

enable collaboration

Go further: be part of the inspiration, enable collaboration.

Thanks

Find me on most social networks

as broccolini.

social media for visual artist

Technology