3 Keys to a Badass Instagram to Sell Your Art Online - sell your art on social media with a killer first impression that attracts art buyers
Episode 10 Show Transcript - Empowered Artist Podcast
To attract quality art buyers, as an Artpreneur, you absolutely must have a badass Instagram account. It is crucial that you nail your first impression on your Instagram so that your art buyers want to follow you and stick around!
They want to be wowed and see what's coming next, and they hit that follow button.
I'm going to teach you today three things to nail your first impression on your social media account.
Then, how to audit your own social media account to attract art buyers and grow your following on social.
Now, before we dive in today, I just wanted to say, wow, I can't believe we're on Episode 10 of Empowered Artist Podcast.
If you are new listening here, go listen to the trailer (Episode 1). It is my absolute purpose to help you live a life that you freaking love from your art and give you that confidence every single week to take one small action to get you there. I have chronic migraines, and my other mission is to help those who are struggling with invisible battles to show up and live your dreams no matter what you're facing.
The reason I'm bringing this up right now is that so many of you are sharing your stories with me. Whether you've been commenting on my Instagram, or you've been leaving reviews, which really helps the show, thank you so much. On YouTube I got a comment from a stroke survivor about how she's taking action in her art business and feeling empowered. Wow, that's incredible. You're a stroke survivor and you found art. My mom actually had a stroke when she was 48, and so it's been 20 years since that happened. I can't believe it.
It is truly what gets me out of bed when I have daily migraines, you guys. It's what gets me out of bed knowing that I am helping you at least take one step towards living a life of more freedom, not living by someone else's rules, and doing what you love every day, creating your passion and financial freedom from it. So keep sharing your stories with me. They keep me moving, and they make me wanna create more great content for you. ❤️
So that brings me to a really cool announcement.
So we have a voicemail for the podcast.
I wanna hear from you. I want this to be a two-way conversation, always.
So tell me what's on your heart right now?
What is a challenge that you're having in your business that I could answer on the show?
Or, what episodes do you want to hear in the future?
Or if you heard an episode and you just wanna make a comment about it, leave me a voicemail. 🥰
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I want to create more content that's shaped around exactly what you want to hear, because this show is for you and me and the mission that we're creating to empower artists everywhere.
Let's dive in to today's show.
The 3 keys to your killer first impression on Instagram are your profile photo, your bio, and the first 9 pieces of content.
So let's talk about each of those.
1. Your Profile Photo
It has to be your face. Seeing your face and what you do is really important when building connection with your ideal client.
Your profile photo has got to have your art in it. We have to know in a split second that you are an artist and we've gotta see your smiling face. So we're looking for a headshot with your artwork in the background or you holding your art. But it needs to be a nice, tight shot where we can see all of that.
And no substitutions, not your logo, not an avatar, nothing else. Only your smiling face and your art. People are not going to emotionally connect with your logo. And no one's gonna remember a logo. I know you think it's really important and cool. Your art buyer is not going to remember it. I'm sorry. Now, your warm and welcoming face is what's going to be memorable.
That's an instant connection to your client. That's relationship building. People build relationships with people, not logos or anything else. Okay, so already we're talking about showing our faces online, and we're about to talk about that more. So let's go ahead and talk about feelings of anxiousness.
How Artists Can Show Up Online Despite Insecurities and Introversion
We're feeling anxious about showing up online. I talk to a lot of artists all the time. We have insecurities. There are things that stop us from being in the photo: perfectionism, introversion, I'm not a people person, or I just want privacy, all these things.
To be an artist and to be discovered by an art buyer online, you have to be seen.
So how do we do that when we do have insecurities, and we do have perfectionism holding us back? Let's talk about how you can, because I feel all these things too.
So how can I show up despite all that?
First thing that you can remember is your ideal client is imperfect too. They are imperfect, quirky, and weird just like us. Everyone is wonderfully weird and different. You need to show that about yourself because that's the realness and the connection.
The second thing is to just share about you because when you share your story, connection is formed and your audience will get a glimpse of themselves in you. That's the kind of person you want to sell your artwork to anyway. You're not trying to be anyone other than yourself.
The third thing, posting your art online, and posting a picture of yourself is not about us. Okay? We're not doing it for us, for vanity, for anything other than creating connection with our ideal client. Our profile is not for our neighbor or someone we knew in high school. That picture of us, and our artwork is going up for our clients, for our art buyers. It's not about us, if we looked pretty in the photo, if we posted the most beautiful masterpiece of artwork. No. We can post works in progress. We can show the whole process going down. We can post pictures of ourselves without makeup (or whatever it is) in the clothes we wear in the studio.
Showing up imperfectly is better than not showing up at all.
So right now, give yourself permission to show up imperfectly and be confident anyway.
If you are on my Instagram account, you will see pictures of me done up with makeup on and all that, and that's because there are so many days with my chronic illness that I'm wearing sweatpants and even washing my face hurts. There are days that I am putting on the outfit and the makeup, even though I don't want to, but I'm doing it to step into how I want to feel and the version of myself I want to be. That's a tangent. 🤗 But there are also plenty of videos face-to-camera where I'm talking to you cuz you don't care what I look like. I am just talking to you without makeup. I had Covid and I was talking to you guys with covid, online. So, it's not about what you look like, it's not about your age, and I get that question a lot with the students I work with. It's not about anything except for the relationship you're building with your customer.
I'm going to jump off that soapbox for just a minute so we can get to the rest of the content today!
2. Your first nine photos or videos create your first impression.
That's the first thing a stranger is going to see when a new user arrives on your profile. So you want that to make a great first impression, and you want that to be intentional and represent what keywords and phrases you have in mind about your brand, your art, and who you are. So if you were to write those down on a piece of paper, those key things you want to be memorable for… just keep that in mind.
That's what you want those nine things to do. Now in those nine photos, you want to aim to have yourself in at least two for every six pieces of content. You want to be in at least every two of those or more. I'll tell you more about that in a minute.
Why? Because your ideal client needs to see you in order to build connection with the artist creating the artwork.
We're gonna come back to that.
3. Your social media bio is precious real estate.
You have a character limit of what you can put in there, and it needs to count. This space needs to clearly represent you and what you do. So two things here:
It needs to be clear that you are an artist and
It needs to be crystal clear that you are an artist with work for sale.
Now, this bio can be a miniature version of your artist's statement, so we get what your art and you are all about. I really like emojis that represent the essence of your brand because it also gives your profile warmth and your customer needs to feel warmth, so they feel very comfortable reaching out with any art-buying inquiries.
How to audit your social media profile to grow a social media following.
We talked about what intentions you want with your brand, and who you are, and writing down those as keywords. Think about your first nine pieces of content.
If you look at those and analyze them, what are they communicating about you and your brand? Make sure they are communicating what you intend for it to communicate to a complete stranger.
Example:
I remember I was doing an audit with one of my students who said that she wanted her brand and her art to be represented as colorful and vibrant, and those were some of the keywords that stood out. But when we were auditing her Instagram profile, there were a lot of photos of her home or her studio that were a lot of earth-tones and browns, and there weren't really photos that were close up of her art showing bright colors. So when you went to look at the first nine photos, colorful and vibrant were absolutely not what was sticking out. So you have to look at your profile in the eyes of a third party or a stranger and say, what is this actually communicating? Write down on one page what you want it to communicate, and then try to come in unbiased and write down some keywords.
What is it communicating? Here's what you can do.
How to audit your social media account
You can edit your first nine pieces of content.
My favorite thing on Instagram is you can pin your best content to the top.
So if you don't know what I'm talking about, there are usually three little dots or an option on a photo. And when you tap those dots, you want to click the option to pin to top.
That means that photo that you loved, that represented you best now floats to the top and stays pinned to the top of your profile. So that is part of that first impression until you change it. It’s the perfect thing to do.
Now you can do that with three right now on Instagram.
2. The other thing you can do is delete anything that does not represent you best. The only caveat with this is I wouldn't go crazy deleting old content. We're really just looking at your first nine photos right now. What I would do in the course of a month or two is just go back and look at your Instagram and you can do a little quickie audit.
Don't go crazy deleting stuff because content and data is key. Okay? It's gonna be key in your business to always post as much as you can and learn what your audience likes, what they don't like. Let the data inform you. It's better to post more and not be so hung up on the details. And then let the data inform your decisions.
Again, don't go crazy deleting stuff. But if something is really just not resonating with the essence of you and your art and it wasn't your best piece, you can always delete it. Nothing is permanent, Okay? That's why we can't be afraid to make decisions or take action.
Nothing is permanent and you're not gonna F up.
So how do I know all this is true?
I spent years of trial and error growing my Instagram account, and when I posted artwork on the wall or by itself versus a shot of me in the photo with the artwork, the difference was astounding.
The photos of art alone, what I now call flat photos, performed so much lower. But the photos where you could see me creating, even if it was just my arm in the photo with a brush performed 10 times better than the flat photos of just the art. The more I showed up in the photos, whether I was creating the work, or I was holding a painting that was finished, the engagement would skyrocket.
I let the data lead the way. I let the customers tell me what they liked, just through the data. Data is key. I have taught my Artpreneur Academy students to do the exact same thing.
For example:
I was on a call with my student, Diana M, and we were doing an Instagram audit of her account.
And before Diana applied these techniques, her content was flat in the way that we talked about. We had zero connection to the artist. It was a lot of closeup pictures of her artwork, a lot of resin work, showing close-ups of resin-coated cheese boards and a lot of the same thing over and over.
But there was no pictures of her and no pictures of her creative process. But after Diana posted pictures of her and various art styles and photo shoots of her on the coast in Maine, we could see her with her art and it really started showing a story. She put in a couple videos and we could see multiple offers in her business.
So as a customer, I'm like, oh, I could buy this from her and I could buy X, Y, Z from her. She doesn't sell just one thing. Her profile really started to show. A multi-dynamic, multi-passionate version of Diana; she had so much personality and it was so interesting. You got a feel for her personality and her several product offerings.
So that made a killer first impression. Now let me tell you the results she got were crazy good. It was so much more intriguing to the buyer because in 90 days she was seen by over 263,000 accounts. And in six months she gained 400 followers. That was tripling her Instagram following.
And guess what else? She tripled her art sales online.
So isn't the strategy so much easier?
You're probably a very visual learner like I am, and I wanna show you exactly what I'm talking about, not only with Diana's profile, but with other art students, and give you more examples of these awesome strategies applied on Instagram, so you can see how you can do it too.
I will show you that in my free masterclass called Secrets of A Six-Figure Artpreneur.
You’ll learn:
The strategies you learned today with all the visuals, and I'll even give you a slide deck to download at the end of class.
PLUS:
The proven blueprint that I use to grow my business - and it's ready to adopt to your unique business. It's time you get paid your worth!
Why Instagram and a website is not enough to make consistent, predictable art sales.
How you can craft a rock-solid plan that can bring your business to six figures and beyond. (I really want you to be able to skip the unnecessary struggle. It sucks, and you deserve much better than that. Your time is precious.)
Plus the 21 Instagram posts that you can copy and paste to convert art sales.
If you are serious about making a full-time living as an artist online and leaving behind a reality that you don't love, then save your seat in my free masterclass.
Seating is limited, so snag your seat right away and I'll see you inside.
Love and Positive Vibes,
Jenna
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Resources:
Empowered Artist Podcast Site: Freebies + Leave a Voicemail