Is the Social Media Bandwagon Right for You?

by guest artist/author:Matt LeBlanc

By day I’m an agency account director and an abstract artist by night. My day job consists of managing multi million dollar advertising campaigns and I constantly discuss online marketing strategies with my clients.

The online world was turned upside down a few years ago with the introduction of Social Media. The Social Media bandwagon is not only for big businesses, but is it right for you?
The web is rapidly changing the way artists, proprietors and corporations do business and most importantly how we market our products.
Marketers used to be in control of the message. Now the consumer is definitely in control and they have a lot of power and influence.
Corporations have a harder time being social because they are so process oriented and have too much red tape inside their corporations stopping them to really open themselves up on Social Media channels. They are afraid to be “out there” because they think that the consumer will kill their brand.

News flash!!! Consumers are controlling your brand whether or not you’re on the Social Media bandwagon.

To me the Social Media world comes down to two key things:

content
- You have to give a good reason for people to follow you and providing accurate and relevant content is key.
- The key for any artist is to become a leader in their field and to provide good, accurate and related content to their peers.
relationships
- It’s not the amount of relationship that’s important. It’s the quality of them.
- More and more consumers are asking their peers online about business decisions.
- think in terms of quality over quantity

Social Media is very powerful. For example:

I was watching a back & forth conversation on Facebook the other night where one of my friend had inquired about a landscaping company. She got convinced within 5 minutes by her peers to drop that company and go with a more reputable & affordable company. You can see right here the power of relationships.

More people are using the web to interact with each other and seek niche specific and useful content. Twitter is becoming a huge database of content vs. status updates, which is the way it first started.
There are two places where artists mostly fail in the social world:

trying to do too much
and not providing enough of relevant content.
- I see a lot of artists posting their recent artwork over and over again.
- If they have existing consumers following them and they are not really looking to buy at the moment, these buyers will start ignoring the posts.
- However, if they would take the time to post about something other then their recent work, they might keep engaging the potential buyers and keep them for the long run. It doesn’t have to be complicated. They just need to provide the right content and not too often.
- It’s still good to post the recent work but it should be part of the mix and not the focus.

Many bandwagons are about trying to sell you something and often something you don’t want. But, if you can become a professional at providing everything about your product, your process and your industry, then you don’t have to sell your product anymore. Your customers will come to you because you have built an image for yourself and your brand is strong enough to make the sale.

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Matt lives and works in the city of Dieppe, New Brunswick, Canada. When it comes to painting, Matt loves movement and color. All of Matt’s paintings have rich textures, as he mostly uses heavy body paint. His art fuses design, color, and proportion to harmonize with each client’s decor. Check out Matt’s interesting article, “Painting Abstracts – The Process Behind the Art”

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Matt, thanks for sharing another great article with us! ~Lori