While all content on social media is consumed extremely fast, art on the other hand, needs more time to be understood, absorbed and valued.
Artists, therefore, are left with three options:
1.Adjust art and content to better suit the social media algorithm to gain exposure.
2.Keep creating and sharing content that is not suited for Instagram and gain minimum exposure.
3.Leave the platform and look for alternative ways. Read about an alternative option here: Do not compromise your art for exposure! Take back artistic freedom with Artunio!
Now let’s look at an example, it may be a bit raw and straightforward but let’s face it, it is often a reality.
There are two accounts:
a) Imagine that you have created a fresh, brand-new Instagram account as a painter. You take high quality photos of your artpiece, that you had worked on for weeks or months, and post it on Instagram.
b) Now, a young and attractive girl posts a photo of an artpiece that took her a few hours to make on a brand-new Instagram account. The main difference is that she is standing by the painting and does not only create a post, but a story and a reel with gripping captions.
Who do you think will get more attention and who will therefore be pushed by the Instagram algorithm to be seen even more?
You guessed right! The second account! It is important to acknowledge that it is not the artpiece that is receiving attention…it is the girl – she might even completely leave the artpiece out of the post and hug a cute puppy instead and eat pizza to get better results. The problem is not that your artpiece is not “good” enough. It is the Instagram algorithm that does not give credit to high quality content unless it is liked, commented, shared and so on.
Complicated fight against food, animals, humas bodies,…
Did you know that food, animals, human faces and bodies are the most liked, viewed and consumed content on Instagram? There is nothing we can do about it. That is simply the “culture” of Instagram and how our brain works. While creating art and creating content at the same time may be agreeable under certain circumstances, you have to take into account that this “Instagram culture” is fighting against you. Why?
To gain exposure, you have to fight all the other topics like food, fashion, travel, beauty, animals and even more, while there are teams and companies that work even harder to get this exposure. Instagram and social media will never change, we have to acknowledge that. What we can do is to create a new social network where art and artists are the main focus.
Check – Environment on social media is ridiculous and not suited for artists to find out more.
After using Instagram as your main platform to communicate with your audience, you may realize after a while what drummer Thomas Pridgen realized and pinpointed in his post accurately:
There is nothing wrong with creating content, if that is what you want to do. If you are an artist and devote a little of your time to content creation, it is ok. But if you want to be an artist and the amount of time to create content becomes superior to the time working on your art, you are in serious danger.
What should you do about it?
Ok, you might say: ‘Well, I will create content without adjusting it to Instagram “culture” and spend just a little time a week on creating. That should do it, right?’ Well, it depends. It is not a problem if you just want to share photos of your work or your life and receive nothing back from it.
But it does not work that way if you want something in return. The demands are increasing. Nowadays you have to do much more for the same amount of views and exposure than five years ago.
In the past, you shared your images with the community and it was enough, but Instagram is a marketing tool now and everybody fights to be seen. Only those who play by the rules, win.
Just watch “I Don’t Think Instagram is Good For Artists” a video by a freelance Illustrator artist Holly Exley about this issue.
Find out more about this issue here: Do you want to be a content creator or an artist?
The surroundings do not influence only how your audience perceives you and your art. It directly influences your art and your creativity as well as the way you see yourself as an artist.
The formats, videos, number of likes, context – they all influence how you perceive yourself and your art. Photographer Chris Hau talks about his experience here:
Your first thought might be, that it changes the work of photographers but that it does not affect others. You might think so, but it influences everybody and you might not have realized it by now.
If you are into music and especially guitar, you might have heard about Mateus Asato. One of the biggest breakout guitar stars removed his Instagram account. His reasons were the “overwhelming” pressure of social media and loss of inspiration.
In short, Instagram can give you a lot of exposure but you have to fit their formats and rules.
A lot of artists, and maybe even you, wanted to shut down their Instagram account. You may have even shut down your account for a while but eventually came back. Why? You simply do not have an alternative…or do you?
The art world needs a new social network that is not driven only by profit of the company. Social media like Instagram, Facebook or Tik-Tok are designed for everybody and are therefore suited for nobody. The current options cause big problems to existing artists and could be a huge burden for future and emerging artists.
Compromising art for exposure, ridiculous environment, escalating demands to keep up with the algorithm is just the surface of the bigger and deeper problem.
While the problems may seem irreversible, there is a way how to deal with it. The solution lies in a brand-new social network called Artunio, where all focus is on artists and people in artistic field.
Artunio is created for artists, audiences and everyone working in the cultural and creative industry. The platform serves anyone ranging from performers, creators, managers to even patrons either as individuals or organizations.
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” (Albert Einstein)
Same as: “If you judge artists by their ability to beat the algorithm and by the numbers of their followers, they will live their whole life believing they are worthless.” (me)
Instagram does not at all take into account any artistic value. The algorithm just does not care. It only cares about engagement and time spent on the platform, because that is how they make profit.
Pin your event on the Artunio map and let people in the vicinity of that location be notified that there is an event they might be interested in and directly buy tickets. Reach people interested in this type of events from greater distances.
While galleries are still one of the best options, their vulnerability was shown during the pandemic with artists looking for alternative ways to show their art to collectors. Artunio Gallery is meant to connect artists, galleries, and collectors around the world.
Stop using your social media account as your main portfolio. It makes your work look cheaper, unprofessional, it does not show your real qualities and your follower count may even discourage others to work with you.
