This document summarizes key points from a social media training session for artists presented by ArtSpan and SOMArts and taught by Jess Young. It discusses developing a social media strategy, effective social networking rules like interacting and sharing varied content, and tips for platforms like Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. Platform analytics and tools for scheduling, listening and sharing content are also covered. The training emphasizes using social media as a way to promote art and sales while developing audiences.

1. Presented by: Taught by:
ArtSpan & SOMArts Jess Young
Pictured: Cara Rose DeFabio
SOCIAL MEDIA 102 FOR ARTISTS

2. DON’T LET THE WORD
STRATEGY SCARE YOU
•Have you taken time to reflect on what’s working &
what isn’t?
•Now that you’re becoming proficient, do you have a
plan for how to use social media as strategically?
•What do you need to know before you build a social
media strategy?

3. 7 Rules of Effective Social Networking
• Think of social as for mass receiving, not mass broadcasting
• Interact
• Say interesting things & people will become interested in you
• Hone your identity: visual & personal
• Share to allow others to experience vicariously
• You first, your art second
• There’s no magic bullet; slow & steady wins the race
Adapted from a post by Michael Epstein, 1/19/11,
www.musicthinktank.com

4. DON’T BE “THAT GUY”
•1/3 about you & your work
•1/3 about your interests using
material from an outside source
•1/3 just be yourself; ask
questions, share, reciprocate
Adapted from a post by Amy Guth,
The Rule of Thirds in Social Media, 7/5/12 www.chicagotribune.com

5. VISUAL CONTENT IS KING
• Why Pinterest is the fastest growing social media site in internet history
• Why Facebook’s rollout of Timeline design makes images more prominent
(SOMArts’ current cover photo makes use of this)
• Why artists are great social media users

6. GET THE EDGE
• Affinity: how “friendly” you are with
someone; influenced by page views &
interactions
• Edge Weight: videos, photos & links over
likes, comments; variety is key
• Recency: FB has new content favoritism (half
life:1 hour & 20 minutes)
Adapted from a post by Kevin Newman,
Facebook Edgerank: What Marketers Need to Know, 5/3/12,
www.econsultancy.com

7. 10 MINUTE STRATEGY
PLAN REVIEW SESSION

8. NERD ALERT
•Dashboards can help you monitor your success
•Monthly benchmarking can take less than 15
minutes and give you powerful information
•Facebook Insights, Qwitter, Simply Measured
and other free tools can help

9. DASHBOARD DO’S
• Virility: what type of content sparks engagement & sharing
• Reach: organic vs. viral vs. paid advertising
• Likes/unlikes: audience size can be broken down demographically; unlikes
can give you insights into what’s NOT working
• People Talking About This is the number of individual people who have
engaged with your Page in a way that it created a story that went out into the
newsfeed. Can include commenting, liking, sharing a post or an image, liking
the Page, mentioning the Page in a post by tagging your page with the @
symbol, RSVP’ing to one of your events, tagging a photo on your Page, &
writing a post on your Page’s wall.
• Engaged users measures actions that don’t generate a story (browsing
photos, watching a video, clicking a link)

10. 5 MINUTES WITH FACEBOOK INSIGHTS

11. WHO SAYS ARTISTS CAN’T BE ORGANIZED?
• Rather than scheduling posts, why not create an editorial calendar? Asana or Google
Calendar are free options
• Post schedulers like Buffer or Hootsuite can be helpful, but have a downside: you may
not be there to engage immediately with people who like/comment/share
• People worldwide publish, share save & curate content that relates to your work.
Have you tapped into the right sources?
• RSS readers like Google Reader and listening tools like Google Alerts, Social Mention
or Rowfeeder can help you pull in content to share

12. SOCIAL BUTTERFLY?
Biggest players:
Facebook: 7 billion
Twitter: 182 million
Pinterest: 104 million
LinkedIn: 86 million
Tagged: 72 million
Google+: 61 million
*numbers from Experion referenced in
Mashable article, 4/7/12
Others to watch:
Tumblr: home to 64.7 million blogs, but 50%
of visitor base is under 25
*numbers from Wikipedia, 7/18/12

13. TWITTER IN 5 WORDS
•Hashtag
•DM
•@reply
•RT
•Twitterstream

14. PINTEREST IN 4 WORDS
•Pin
•Follow
•Board
•Bookmarklet

15. SHOW ME THE MONEY
•Does your store produce individual links for
products? When you share this link on
Facebook, does a thumbnail image appear?
•Big Cartel, Shopify & Etsy are popular and
optimized options
•Use the store’s Facebook app, but don’t expect
it to do all the work

16. NEED A BIGGER MEGAPHONE?
•FBads be targeted to interests,
demographic, and user behavior
•Ave.$0.79 CPC for audience
building campaigns (i.e. “like my
page”)
•Ave. $1.08 CPC for external links
(i.e. your online store or website)
•New option: promote individual
status updates