Every visual artist can benefit from using social media.

Images are king on social media.

They get shared more than almost anything else on the big-name social networks. Good news for visual artists, right? Yep, unless they’ve shrugged off social media as unnecessary or see it as a copyright threat.

Visual artists can and should use social media. There are a few core reasons why this is true, and a few basic ways to address copyright concerns.

 

The Virtual Gallery With Killer Events

Social media is an excellent tool for artists. The inherent characteristics found in nearly all social networks can be put to excellent use:

  1. Virtual Gallery. Whether on Pinterest, Facebook, Google+ / Picasa, or YouTube, social media is built for images. Consider setting up your online gallery through one of these services instead of hiding it on your proprietary website. Give people a chance to find, share, and comment on your work, just as they would if it were a real gallery showing.
  2. Killer Events. Let your fans know about your art-centered events, whether they are online events or gallery showings. Find creative ways to use the events systems of different social media networks.
  3. Teaching. People want to learn to do things themselves. Don’t hoard your knowledge or skills; share some of it. Use Google Hangouts or YouTube to teach a few tips and techniques to your fans. Answer how-to questions in comments section.
  4. Sell. Yes, sell. Promote pieces that are available for sale. Artists need to make money, and your fans aren’t opposed to you asking. Provided, of course, that you’re not all about the hard sell. You have to share, listen, and give first.

An Optimal Example

Let’s set up a sample timeline of how an artist might put social media to work on a typical daily basis.

  1. Create. New painting is finished, and a blog post on the artist’s website, featuring the image and some thoughts on how and why it was created, is published. A brief video made while the painting was in progress could be featured.
  2. Share. The new blog post is shared via Twitter and LinkedIn. Schedule future mentions using TodayLaunch. The image is posted to a specific gallery on Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, and / or YouTube, as well as a link to the blog post.
  3. Teach. The artist heads over to Quora to see if there are any art questions he or she can answer.
  4. Connect. The artist finds other artist blogs or social media pages and participates in discussion, sharing, and connecting.

The actual creation of the art work is always the most important (if you don’t have work to share, you won’t go far), but in as little as 15 minutes each day, you can do a fair amount of publicizing your art and building strong networks.


Orphaned images happen easily when shared, reused, or pinned in social media.

Orphaned Images

Orphaned images are those found on the Internet that have no connection to the artist. They have no parent. Google Image searches produce the most orphaned images since users can grab an image outside of the context of the page it is used on. Pinterest is a growing source of orphaned images, too. Although correct use of Pinterest means the source link stays with the photo, some users purposefully remove that link. Images can be uploaded without a link, or changed to a link of the user’s choosing.

What’s an artist to do?

  1. Make your policy known. Be sure to have a copyright page that is linked on all pages of your website and social media accounts. Be clear on what usage you allow with your images, and make it easy for people to contact you.
  2. Imprint your images. Put your name and the copyright symbol, plus your website url, on every image. You don’t have to obliterate the image, but put it someplace where it can be seen and not easily cropped without affecting the image. Most users orphan images not with malicious intent, but out of ignorance.
  3. Find out where your images are being used. You can search Pinterest using http://www.pinterest.com/source/yourwebsite.com to find out what’s been pinned. You can also search Google Images to see if anyone has grabbed your images without asking you by following the steps described here. There is a website called TinEye, which does a reverse search for your image.

It is difficult to accept that a few online users are going to take images, and some will even go through the extra work to orphan them from the artist. These three steps above will help, but artists will have accept that there are always a few people (even other artists!) who are going to steal. One solution is to be extremely agressive and protective of images, even keeping them off the Internet. In the long run, though, this will hurt an artist, particularly one who isn’t established yet. Find ways to encourage your fans to do things right, and reward them for their support of your art.

The benefits of putting your work online far outweigh the negatives financially, creatively, and relationally (connecting to other artists and fans). Get famous with your art, even if it’s only in your social network circles.