Managing your time on social media

How can you make your time on social media fun and effective?

Its all about your mindset

If you approach social media as a selling opportunity you will fail.

If you approach it as an opportunity to build long lasting relationships with people you will win.

If you were building a relationship with someone in the real world you would seek out ways to make them happy - make them smile - learn something new - entertain them... and that is the best way to build an audience on social media

Be organised

Take hold of the reigns and steer the carriage

Do everything with intention and purpose.

Have a content plan - that includes engagement time

Schedule posts for efficiency

Know your data

Check your insights regularly

Enjoy your time on social media and people will connect with your positive energy

Have fun with stories and reels

Here are some tips and advice from Pure artists on how they make social media work for them:

Photographer Richard Heep’s says:

“Show up every day and mix it up”

Keeping your Instagram content fresh and new will prevent you from becoming bored and finding it a chore. It should be fun!

A way to keep it fresh with time management in mind would be to bulk photograph your works.

Take your normal, face on image, but also take them in interesting places! For example, photograph your work in the wider context of the studio, go and hang it somewhere new in your house, even take the work outside! Take 5-10 images of each work in new and interesting places and you already have a store of images for those days when you’re not feeling up for finding new content. Make sure you’re looking through other artists accounts for inspiration and ideas.

Graphite Louisa Crispin says:

“Use explore to find new accounts and use save to create a personal gallery of inspiration etc… Most of what I follow is for my art inspiration which wouldn't necessarily be relevant to anyone else.”

It’s important not to post all these images at once.

“Save things for a rainy day - eek out what you have over a period of time / don’t post everything on one day and then nothing for weeks”

(BONUS TIP: one of Louisa’s other top tips is: ‘to "save" all call outs to find them quickly when [she’s] doing admin)”

Video your work!

Utilise the medium of video to walk around your work, zoom into your work and show off your work! Show the textures, size, form of each piece. Videos make for hugely dynamic content.

Make sure you are looking for opportunities.

Have social media in the back of your mind. It needn’t take a lot of headspace – even if it feels like it does sometimes. Normal every day things you enjoy can be used to save you time. Photograph the world around you and keep them in your image bank for later posting.

Louisa says:

“People are nosy - they want to know how / where / what / why?"

Studio shots/ working space/ tools.

Inspiration: Garden, skies, sea, meadow walks… help the audience see what you see.

Works in progress

In action videos (BUT WATCH FOR BACKGROUND CHAT! - I’ll leave that one to your imagination) A friend told me about a video where the presenter was only half dressed … and hadn’t noticed the mirror behind!)”

Automated posting:

Louisa says:

“Use auto posting for times when you know you will be busy elsewhere (buffer) - eg when you are setting up a show and also need to remind people to come to the PV that evening. Or when you are on holiday and don’t want it to be obvious. I post to Instagram and automatically share to Facebook but never my Twitter - images are essential for a visual artist and linking hides the image on Twitter. It’s so obvious to the twitter community that you are not fully engaged there.”

Final thoughts:

a. Create a manageable structure and stick to it.

b. Turn off unwanted notifications - phone bleeps etc

c. Use your common sense

d. Don’t get bogged down in the statistics (especially unfollows!)

And there we have it. Top tips for managing your time on social media for maximum fun and effectiveness.

If you have any comments or questions please do get in touch. You can follow us on social media and DM us on Instagram.