I once attended a seminar regarding how to use social media effectively from a broader non-art perspective. Fundamentally, the basic is: 1) attend events, 2) take pictures, and 3) post.

It sounds dumb but it’s true.

The issue is how to make effective posts that are engaging. When I originally ventured into doing this, I told my brother that I didn’t really look at other social media posts. He then asked me how exactly I was going to learn how to make a social media post without actually using the social media platforms like a user. I then had to engage with what I tried to stay away from to preserve my mental health.

Learning from experience as a user

Social media is a tool rather than a boon or a sin. The issue is that it can be addicting and sometimes sometimes can bring you into patterns of thinking that align with algorithms rather than what would bring value or improvement to your life. When we read news and social media online, it is a diet of what we are taking into our minds.

So I try to limit my usage of social media and be intentional on why I’m there. When I’m reviewing other posts, sometimes I’m thinking about how good some are. I think there is some kind of a recipe of making a post that is both meaningful and attention grabbing.

Key takeaways from journalistic writing

I like the idea of creating posts and content that I myself would like to see. This tends to be a generally good guideline on making good content.

Some posts are more “sticky”. Back in high school, I took journalism classes and we learned about writing a good news article. I learned the first paragraph, the “lead”, is critical to making sure that you grab your reader’s attention.

In today’s online age, this is probably the link that is click worthy, and balancing this from being “clickbait”. So whatever content is being created, it should be one that has value and does not mislead your audience.

General To Do Tips

Here’s the tips that I see work well:

1. Create reels. These seem to be the highest end of grabbing people’s attention. It’s a lot of work to be able to make videos but it’s worth the engagement as a “return on investment of time”.
2. Create multi-image posts. Having one post is great, but having more than one really helps with people’s need to flip through your images.
3. Put people in your posts. I don’t typically feature in my posts, but in general, I think others latch on to images of other people.
4. Be authentic. I’m tired of seeing messages where they are written by some corporate talk, in order to somehow offend the fewest number of people (the written equivalent of the Corporate Memphis art style). I think it’s better to put in something that reveals who you are, what you stand for, what you believe and people can sort out whether or not they want to see more that way. I like knowing that the other person who wrote it was a real person.
5. Comment and engage with other artists. The artist community is very positive and supportive online. We’ve all been in waves of doubt and it’s nice to have motivating support from others. What’s really powerful about these platforms especially for artist is that we are able to engage in a profession that is often isolating.

What not to do

It’s important as well I think to know what not to do.

1. Don’t put pressure on yourself to post. As content creators, it’s really easy to fall into the trap of putting pressure on yourself to make posts every week. I’m sure there’s some algorithm that discounts me for missing a post timeline. But I’ve realized that as an artist, my goal is not to make social media posts but to focus on my art. Therefore it is a distraction from my real goal of making art.
2. Don’t compare yourself to other artists. It’s hard to not do this when scrolling through social media. But recognize that these are people you might one day become rather than seeing it as evidence of how “bad” your current state is.