I know social media is an essential part of your art gallery’s sales and marketing strategy. All the platforms are adding new features all the time to help enhance their user’s experience. Sometimes changes don’t always benefit small businesses. And it’s hard to keep on top of what’s new.
There are a handful of new features that launched in the last year that I think have a great potential for marketing an art gallery and selling art on social media. Some you may have heard of already but are maybe unsure how they could benefit your business and artists. Some features might be eye-opening and just what you were looking for.
Let’s check them out.
Facebook Business Suite to manage your gallery’s social media pages
I’m pretty excited about this management feature. Facebook has launched Facebook Business Suite, enabling you to manage both your Facebook and Instagram pages in one place. Hooray!
It intends to make life easier for small businesses to manage posts, messages, and analytics.
All the integrated functions make for a better marketing workflow as well. Download the app or use the desktop version and see if it saves you time.
Facebook also plans to add WhatsApp messaging integration into the app soon. I think we can expect it to become the primary interface for businesses.
One-way broadcast channels
Instagram will launch a one-to-many messaging tool where you can share text and images with your followers from Instagram inbox. This could be a used to invite followers to an opening or introduce a new artist. Once you create your first message, you followers will be asked if they would like subscribe to your channel. From there, they can broadcast messages from your gallery in their Instagram inbox. They can read and react, but not reply like with email.
People can also subscribe to your channel from your profile page. As of the time I’m writing this, the launch date is unclear, but it could be mid 2023.
Guides for presenting gallery shows on Instagram
Instagram Guides create a whole new way for your art gallery to curate on Instagram. This feature offers a new tool for discovery and storytelling about your artists and exhibitions.
Guides are a thread of posts that you have already created or saved. You can combine them with relevant headlines and commentary. They almost seem like a viewing room on Instagram.
I see it as an incredible tool to feature or archive a gallery show, fair booth, or whatever story you want to tell and save on the platform for a more in-depth experience for your followers. To create one, click the + sign to create a new post and guides are in the list of options.
And of course, each post within your gallery’s guides can link to a traditional post or product page where art can be purchased from your Instagram shop. Another Hooray!
Virtual gallery events
Now that art gallery virtual events have become part of the art world’s regular offering, LinkedIn Events could help you expand your network.
LinkedIn Events are not really that new, but they were made available to all LinkedIn users in May 2020 in response to a growing number of people working from home. They took off as a business tool when IRL events shut down.
LinkedIn is working to enhance its Events options by building new features for better discovery and promotion of events. They are also developing this feature to be a strong lead generation tool for businesses with robust data capturing.
Do you use LinkedIn for your art gallery marketing and sales leads today?
You may find you reach a whole new audience that may not be active on Instagram or Facebook. LinkedIn is undoubtedly a good platform for building relationships with industry professionals as well, such as interior designers. You may also find prospects read your LinkedIn messages more often than your art gallery’s email newsletters.
Scheduled Posts within LinkedIn
You can finally schedule posts within the app and edit publications after they have been schedule. Now if only they would enable this for group posts I would be a very happy camper.
Stories
LinkedIn has finally added stories to their content types you can post on the platform. They are for premium members only at this time. This feature will be similar to how other platforms do it. Stories will be 10 seconds of video or images and live 24 hours.
LinkedIn Messaging for your gallery’s lead generation
Speaking of messaging… Did you know you can send voice or video messages to people in your LinkedIn network? Doing this allows you to communicate with your connections in your own voice.
This is an excellent way to nurture leads or other professional relationships you are building on the platform.
It is an excellent tool for creating a dialogue about your gallery and artists’ work and gives a more personal, humanizing feel to your marketing. Video and voice messages help your connections get to know, like, and trust you, making them more likely to buy from and refer your gallery.
If LinkedIn is a social media platform your art gallery business uses, you might want to experiment with their event and video or voice messaging features.
Name Pronunciation
This feature is pretty cool if you have a name difficult to pronounce. Now you can record your name and have it show on your profile. This could be great for your connections or for you as you expand your network of art lovers on LinkedIn. No one likes to mispronounce someone’s name.
To the Point
I believe some of these new features on these social media platforms have incredible potential for running an art gallery business. Pick a few to experiment with that align with your art gallery’s social media goals for this year.
Remember the Rule of 7 – Your art gallery’s prospective buyers need to see your offer at least seven times before they really notice it and take action. These features allow you to present your offer (artwork, gallery invitation, consulting or framing services, etc.) in different ways on social media beyond the traditional post.
Except for Facebook Business Suite, the other features are designed to let you sell or market to your followers in a more personal and authentic way. That’s always a good thing.
I would love to know if you are using any of these features in your gallery’s sales and marketing. Post in the comments and share what you’re using and what you learned from your experiments.
Check out these articles on art gallery social media marketing
Making Instagram Work for Your Art Gallery Business
Why stories matter to your art gallery’s social media marketing
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