Napoleon Hill pioneered social influence long before it was a thing.

Think twice before you speak, because your words and influence will plant the seed of either success or failure in the mind of another.

— Napoleon Hill

Part One of How Artists Can Benefit from Becoming a Social Influencer opens the conversation to social influence and nano-influencing skills and how artists can use them to create awareness, boost interest, and drive sales. You don’t need to rely on traditional direct marketing, email marketing, or selling art online with social influence. Many artists already avoid or do as little of these things as possible, and that’s perfectly okay.

In Part Two, we dig deeper into how you can become a social influencer who benefits your micro-tribe with the happy byproduct of making art sales to buyers in a sphere of influence you created. That’s how you build a flow of art marketing and sales. It begins in the studio, where your art informs your messages, which inspire those who trust your influence. As a result, some will buy, others will refer, and a precious few will do both.

A Tiny Micro-Tribe with Payoff Potential

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, or other platforms present millions of potential contacts for you – and I repeat that I hope it excites you to know you only need a few hundred to make your social influence incredibly rewarding.

Becoming a social influencer requires effort and time to create quality content reliably and stay aware of trends and developments pertinent to your audience’s interests. That’s a price to pay, but as you grow your communication and influence, you can repurpose your knowledge and content in multiple forms.

Tips for Becoming an Effective Micro-Influencer

The good news is you can achieve your goals by following these suggestions.

1. Choose Your Niche

You can start by choosing any niche that interests you. However, make sure that the niche is one that you’re passionate about. It will help you stay motivated throughout the process.

2. Create a Brand Identity

Part of brand identity is an image or logo that represents your business. Make sure that the logo reflects what you want to project. You should choose colors and fonts depending on how you portray yourself. A slogan is helpful if authentic, unforced, and pertinent. Otherwise, don’t do it just because others do. Branding is more than typography, logos, colors, and slogans. It is how people describe you and your art when you aren’t there.

3. Decide On Your Content Strategy

Once you’ve chosen your niche, plan your content strategy. For example, what kind of content do you intend to produce? Will you focus more on images, videos, text, or all of them?

There are many ways to produce content. For example, you could write articles, post pictures on Instagram, take photos, record videos, etc. But whatever you do, it is best to stick with one primary form of content creation at the start. Don’t try to do too much at once because it will only confuse you and your audience. Besides, there’s plenty to learn and master the basics before jumping to new and more complicated options.

4. Learn How To Promote Your Business

Now that you’ve decided on everything else, it’s time to learn how to promote your business. So, you start by having or creating active social media accounts? If not, get going to establish the ones you want to use. Along with a website, your social media accounts will allow you to readily share information with your followers.

Also, you could buy ads to drive more traffic to your page. However, limiting your ad spend until you accurately test your results is a good idea. Otherwise, you incur “social media advertising tax,” which rookies and the uninitiated pay for not knowing how the ad platform operates. Therefore, hiring a pro, you trust is a solid investment for advertising your business.

5. Get Feedback From Others

It’s important to ask others for feedback when starting. It will help you know if your plan is right for you and your intended audience.

6. Start With A Small Audience

Because you are new, it’s advisable to start small. Plan to build a following of 100-200 people first. From there, you can adjust how much more effort you need to make to grow your audience larger. And if you require it to grow larger.

7. Plan Ahead

Plan your next moves before you launch. Think about where you’re going to grow your audience next. Will you expand into other niches? Or maybe you’ll branch out to another country. Whatever happens, make sure that you keep track of your progress, plans, and wild ideas because you never know when something improbable becomes highly plausible and potentially profitable.

8. Stay Consistent

It’s crucial to stay consistent. When you provide high-quality content repeatedly, your audience will return for more. Sometimes, creators feel stale because they have been on the same topic for so long. Meanwhile, they are attracting new tribe members with an appetite for that content. And also, the long-timers have stayed because they can’t get enough of it. And remember, they will never consume the content as voraciously as the creator must keep on top of the game. So take a break, but don’t turn away from what powers your growth as an influencer.

9. Keep Learning

Social media isn’t something you learn overnight. There are many things necessary to know before you can become successful. Influencers who stay on top never stop learning. You will use the knowledge you gain in other ways besides content creation. I mentioned in the point above about voraciously consuming content. That can be exhausting, so permit yourself to turn it off for short periods but never too long. It’s the only way to keep your edge sharp, focused, and away from going dull.

10. Be Patient

Social media takes patience. Building a following won’t happen overnight. So, it’s vital to realize expecting quick results leads to disappointment and abandoned lost opportunities. You’ll experience value and reward from being patient and working hard. I know it’s a challenge when money is tight, and sales are low, but patience is a virtue that returns results impatience can never match.

Will Becoming a Social Influencer Work for Me?

Social media is a powerful tool for influencers across many industries. For example, you can build your brand, sell your art and services, network within your niche, use your influence to advance causes you care about, and achieve your art business goals.

I don’t want to paint an unrealistic picture of becoming a social influencer. First, you must be interested in pursuing the concept, learning new skills, and challenging yourself in new ways. Becoming a social influencer takes dedication, time, and persistence. So, you will succeed with your active buy-in to give the program a complete, wholehearted try.

You Will Convince Yourself If It’s’ Right for You

It’s not a matter of me convincing you to try social influence to promote yourself and, ultimately, your artwork. I know from experience that artists will take an interest and not follow through or drop the idea because they know it won’t work for them. So essentially, when you have read this article and given the possibilities serious thought, you will learn if social influencing will work for you. 

Whether you formalize the process or not, consider that many concepts regarding social influence are things you do in the usual way you operate your business and conduct your life. In other words, there are ways to profit from these concepts in minor ways that may return successful results. The reality is that you are already an informal influencer. As such, the only question is how much you want to formalize being an influencer. 

The Art of Marketing Art Through Social Influence

There are plenty of examples of the concept that people buy the artist as much as the art. But more importantly, people buy from people. Selling art is an H2H (human-to-human) proposition. The question of what makes people buy art is a frequent search engine query and one that I’ve thought about both ways to include why people don’t buy art.

Here is an excerpt from my Art Marketing News post titled Why People Don’t Buy Art.

Let’s start with the reasons why people buy art:

• They love it.
• It makes a perfect gift.
• They like to collect art and patronize artists.
• They trust you or the gallery owner to help them make an intelligent buying decision.
• It perfectly matches the interior design of a space they are decorating.

Please read the post to learn more about why people don’t buy art because it is essential to understand that part of buying habits as to why people buy art.

You Decide If Formalizing Influence Is for You

Influence is part of the equation, no matter how the sale gets made. Social influence allows artists to control their lives and businesses better, contribute to society, and cause more people to consider purchasing their work seriously.

You pay a gallery owner 50 percent of your sales to influence buyers for you. They also embellish your status as an artist by representing you in the gallery. However, when you bring your social influence into the mix, the reverse can happen, as you may burnish the gallery’s reputation with your impact in the process, making you a more valuable partner to gallery owners.

Social Influence Leverages Word-of-Mouth-Marketing

Social influencing is tremendously powerful because it harnesses word-of-mouth marketing through third-party implied or stated endorsements. And it is the most potent form of marketing ever. But, no matter how you acquire it, you want as much positive influence as possible because the cumulative effect is you will sell more art.

So Many Ways to Use This Priceless Knowledge

Lastly, it’s beneficial to learn about whether you go forward to developing yourself as a social influencer. That’s because either way, you’re wise to use other social influencers to promote your art business. Knowing how they operate and what makes them successful helps you understand how to work with them to make it the best experience for all involved. And that is priceless knowledge.

A Community Helping Artists Leverage Unique Powers

I’ve taught marketing to thousands of artists for three decades; sadly, only a handful have followed my advice thoroughly. Direct marketing is not part of most artists’ DNA. I found many don’t get it, like it, or do much of it.

I see artists informally using other methods, like building social networks. The members get to know the artist, and some, in due time, buy their art. Then I think, “What if they stepped it up slightly?”

A New Way to Look at Art Marketing

I propose that artists take on the role of social influencers more formally. Not a full-time job, but rather a routine they perform faithfully. It’s more enjoyable and straightforward than attracting customers from a cold stream of oncoming traffic filled with strangers.