Navigating a New Era of Social Media with Katy Hessel
Katy Hessel is Founder of The Great Women Artists Instagram and podcast, as well as Curator/Art Historian and host of the Dior podcast art talks. She spoke on the need for inclusion and connectivity. She discussed the accessibility of Instagram, as well as its global reach, and how her account celebrates the work of female artists.
In her own words, she has suggested:
If you are able to allow yourself the headspace and time, the Internet and Instagram are an incredible place to start.
Think about what you want to do (passion/ USP) and how you can apply it to something online, because for the foreseeable future, this is how we will all be interacting with each other.
Take a look at: Isolation Art School
Set up by artist Keith Tyson who has asked a multitude of thinkers and artists to make 6–8min videos of an art class for both adults and children. He specifies which one (or both) by using a red dot = adults and yellow dot = kids.
How they are engaging with their audience: it is a great initiative, with a really strong ethos and brand vision. It is inviting, engaging, accessible, warm, authentic – which is what people want at this time, they want to be engaged and to have a person talking to them and showing them how to be creative, to learn new things
Use your access: what this platform shows is how with the access you have around you, you can bring together a community which allows people to feel like they are part of something
Use the tools around you: pretty much all of us own smartphones, and we can all film ourselves doing something.
Authentic video content for Instagram: During this time, I think it’s important – for Instagram videos – to be quite homemade, it shows an authenticity and imperfection/ relatability that is resonating with people at this time. I think if you make a professional video that is great no one wants anything too polished or too advertised right now, especially if it is engaging with the general public and children - this is really for instagram
Katy talked us through five important aspects to consider:
1) Tone of Voice:
Individuals:
Think of what you can offer, or what you might be selling, or wanting to sell in the future
Right now, authenticity and warmth is what people want. They want a person behind the camera or text who is accessible, approachable, to make them feel as though they are in a community
If you are building your own platform on social media, or website, have a very clear tone of voice, know what you want to say and how you want to say it, and stick to that
Think about how if you were a customer, how would you want to engage in this person?
Companies:
If you are an arts-company that appeals to a whole range of audience, from huge art lovers, collectors, and potentially PhD students, to people who might never have stepped inside a museum before or do not know much about art, engage with your audience in a new and humorous way.
You can be a bit more experimental with your tone of voice at this time…
People want to be kept amused and active during this time, if you are a museum and you speak to your general public and ticket buyers, give them something of an alternative
It’s a time for experimentation! :
2) Access
Maybe now isn’t always about promoting the product you are selling so much through social media, but the ethos of your brand, gallery, institution, company, clients will remain the same.
Social media is free to use, as are your contacts to some extent which remains equally as important to the product that you are selling. Think about what it is that you stand for and interact with your audiences:
Through a series of online life drawings or still life classes hosted by one of your artists,
Short videos of people who have collaborated with the museum, or the gallery or the brand.
Make it educational – and give people that access that only you have.
3) Engagement:
Take this time to engage with new people and new ideas.
People have a lot of time on their hands, and they want to engage with the outside world.
Whether you are the smaller or bigger one, experiment with this time and interact with people who have a different audience from you.
How to better engage with your audience:
Reply to comments, messages, say thank you or a heart if someone posts a nice comment about something
By commenting back, people are far more likelier to comment again, because they see that recognition and appreciation from the brand or the gallery
Show people that there is someone physically and emotionally behind that account, even if you are writing on behalf of a company
4) Appearance:
The way that your Instagram looks will determine the level of engagement
Always post vertically so that you can take up as much space on the audiences screen
Instagram is a visually-led platform so it’s important that the image that you are posting is almost the selling point
5) Consistency:
Consistency in the time of day you post – find out when works best for you
How often you post – I would advise to post once a day and be interactive with stories
With what you post – make sure you have a clear visual identity, a confusing identity will leave people unaware that that is your company
Text that you post – if you have one line text then fine, use that, but I do think the meatier your text is the more it will resonate with people.