I met Emily Gilbanks at University of Suffolk and follow her career on Instagram. Gilbanks posts regularly .. has 2,422 followers and posted 107 times. I feel her presence is more, as she posts stories consistently so I see her pop up a lot on my feed. Emily re-posts when she has been mentioned elsewhere which brings more attention to her exhibitions and achievements.
Presently, Emily has a solo exhibition at the J D Malat gallery in London. The Gallery posted a short film of an interview with Emily at her studio, which gave viewers insight into her process and thinking behind her work. By re-posting both Gillbanks and the gallery benefit.
Gillbanks recently posts a photo of herself at the Barbican’s Alice Neel exhibition. Both artists are portrait painters, so followers of Alice Neel, the Barbican or portraits in general will see the link to Gillbanks too. Gallerists, curators and collectors use social media to understand what upcoming artists are exhibiting and who is popular, as well as promoting their own galleries and represented artists.
Reels are gaining popularity on Instagram and they can help me connect to my audience. Instagram itself is encouraging us to do so. YouTube has been around for years, where artists can connect by making films about processes and their art making and is free to use for maker and viewer. Viewers can pay extra to see the films without adverts. On Bloomberg.com (www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2021-09-05/youtube-is-free-but-50-million-people-pay-for-it-anyways) Lucas Shaw writes that of the 2 billion users of YouTube, 50 million pay a subscription to watch a premium service without adverts. YouTube have an advertising revenue of 6billion.
The benefits of YouTube are similar to other social media in that connections can be made by commenting and replies. Artists can promote their artwork, their online courses, exhibitions for example by having regular short films. Followers can subscribe to a channel.
To start engaging more genuinely with your audience, Katherine Bradford suggests that artists leave thoughtful comments on each others’ posts—beyond rote phrases like, “congrats” or “beautiful. Artists can promote other artists on their feeds, too. “Focus on the real people who are jazzed about what you’re doing—interact with them in DMs, comments, follow and like back—be as interested in their real lives as you want them to be in yours,” (https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-4-artists-share-tips-instagram-grow-art-practice)
Emma Connolly is an artist based in Wivenhoe, Essex. Her website(www.emmaconnollyart.com) includes Bio and Artist statement telling us about her practice including art education and her art business. Working in paint or mono screen printing, her website above shows how eye-catching her web-site is and the images draw me in. She states that ‘During 2022, I have sold work across the world to 14 different countries as well as being included in permanent museum collections from the UK, to China and USA.’
Connolly is a member of People of Print Ltd a company promoting artists and designers. Since 2008,they made over 12,000 posts on Instagram and have 222k followers generating much publicity for artists such as Connolly. Perhaps being part of other business models eg online gallery saatchiart.com, gives weight to an artist’s own business?
Connolly has 19.8k IG followers alone and she has made 891 posts and uses reels which get thousands of views. Her last reel on Friday17th March 2023 had 3983 views, 391 ‘likes’ and 7 comments (approximately 10% likes to views).
