Social media works best when you are authentic and genuine and we wouldn’t suggest you do anything other than that. To use an analogy, music that we like uses melodic hooks. It needs that in a way often to get people to listen to it but then it delivers its meaning and its message. Films use editing techniques to keep the pace of the film up to make it engaging, so they can deliver their narrative. They use plot techniques, story arcs, these kinds of well-understood and well taught story arcs in film schools that many of the greatest directors would use to deliver their narrative. Of course you always get the mavericks who break all of the rules but in general, when you want to tell people about your work through social media, then you are going to use techniques to do that. And it doesn’t make the message artificial.
It’s just a method for engaging people enough to be able to deliver your narrative. So we would recommend you to learn and follow the techniques to deliver your narrative. The hooks are there just to get people to stop scrolling and start watching. Then you deliver your content and your narrative, and that’s where your meaning comes in.
There’s lots of good and bad in everything and there’s been some well documented problems with social media. But generally for you as artists, social media is your friend. It’s giving you a free way to deliver your message to the world. And if you learn the right techniques to do it then it gives you a way to take control of your own art careers. It removes the gatekeepers or the people who would have to decide to feature you like in the past an editor at an art magazine or a gallerist would do.
Social media is egalitarian and if anyone can learn the techniques of how to deliver their message then it’s up to the viewers to decide whether they find that engaging or not. And that is a really positive thing for artists.
