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One year after I quit social media – Q&A pt.1: Art Business, Marketing, Audience Building

one year without social media qa1

One year ago, I quit social media and deleted my profiles forever. I’ve asked you what you’d like to know in an update, and you sent me many questions (Thanks everyone!!): about how my year went, what changed for me business-wise and personally and what I do differently without these services.

I got a lot of responses, and I like to answer as detailed as possible, so this is going to be a very long post. Sit down and grab a tea when you read this. I’ve divided the post into two parts: We’ll start with general and business questions like how to build an audience and how I do marketing, and then in the second part (that’ll come out soon) I’ll tackle more personal topics and if and how to use social media for learning and community.

If you want to watch this Q&A as a video instead, you can do so here:

One year after I quit social media šŸŒæ Q&A pt.1: Art Business, Marketing, Audience Building

If you can’t see the video above, watch it here:
One year after I quit social media – Q&A pt.1: Art Business, Marketing, Audience Building

Let’s dive into the Q&A – part 1. For readability, questions are bolded, and my answers are marked below in interview-style.

General questions:

How did my year go, what changed for me as an artist (with a business) and as a person?

Julia: Overall, my first year without social media was great. I learned a lot, read a lot of books, worked a lot on my art skills, and I also had way more free time.

First let’s look at how I quit social media: I had been taking lengthy breaks from social media before, but this time I wanted to change something substantially. I deleted my profiles in June 2019, first my entire Facebook presence, which was easy, because Facebook is often really just an awful place where discussion turn ugly and you lose a lot of time. Plus it did nothing for my business, my page didn’t reach a lot of people (that’s standard these days, you have to pay for ads on Facebook to get reach).

At the same time, I put Instagram in a mode that I think is called Invisible. Basically all your posts are still there, but no-one can see your profile from the outside, it’s as if it doesn’t exist.

I left things like this for a few weeks, and in July 2019, right before I left for my summer holiday, I pressed the delete button on the Instagram profile. I knew I wouldn’t worry about social media stuff for at least two weeks, so it was a good point in time to take this step.

And when I returned and started working again, I basically focused a lot on all kinds of creative projects. I tried to get further away from the ingrained pressure to post and to being present on the internet. It was fading, but still there, and I went through a phase of readjusting.

I know I felt free, like a huge burden was taken away, and I also didn’t really know if I needed to do something different instead, or just continue as before only without social media. So it was a bit of a weird feeling.

Then there was also the fact that I had a hand injury during that time, so I couldn’t draw for a while, and I went through a bit of a slow phase and an art crisis because of it. As mentioned, I focused on other creative projects in that time. And it helped a lot to be away from the world of social media. It helped me to focus on what’s important for me.

And in the end I came back stronger and more motivated when I finally picked up the pencil again. This process took a few months. In the mean time I entirely forgot there used to be such a thing as social media that I once had to use for at least an hour a day, always struggling to post something better and more engaging. It’s a hamster wheel, and once you’re out of it, you notice the pressure falling off.

I’d like to think I’ve gotten more confident because I don’t compare myself that much any more. By allowing experiments and diversion in my art practice I also learn and grow in my techniques. This is something that I didn’t really take enough time for when I was on social media, because you get rewarded for posting the same things over and over there.

I’ve stopped worrying about what all the others do and if I should do the same to have their success, a thought that used to be very present before and that can obviously not be true. Quitting social media has shown me that there are only mentors and artists I can learn from, and I take in what they have to say, and ignore the rest.

Cathee asked: Did you struggle with anything? Were your struggles with income, or followers? How did you get enough followers without being all over social media.

Julia: I worried before I deleted the profiles – that it would be a big mistake, that I would lose attention and a part of my audience. But none of this happened.

As mentioned above, I struggled a bit in the time after deleting my profiles to find a new routine. It helped me massively to have plans and focused activities in place, things that I knew would bring my forward and that I enjoy doing.

I didn’t have less income than in the years before. I also didn’t notice a huge drop in my audience. I still had, and have my website and my blog, and people used to find me through that before social media, and they still do, and since I also teach classes online on a platform some people also notice my work there and hop over to my website.

People who really want to stay in touch with my work are on my newsletter I suppose. And there are always new people who find my work, who like it enough to join my newsletter. And from there I can be in contact with them directly. It’s a much more powerful tool than social media, because you reach a much higher percentage of your audience with email.

I also started to post videos more regularly on my Youtube channel, but I really didn’t start this until early this year, so I don’t know that this helped a lot. I know that Youtube can be considered social media too, but I don’t use it that way, for me it’s a tool to share ideas, a video library for learning cool stuff. If you have a channel and put up videos, it also helps with your Google ranking, so that’s a nice side effect. And you won’t get that from Instagram.

Questions around art business and marketing

rhapsodyinblue asked: I’d love to know how many followers you had when you deleted your account? I am facing a loss of 8k if I choose to pull the plug, so I would love you to slap some sense into me and give me a push to still do it.

Julia: I had around 4K on Instagram and I’ve forgotten the Facebook number, around 1,500. Not many. 8K is not much either in the big scheme of social media, remember that a large number of these people will never even see your posts because of the algorithmic insanity of Instagram (at least that was how it worked before I quit.

If you’re worried about losing the audience, you can announce that you will leave before you pull the plug, and take these people with you to your newsletter or website – which you should have ready. This is crucial. Set up your own platform where you can direct people to. Everyone who has a creative business should have their own platform, their website which is the central part of keeping in touch with your audience. This is the cornerstone of everything. You can do very significant things (=earn money) with an active newsletter audience of 4K, as opposed to a social media audience of that size.

Aurelie asked: As an illustrator, I’m questioning more and more the production of free content to endlessly fuel instagram and FB. I started my blog in 2005, and it was such a joy then. But it’s entirely different now, and I would like to find a way to “go back” (or go forward) toward a simpler handling of my social media.

Julia: I can totally understand this, and sometimes I would love to be back in the 90s when the internet was a much friendlier and more fun place. Things have changed a lot for creatives, and while I don’t think all changes are for the worse, I find that most creatives are shoveling their own graves with social media.

You’re right to question this production of endless free content. It’s not only a lot of work – maintaining a social media presence can feel like a full-time job – but it won’t really get you anywhere. It will devalue your artwork – art that you’re supposed to earn money from, posted and regurgitated every day for free on these platforms. It’s no wonder the prices go down everywhere. By posting on social media, artists are contributing to this devaluation of their work.

The business models of social media is to keep your attention and turn it into profit. And we artists are stupid enough to give these platforms the free content they need for that, out beautiful artwork, just because we believe it might bring even a tiny benefit. And usually it doesn’t.

I still believe in the concept of a social internet (not social media platforms), so an internet that is full of blogs and forums where people can meet and exchange ideas, much like this blog. The blogging world was much more active before social media, and I like to think we can keep it alive (or revive it) if enough people decide against social media. Blogs are an excellent way to share ideas, long-form content and deep thoughts, and they make for a better reading experience. Podcasts are also an excellent medium to dive deep into a topic.

I also believe it makes a huge difference in what form you consume content – the medium changes our understanding of things. If you read long, complex content, like in a book or long article or podcast, your mind will process the information differently than if you attack it with short, disjointed bursts interspersed with ads, presented through an algorithm that’s manufactured to keep you on the site as long as possible.

I believe (and science suggests this too) that social media makes us harder for us to form long, complex thoughts, because of the way the information is presented. The medium influences the message. Social media works mostly with short slogans and often with negative emotions. Content made for quick scrolling lacks nuance. The slogans become the discourse, and from there it’s easy to end up with positions that are very distorted and simplified: right or wrong, pro or con, two sides. But the world is not like that. If you donā€˜t engage with longform content forms like blogs, books or podcasts that look intensly at a subject and activate your deep thinking muscles, then you wonā€˜t get under the surface. Thatā€˜s where social media falls short and a deeper discourse gets lost. The world is not simple. We need room for nuance.

Obviously that’s a whole problem in itself, but I personally don’t want to add to it. So I don’t make people go to these platforms, in the same way I don’t go there myself.

Bethan asked: Do you think your business benefitted from being on social media in the beginning? Do you have to use it in the beginning to build up a certain level of loyalty and a big enough mailing list to then be able to continue without it?

Julia: I don’t know if social media brought a lot of people to my audience. I had a blog and a newsletter before I was on social media, and I had both things parallel for a while. There were usually more responses on the blog. It’s just a more personal way to stay in touch, so I always valued it more. It’s also hard to say, because when you have a very small social media presence like I had, there’s no big impact from that. I know I tried to send people to my social profiles so that these would gain followers, so it was probably the other way round.

And the key to building an audience is time and work. It does matter if you put it into social media, or your own platform. I put a lot of time into blogging on my website, getting my name out there in the search engines, so that people would find me. It’s a good idea to have different ways through which people can find you. It’s true that social media can be one of them, but again, I think in terms of is it worth my time to put so much energy into social media with so little return? I came to the conclusion that it’s not.

Kathryn asked: I would like to know whether had you never used social media to build up a ā€˜profileā€™ and gained the confidence that can come from random strangers ā€˜likingā€™ and commenting on your work, whether you think your blog and email approach would be as successful as it is?

Julia: Likes and follows give you a hit of dopamine, so that feels nice if you check it a lot. But that’s not the same as confidence, it’s more like a dependency. Apart from that, any confidence I might have built up from likes and follows were always immediately crushed by not feeling adequate enough when comparing myself to all the other awesome people in my feed. So actually my confidence went down. I’ve never felt as pressured and unhappy with my art and with myself when I was constantly consuming social media.

Jodi asked: How are you marketing?
Everyone is saying that you absolutely CANNOT sell, make a living (I know it takes time to grow any business) if you aren’t on any social media. Can you address this, please. Including how to make sure you are growing a valuable audience in your business without social media.

Julia: First off, you definitely can sell and make a living without social media. I know several artists who do this, and obviously myself. And think about it this way: how do you think did artists make a living before we had social media? A lot of the strategies they used are still valid and working. Reaching out to the right people in your industry, building personal relationships with your audience, making great and interesting work.

A website is a great place to start. This should be your main focus. By having a website and filling it with good-quality articles and posts about what you do, you will get found in search engines. You don’t need to dive into search engine optimization, but it’s helpful to remember that you can drive a good amount of traffic to your site if you offer articles or ideas about things people want to see. So if you teach something in an easy or very compelling way, or give insights into your niche, that’s always a good place to start.

A word about growing an audience: What I benefitted most from are my website and blog that continually drives new people to my website. And then it pays off to build connections with other people in your niche, other artists, people who organize events with you and who will promote your work. Build genuine connections with those who value your work, or who you value. These people will be ambassadors for your work. That will always be better than trying to win over anonymous people on social media.

The connections to people in my niche help me to get known for what I do, and if people have heard your name before, and associate you with a certain thing, they will trust you over time.

I always ask myself if a tool that I use for my business will bring sufficient return for the cost (time, energy, money) that I put in.
Let me explain: A lot of people, myself included, started using social media for marketing, thinking it’s okay if it will bring at least a small benefit. What you should be doing instead is asking yourself if social media as a tool will bring you sufficient benefits for the time and energy you put in. If you run a business, you usually think about new investments in this way: will this item be worth the cost? The positive impacts have to clearly outweigh the negative impacts.

If you maintain a website and blog, you don’t depend on your social posts going viral or getting a lot of views, you just have to write good posts that people want to read (combined with your art). Yes, this will also take a lot of time and energy, but these posts will end up in search engines. And usually they will stay in the search results for a long time. Over time, that’s a lot more powerful than social media. Instagram posts don’t show up in any search engine, and I have to put up new things everyday. So for me, it became clear that the minimal benefit that I get from social media will not come close to the benefit of regularly writing blog posts and building my own platform.

So again, you can use social media as a tool for marketing, if you find it brings you sufficient benefits for the time, energy and money you put in. Usually when you’re just starting out, that’s not the case, and it’s much more valuable to make use of different tools.

Lynn asked: I struggle with social media as it just makes me feel worse about myself, but if you donā€™t use those platforms, how does an emerging artist get themselves known? Everyone says you have to use social media if you want to sell your art.

and

Anne asked: Instagram in particular is often presented as a great way for starting artists to build an audience that can then lead to sales or patrons. What are your tips for starting artists to build a successful career without using social media? Iā€™ve been struggling with this a lot: I donā€™t particularly enjoy social media and quit Facebook, but thereā€™s something about Instagram that makes me nervous quitting… iā€™d love to hear your thoughts about this

Julia: It’s true that Instagram can help you a lot as an artist. But it will particularly help you if you are already established and have a huge following. The advice to build up a profile often comes from established artists who already had a good following before social media existed, or who joined when there were not many people on there, so that success was then multiplied during the early days of social media. That’s why everyone keeps repeating it. I’m sure there are exceptions, but have you heard of a ton of new or starting artists that tell glowing stories of how IG has helped them a ton with clients or sales? In the last five years or so? I mostly have heard the opposite.

The time and effort that starting artists put into social media would be better invested in building you art and business skills, and finding out if and how you can even make a living from art in these times. Due to social media, the art world is very saturated, and new artists emerge every single day. They all are on social media, because someone told them to, and they all hope they will be discovered by their dream clients there.

The market is really saturated, and the algorithms do their best to hide the smaller channels. Honestly it’s not a great time to start an art business. So your best hope is to build up your skills to a point where clients are really interested in what you have to offer them, and then you contact them directly, or you build up your skills to a point where people want to learn from you, or a combination of both. Both things only require a website with your work and contact info on it, and an active blog with interesting posts, if you want to teach.

If you want to sell your stuff, you need to find out who wants to buy the kind of art you want to make, and how you can reach them. So my main tip would be: Focus on making great art, or great products, and on getting a website and maybe a blog in place, and learn about the business you want to be in. And put your time into those three things, not into social media. If you find out later that social media can be a valuable tool in your strategy, you can still open an account or run some ads. But it’s almost always better to build personal connections with real people in your industry or niche.

Pamela asked: My question would be, how are you getting your illustration business clients without social media

Julia: I contact them directly, and often people find me through my website. Business clients usually don’t have the time to scroll through social media profiles the whole day, and a targeted email to the right person will usually get you better results.

Christine asked: I have a question about social media and business impact. I am a fiber artist working with natural dyes. I deleted my facebook account in 2014. I am going to start selling my work on Etsy. I don’t want to open another Facebook account, but I am concerned about the impact on branding and sales.
How have you built your business without having a Facebook presence?

Julia: Facebook has had no impact on my business at all. I had a business page and it practically just existed for me to automatically cross-post stuff from Instagram. If you want an additional web presence, invest in building a good website. People will find that more trustworthy and it’s much nicer to present your business on a dedicated website. You can link from your Etsy store to it and the other way round – I personally would find this much better as a potential customer than a link to a Facebook page, which can come off as a sign that the person behind it has not even invested in a website.

Heather asked: I’ve heard a lot of messages from artists that if you want to sell your art online you have to use social media. I’m not happy about that but I’ve been trying to learn how to use Instagram more effectively anyway, because at least I’ll have learned something…

Julia: I had about the same strategy as you – reluctantly learning how to get better at it, but I really didn’t enjoy it. What I think you learn on these platforms is how to create posts that generate likes – if they make sense for you or not. I’m approaching my art very differently now without the need to post something every day. It has been a very interesting development, because I approach my art a lot differently now.

And also think about if it’s really a benefit to learn using Instagram effectively. Will it give you the results you’re looking for? I explained this concept of sufficient benefits before, you have to abandon the thought that you need to use social media because it might give you a benefit, you should only use it if the positive impacts overweigh the negative impacts. Everything else is not a good business decision.

Yes, there are a few artists who are very successful on social media. But mostly, these artists joined early, or already had a big following before they were on these platforms. They are successful on top of, and not because of social media.

This is the end of part one of this massive Q&A about social media, I hope you found it useful! Thanks again everyone who sent in their questions, we will continue with part two in the next post.

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23 thoughts on “One year after I quit social media – Q&A pt.1: Art Business, Marketing, Audience Building”

  1. Excellent advice! Thank you. You’ve rather proved your point with this article – imagine if you’d tried to do this on Instagram. I particularly agree with you about building genuine connections and not devaluing your work. Look forward to Part 2.

  2. valOrie paladinO

    Well said, thank you for your hard work & clarity. Your blog (& videos) are enlightening & greatly appreciated.
    Sincerely,
    valOrie p

  3. You expressed my thoughts so much better than I ever could. I only use FB to see pictures posted by relatives who live far away, and I don’t look at IG at all. I scan through the ads looking for family content only so any advertising on these sights are lost on me. However, I really read and enjoy blog postings on websites and newsletters (including yours) that I subscribe to. I am not interested in developing an audience for myself nor selling my art, and do not post or share anything myself. I truly do believe that this helps my art by feeling free to experiment without fear or judgement. And without pressure to produce and post so I art can feed my soul rather than have it become my measurement of success or failure. This is a very interesting and informative post.

  4. It’s so refreshing (and affirming!) to hear you talking about using a website as a foundation….I’ve been banging on about that (mostly inside my own head!) for quite some time. The idea of putting all of my time and energy (and creativity) into someone else’s platform – who could easily decided to change the rules on a bare whim – was horrifying to me.

    I really hope that more people will move away from social media and back to blogs and websites (selfishly, because I much prefer to read blogs!)…I stubbornly held onto mine all of these years and am so glad that I did.

    Looking forward to part 2! Thank you so much for sharing your experience….it’s so important that people know there are other ways of doing things.

    1. Keep repeating it, to yourself and others! There is a growing (or still existing) number of people out there who (still) prefers blogs. By the way, I absolutely love your website – it has a very calm and clean design!

  5. Really enjoyed reading your thoughts on this, Julia! My dilemma is that I am not a professional artist, strictly amateur, and if I don’t “show” my work on IG, I have no one else to share it with. And I guess as much as I enjoy creating art, part of the fun is showing it to someone else and having her say, “Oh! I really like that!” Or having another amateur artist say, “I really like the way you used that watercolor, how did you do that?” or whatever. At the same time, Instagram is a rabbit hole that can steal way too much time, as you said.

    1. Thank you Lynn! I definitely get your dilemma. Do you really get these kinds of interested comments on IG, or is it just likes? I found it was often the latter. But if so, all the better, maybe you can find a way to restrict your IG time for this only. Or maybe there’s a way to form a small art making group, even online (though offline is better, I know at the moment most of us have to live with restrictions surrounding that), where you can get this sort of interaction and feedback? I used to go to a monthly drink & draw group for a while, where you meet in a small group, have a coffee and doodle for a while – it was great for these conversations!

      1. Thanks, Julia, a “drink and draw” group (perhaps outdoors?) would be ideal, and something I’ve been thinking about trying to organize!

  6. Julia,
    Thank you for your thoughtful answers to all the questions. Feeling like a small speck amongst all the bright lights on social media can be disheartening and I find that I lose my own personal focus following the tracings. You have helped to reinforce the idea that there is a more direct path artists can take.

  7. I’ve thought a lot about everything you have said here as well. I really appreciated the point you made about the artists who like social media started early and/or had huge follower numbers before they even joined (which they likely built through blogs!). Thank you for taking the time to write this!

  8. Iā€™ve really enjoyed your posts on quitting social media. Iā€™ve been increasingly frustrated with how much time these things take up in my life and how increasingly useless they seem. Iā€™ve had a website for many years, but for the past few years have been focusing mostly on creating content for IG that crossposts to FB. No matter how much I post Iā€™ve never cracked 700 followers, which is in one way demoralizing, but on the other hand what is a follower really? I love sharing my process, works in progress, etc., but typically only post finished pieces on my own site. I used to think that was what I was stuck with because social media is where people are, and who looks at blogs or websites anymore? But Iā€™m personally increasingly fed up with contributing to the endless shallow stream of content, and superficial rewards in the form of ā€œlikes.ā€ Iā€™ve been paying more attention to how I actually feel when just scrolling through IG, and itā€™s mostly negative. I hope more people will wake up to how toxic the endless feed is and will start seeking out blogs and websites again and go a bit deeper!

  9. Thank you for the candid sharing of your experience, I appreciate that someone who made this step is open to questions. I’ve recently quit Instagram because I was finally done with their stupid algorithm. My fellow artists have taken notice, and are wondering what they should do. So I’ve been curious: how DO visual artists sell their work without social media?

    I know how I get clients, but I’m in B2B (brand designer). As you’ve said, our clients are often too busy to browse feeds so direct communication and search engines are a much better source of new work. But how do artists who sell originals and prints reach their audience, especially since live shows, and art & craft fairs aren’t happening due to the pandemic? I hope I’ll find some resources I’ll be able to share with my own community. If you do know of any, please let me know (you have my email :))

  10. This was so helpful to read, thank you for putting it together! I’ve been really struggling with whether or not to try sharing art through social media because the speed of it just does not fit with my creative style at all. I like to take a long time making a single piece, and when I was on social media I felt like I had to give up the sincerity of my artistic voice to “keep up” with the speed of everyone else’s posting. Your point that it has to have a sufficient benefit to be worth the time and energy really hit home!

  11. You have no idea [ok, maybe a little :)] how much time, energy and brain power I’ve wasted trying to figure this out. Trying to decide if/how to post my art on social media or just create YouTube videos & blog posts to document my journey has almost paralyzed me from actually creating anything, and I can’t do it anymore.

    The benefits of posting have never matched or outweighed my efforts & I’m glad there’s still a community of creatives who appreciate deeper thought and engagement.

    Thank you so much for sharing your experience! It has helped me put words to what I already knew in my heart but was afraid to do because it’s not the norm anymore.

  12. Thank you so much, Julia! I enjoy drawing and Iā€™m a student on Skillshare. I kept hearing the advice on Skillshare to post furiously on Instagram to get noticed and perhaps, clients. But intuitively, I know their advice wonā€™t work for me. Your Q&A on this articulated the reasons why it wonā€™t work, and also for me to examine why I do art and why I share on social media. Thanks so much again! And yours was one of a few voices who said social media isnā€™t helpful to promote our art or getting income.

    1. You’re welcome Lynda! Yes, you will find advice to be on social media everywhere, which is, I assume, another aspect of why it’s so hard to leave. I hope over time there will be more and more artists out there who promote staying away from those platforms. I’m glad I found a way out and that me sharing my experiences actually helps other people.

  13. I enjoyed your writing about social media. It is a struggle that I have resented for the past several years. Last month I received a grant to have my website built. Everything has been leading me to today- and your words. Iā€™m going to draft my exit message for Instagram and Facebook. I look forward to the peace and focus that you have found. I hope you are well- and busy making your art. Thank you for writing.
    deva

  14. I bookmarked this to read again tomorrow. I’m struggling with social media right now and how it makes me feel but have been afraid to cut the cord. Thank you so much for sharing your insight!

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