How much Time Do You Spend on Social Media without Selling a Piece?
How much time do you spend on social media? An hour a day, maybe two or three? And how many works have you sold through Instagram or Facebook? If the answer is one, two or three, congratulations! Because you’ve just won a ticket in an impossible lottery.
The Odds: Selling Art on Social Media is a Game of Luck
Selling a work of art on Instagram or Facebook is almost like winning the lottery. And no, this is not an exaggeration. To put it in context, Instagram has over 2.35 billion active profiles, while Facebook exceeds 3 billion. Among so many profiles, the possibility of a curator, commissioner or collector finding your work is minuscule.
Now, let’s do a mental exercise: imagine you’re a curator looking to discover emerging artists exclusively on social media. Among the millions of profiles on Instagram, how many do you think you could review in a day? Consider that the average life expectancy in Europe is about 72 years. If you dedicate 8 hours a day to reviewing artists’ profiles on Instagram or Facebook, how many lifetimes would you need to find a worthwhile piece? Well, it would take more than ten lifetimes. You would have wasted all your existences without finding a hidden gem! Right?
The Truth: Curators and Commissioners Don’t Search on Social Media
And here comes the golden question: How do curators and commissioners really find emerging artists? The answer is simple: they don’t do it on social media. It’s impossible and a waste of time. Serious professionals search in directories or specialized platforms like our CalleArte, which save them the dirty work.
Why These Platforms? Clear Advantages:
- Initial Filtering: Someone has already done the first filter for them. They don’t have to waste hours, years or lifetimes searching in an infinite sea of profiles, the platforms present the most promising emerging artists.
- Accessibility and Ease of Use: Finding artists is easy, everything is organized and categorized, they don’t waste time navigating aimlessly. What are you looking for? Impressionists, watercolorists, sculptors? It doesn’t matter, everything is organized by categories.
- Transparency: You don’t have to face treacherous algorithms that prioritize viral content over artistic quality.
- Community of Emerging Artists: Pages like CalleArte, of which there are many, all artists have been carefully selected, ensuring they’ve already gone through an evaluation process.
The Future is Already Here
If you still think you can sell your work through social media, unfortunately, you’re wasting your time. Curators and commissioners are not going to spend hours tracking millions of profiles to discover your work. If you want to be found, be smart. Be visible where they can really see you, on platforms like ours, CalleArte+.
Social Media: A Marketing Tool, Not an Art Gallery
Imagine you have 100 euros and you’re looking to buy a shirt online. Where would you buy it? Most likely, you’d head to an online fashion store, a recognized platform like Amazon, Zara or any site specializing in clothing. You wouldn’t search on Instagram or Facebook.
So, if you were an art collector with 1,000 euros to spend on a work of art, why would you go to Instagram or Facebook to look for a specific painting or style? It’s unrealistic to think that someone with considerable capital to invest in art would venture to dive among random artist profiles on social media. It would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.
The Logic Behind the Error
Here’s the issue: if you wouldn’t buy a shirt on social media, why would you think a curator or collector would buy art there? The answer lies in the misconception about social media. Instagram and Facebook are marketing tools, platforms designed to promote yourself, make you visible, and create a connection with your audience. But they are not and should not be considered serious art marketplaces.
Serious collectors, like curators, don’t have time to waste in the vastness of these platforms, where it’s easy to get distracted by irrelevant or viral content. They search on specialized sites, where the work is already filtered and categorized, such as CalleArte, virtual galleries, or online auction houses. They know exactly where to go, and they’re not interested in the noise of social networks.
The Plight of Humanity: Repeating the Same Mistakes
This is where the problem lies. We all do the same things. We believe that because someone else is doing it, it’s the right thing to do. You see thousands of artists creating Instagram profiles and think: “I need to be there too.” You see someone selling a work by chance and tell yourself: “This could happen to me too.”
This is the plight of humanity: blindly following the same paths, making the same mistakes, without stopping to think if they really make sense. If your intention is to sell a work of art, why would you trust a place where art sales are a rarity? The reality is that social networks offer you visibility, but they are not the answer for closing important sales. A professional collector or curator is not going to waste their time on a platform that is oversaturated with content.
Be Different, Be Smart
If everyone is doing the same thing and making the same mistakes, why not be different? Instead of falling into the trap of relying exclusively on social media to sell art, invest your time in specialized platforms. Curators and collectors value professionalism and curatorial criteria. They search on sites that have already done the work of filtering emerging artists, sites like CalleArte, where each work has been selected with discernment, and where they know they can find true talent without having to search through millions of profiles.
Discover why collectors and curators search on specialized platforms and stop wasting time making the same mistake.
Conclusion: Don’t Make the Same Mistake
Selling art is not a stroke of luck or a game of probabilities. If you really want to sell your work and be found by art world professionals, you need to be where they look. Social media is a powerful tool for promoting your work, but it’s not the right platform for selling. If you understand this and adjust your strategy, you’ll be one step ahead of all those who are still trapped in the cycle of doing the same thing over and over again, without results.
Think About It!
