Social Media Marketing for Arts Professionals is a self-paced course designed to introduce social media marketing to arts professionals who are relatively unfamiliar with the subject. It’s friendly to those who are new to either social media, marketing, or both. (But seasoned social media marketers brushing up on your skills are welcome too, of course).

The course will introduce the learner to the characteristics, requirements, tools, and practices of social media marketing with a focus on arts industries.

Participants will:

• Be introduced to popular social media platforms from a marketing perspective
• Learn general social media and social media marketing practices
• Gain an understanding of the role that marketing plays in social media
• Explore strategies for approaching potential consumers via social media
• Learn methods for engaging fans and promoting art via social media

Course Objectives:

• Learn common characteristics of social media
• Learn about popular and useful social media sites and tools
• Understand the role that arts marketing plays in social media
• Establish good social media marketing approaches and etiquette
• Gain knowledge of social media marketing strategies through reading, examples, and discussion
• Develop a plan for your own social media campaign

This is a self-paced course, meaning there are no set dates. You choose when you work on the course. It will probably take you about 3 to 10 hours total to go through the entire course (dependent upon whether or not you choose to complete the assignments). We recommend that you spread the work out over three weeks — maybe 3 days per week, 1-2 hours each time. But, it’s up to you!

This course was created as a collaborative effort between Fractured Atlas staff and independent marketing consultants.

I’m happy you’ve taken an interest in learning more about the world of agents and what they can and cannot do for you. You’ve made a positive step toward achieving your goals as an artist!

Please know, this course will not give you a guaranteed recipe for successfully securing an agent, bookings, or a career. This course is designed to help you better understand the role of agents, so you can take informed actions to secure the right representation and have your work seen by larger and more diverse audiences. Since my experience is as a booking agent for performing artists, you will find that my specific examples deal with this type of agency. However, the principals and core lessons apply to all types of arts-based agencies.

Please also know that many artists nowadays act as their own agents, and some of these artists have been successful. To be completely candid, as an agent myself, this course does not speak to this do-it-yourself brand of agent. This course is strictly about professional agents and managers that an artist would hire.

This course will require approximately 1-2 hours of your time, but you can always save your place and return at your convenience.

I hope you enjoy the course!

Course Instructor:
Bernard Schmidt is the owner/president of Bernard Schmidt Productions, Inc., founded in 1999, which handles general management, artist career development, worldwide representation, production, and fundraising for international artists and companies (mainly in dance and world music). Prior to this, he was the director of Pentacle International for Pentacle Management, which handled international tour booking for performing arts groups in North America and abroad. Among other professional credits, he was former managing director for Elisa Monte Dance; executive director of Ballet du Nord in Lille, France; and a staff assistant at the National Endowment for the Arts. He holds masters degrees from ESCP/Graduate School of Management in Paris and New York University.

This course will take you through a survey to determine just how much you know about the business aspects of being an artist. It will give you a good idea just how much you need to learn, or the satisfaction that you already know what you need to know.

The second part will take you through 10 steps to getting your sh*t together. If you complete these 10 steps, you are well on your way to being ready to engage with the art world and having a handle on just what else you need to figure out.

So come on this journey and see just how much you have your sh*t together!

This course will require approximately 1-1.5 hours of your time, but you can always save your place and return at your convenience.

Course Instructor:
Karen Atkinson is a media, installation and public artist, independent curator, collaborator, and has published and guest edited a number of publications. She has exhibited and curated internationally including South Africa, Australia, Europe, Mexico, Canada, and throughout the USA, and exhibited in the Fifth Havana Biennial in Cuba. She was a co-founding director of Side Street Projects in 1991, a non profit artist-run organization in Los Angeles which is still up and thriving today. She has been a faculty member at CalArts since 1988. She is a past board president of NAAO, the National Association of Artists’ Organizations. She has served on the board of directors of LACPS, Side Street Projects, Installation and serves on many Advisory Boards of arts organizations. Atkinson currently teaches classes and workshops titled “Getting Your Sh*t Together” and has created software for visual artists of the same title. Her company GYST Ink, is an artist run company for artists. She also co-edits the blog. www.gyst-ink.com

As an artist or arts organization, you have to be able to market your creative offering. And, since you’ll be competing with other art professionals, as well as every other place that people spend their discretionary income (e.g. restaurants, bars, clubs, movies, amusement parks, sporting events, etc.); you need to make sure your efforts are targeted and compelling. Marketing Demystified is an introductory course that will explain marketing basics like market research, segmentation, positioning, pricing, distribution, promotion, and designing your creative offering.

This course will require approximately 1-2 hours of your time, but you can always save your place and return at your convenience.

This course was developed as a collaborative effort of the Fractured Atlas staff.