How do you describe yourself as an artist on social media?
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More and more artists are learning about
how to use social media to promote their art and themselves as an artist

Don't leave a gap where the bio should be because you don't know where to start - read on!

Key Points
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Three factors influence whether or not people follow you:
  • Your social media bio
  • Your profile and banner pics
  • Your content

When constructing a social media bio you need to:
  • be very brief - this is akin to the perfect one sentence 'about you' when you meet somebody at a private view. 
  • don't neglect it -  Saying something real about you helps make your art more accessible
  • be authentic and distinctive - what makes you unique and different is not using the same words as every other artist. 
  • generate a hook  - say something which makes people follow you. Read around, see which short bios on Facebook and Twitter appeal to you - it gives you ideas.
  • no need to be grammatical - You can use single words or short descriptive phrases. Verbs are often absent! Be consistent with separators - commas, colons or full stops.
  • favour 1st rather than 3rd person - when using your real name - this is YOU speaking 
  • do be professional if you are promoting your art
  • be consistent - between social channels - this is a branding exercise for your art business!
  • don't be pretentious / don't use artspeak - enough said? (No? More on ArtSpeak)
  • avoid cliché - overuse of certain phrases on social media can be very boring. (Do read other people's bios before developing your own - and you will see what I mean)
  • ​avoid politics, religion or sexuality - unless this is a strong focus of your art
  • never ever promise to follow people back - you're no longer a teen!
  • use a good image for your profile photo - make it distinctive - this is often how people recognise you. No need to reveal all of your face and you can use a symbol or artwork - but a friendly pic does help make you real. (see below for dimension details)
  • make your cover (banner) photo say something about you - No image says images don't interest you! They can be difficult to get right. Use a panoramic image that works within the format constraints (see below for dimensions)
  • keep in mind "shorter takes longer". It's not easy writing a great summary in a few words. You are allowed to go back and tweak! It took me a few goes to get it right.

Benefits of working on social media bios
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One of the BIG benefits at working on your social media bio is you get very much better at describing yourself when you meet people face to face.

If you write a good social media bio you are also much more likely to get followers than if you write one that could be absolutely anybody's.
Picture
My Twitter Page associated with my blog 'Making A Mark'. I used to use a lot of numbers in a past life.....

Tips about social media summaries
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  • How to write the perfect social media bio - five tips 
  • About.me used to be a very useful way of identifying all the places you can be found online - on one page.  Then they changed it - so now mine provides a way of getting people to where they need to be to find out more This is mine.
  • This is a useful tool I use when I'm trying to get tweak what I'm saying in a limited number of characters - it counts as you type!  (It's actually for writing the description for webpages i.e. what you see when people come across your website when doing a search)

Facebook

Twitter
Personal profiles are for non-commercial use and represent individual people. You can follow profiles to see public updates from people you're interested in but aren't friends with. Pages look similar to personal profiles, but they offer unique tools for businesses, brands and organizations. Pages are managed by people who have personal profiles. ​
Your summary on Facebook is:
  • the 'About' section on your Facebook Page - which allows commercial use e.g. the promotion of your art
  • it asks you for a mission - say what you are about in one sentence.
  • don't forget to include links to your webbsite and blog
  • You can also say a lot about who you are through the cover photo you choose to use. Share what interests you or appeals to you. People love images! (see dimensions below)
  • you can view what your 'About' section looks like to a visitor by clicking the three dots to the right of the menu line (just to the right of "share")

REFERENCE

​Instagram

  • be brief - you have just 150 characters
  • don't be cute - use the name you use for your art business
  • don't be formal - Instagram is an informal platform so try and make your description accessible to all
  • link to your website - the only place you can place a live URL is in your bio so show them your art business
REFERENCE
  • be brief - You have 160 characters to describe yourself - and no more. 
  • do be sure to include a link to where they can find out more about you and/or your main website or blog
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REFERENCE

YouTube

If you're not camera shy, one of the best ways to introduce who you are is to make a mini-video of yourself explaining who you are, what you do and the purpose of your channel.

Tips about Images (Dimensions)
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In creating social media profiles I used to find few things more irritating than uploading an image to social media and finding that it doesn't look anything like you intended - because of the constraints on the pixels and picture ratio.  

​That's why I now have a yellow post it note on the desktop of my computer which has the optimal sizes for the images used by different parts of social media. 

In this section I'll list some of the detailed constraints and measurements.
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Note they are in PIXELS and you need an image editor that can crop in pixels.
See also Image Sizes for Social Media Sites

​Facebook
  • Official Facebook cover photo size: 851 pixels wide by 315 pixels tall
  • Group Banner  801 x 250 pixels
  • Event    1920 x 1080 pixel image (16:9 aspect ratio)
YouTube
  • Official YouTube Channel Art 2560px x 1440px
Twitter
  • Official Twitter header 1500 x 500 pixels
  • Official Twitter profile 400 x 400 pixels
  • Official minimum image dimension: 720 pixels wide
  • Profile icon size: 160 x 160 pixels, with a minimum image upload size of 180 x 180 pixels
  • Profile icon cut-out: 168 pixels wide by 103 pixels tall, spaced 24 pixels from the left edge of the cover photo