Shellie Vickrey describes herself as a fine art lifestyle photographer who looks beyond what other people to see to create beautiful renditions.
“I want the client to walk away feeling more beautiful, sexy and dreamy than they ever thought possible,” she said. “I paint with light and try to make the final photograph a work of sensual art unto itself.”
Keeping with her theme of looking beyond the obvious, Vickrey has also taken the same approach to marketing her work. While boudoir and fashion photography is her primary passion, the owner of Broad Division Studios has lately begun to see a larger audience consisting of wedding, family and commercial photography, and she attributes this success to the recognition that her art has received through social media.
This success is no different than what many artists are experiencing in the age of social media for business. The most often told stories of social media success are generally large process-oriented depictions of business to business or business to consumer case studies. In the art world, the use of social media is much more fluid yet just as successful. From word of mouth marketing to strategic use of social networks, artists like Vickrey have opened an entirely new form of engagement through art.
“Word of mouth has always been the best way to market my work. I honestly rarely use a business card,” Vickrey said. “However, I have been using social media and the web since long before I was a photography hobbyist and long before it was my full-time business. I owned a clothing line for 10 years and used social media to learn as much as I could about fashion, models, photography, trends, style, photographers and the business.”
Natasha Wescoat is another artist who has been favorably rewarded by her early adoption of social media for promoting her work. She paints what she calls whimsical pop art, with acrylic on canvas and even sometimes illustration and character work. In the beginning she fell into social media promotion of her art almost by accident through video.
“In 2005, I started video blogging,” Wescoat said. “It wasn’t really much of a strategy. I just did it cause I liked to do it. I didn’t even know I was doing it right.”
Regardless of whether or not this was a planned strategy, it worked for Wescoat. One of the elements of gallery showings and the like which never appealed to Wescoat was their impersonal nature. Social media has allowed her to connect personally with fans and potential collectors. She gives examples about how social media could help artists connect with fan bases in other countries, or even with audiences that may not fall into any one targeted demographic.
“Social media is a great experimentation to help gauge where your audience may be,” she said.
