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Artist Research Labs Instagram takeover
Bite-sized social media campaign sharing the outcomes of a digital artist residency
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Background
Launching in January 2021, the Artist Research Labs project is a research and exchange forum set up by community charity Fusion Arts to help artists grow their ideas and discover the next chapter of their practice. For series one of the programme, artists Bryony Benge-Abbott, John A. Blythe, Nor Greenhalgh, Sam Skinner and Sunil Shah met regularly between January and March 2021 to discuss, explore and reflected on their practices, with a particular focus on considerations of sustainability in relation to their work. Full project overview here.
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As the Digital Marketing, Communications and PR Manager at Fusion Arts during this time, it was my role to share the process and outcomes of series one with the organisation's audiences and stakeholders.
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Brief
"At Fusion Arts, our mission is to make the arts accessible by connecting artists and communities. Therefore, it's important that our audience is aware of this project and that we platform and promote the artists we work with. We need a simple way to share the process and outcomes of this digital artist residency on our communications platforms. Can you help?"
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Process
I took a two-pronged approach to this campaign. Firstly, whilst the project was ongoing, I ran a 'Fusion Talk' series in which I interviewed a different Art Labs artist every other week, discussing their practice, how Art Labs was evolving their work, how they are addressing sustainability issues and other interesting themes brought up in their art. These interviews were circulated as both features in Fusion's bi-weekly email newsletter and published as blogs on the organisation's website. The articles were also promoted and linked through social media posts,
tweets and stories. The articles themselves included links to the featured artist's website and social media pages. The aim with these features was to introduce our audiences to the project, get a snapshot into the project in progress, platform each artist, present an individual deep dive into their work, and set the stage for an aggregated end-of-project Instagram takeover. You can read the interviews here: Nor Sunil Bryony Sam John
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To promote the takeover, I designed and posted a number of flyers across Fusion's various social media platforms. These were shared during the several weeks leading up to the takeover. The design of the flyers was informed by the style of the takeover cards and combined the eye-catching artwork generated by the participants with Fusion Arts' signature yellow circular motif. All promotional material and stories included the #ArtLabsTakeover hashtag, and tagged the featured artist so that they could re-share the content with their own followers.
A selection of the Artist Research Labs Instagram stories takeover cards
"I am interested in how the photographic image makes meaning, how it is circulated, how it forms our grasp on reality, influences knowledge, becomes the source of accessing history and memory, and operates as a document..."
- Artist Research Labs participant Sunil Shah on his creative photography practice
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Then, once the project had been wrapped up and the artists had presented their findings to the Fusion Arts team, I compiled, designed and shared a five-day Artist Research Labs Instagram stories takeover. The takeover combined titbits from the interviews, information from the artists' final presentation and some additional feedback provided by the artists to create a bite-sized, follower-friendly overview of the project. The takeover platformed one of the five artists each day and showcased the work, reflections and discoveries that they had generated during the residency. Links to the artists websites, work for sale and social media were also included in the stories and Fusion's Linktree carousel in order to give the participants further exposure. View the full takeover here.
Top: a selection of the Artist Research Labs takeover flyers; bottom left: Fusion Art's Instagram feed during the campaign; bottom right: a sample of posts used to boost Art Labs blog posts and takeover
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Results
During the five-day takeover, the stories received a total of 428 views. The takeover is now featured as one of Fusion Arts' Instagram stories highlights and continues to attract viewers. As of 22/05/21 (two months post-takeover), there were a total of 207 visits to the Artist Research Labs 'Fusion Talks' interviews hosted on the organisation's website. A total of 312 unique subscribers opened and read one or more of the interviews via the email newsletter. There were a total of 321 likes on Fusion Arts' takeover-related Instagram posts, which translates to an impressive engagement rate of 17.8% (compared to the industry standard of 1 - 3%).
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By supporting and helping to platform this cohort of artists through Artist Research Labs and its publicity, Fusion has been able to forge and develop beneficial ongoing relationships with them. The residency has acted as a springboard for collaboration, with Fusion having worked with the artists on various subsequent projects, exhibitions, workshops and public art initiatives.
