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If you have been posting and tweeting about your art, arts events or involvement and so far it’s been without a course, perhaps it’s time to consider building a content plan. A plan is a roadmap or guideline for you or your organization to refer to when posting and tweeting and help you stay focused and on point. Here are steps to building one yourself.

1. Goals: Think about what you hope to achieve. Here’s a list from a previous post to help you decide what your goals are. Goals will be different and change over time so refer to them often. Remember: if you have too many goals, you may not achieve any of them.

Three very basic goals might be:

a)       Visibility: Raise awareness.

b)       Retention: Create a channel for feedback for members you already have.

c)       Referral: Provide opportunities for you or others to share your news.

2. Measurement: How will you know if you are reaching your goals if you don’t have any measurement on which to assess? Are you looking to increase attendance, participation, retweets? Decide what metrics are valuable and watch your numbers. Set a benchmark to gauge the effectiveness of your plan.

3. Audience: Know your audience and whom you would like to attract. If you want to attract a certain client, consider what content might appeal to them. Also consider the sort of audience you already have. If you don’t know who your audience is, it’s okay to ask. Check out their profiles and if it doesn’t indicate (which is should) send them a DM. Create audience lists like: artists, galleries, friends, dealers, bloggers, critics, etc. Sort your audience into these lists.

4. Profile: After making an audience list, create a profile for the different types. Are they general public? Dealers? Gallerists? Artists? Educators? Critic? Writers? Bloggers? Event planners? Collectors? Consider their experience and knowledge of social media. Also consider how often they are online, and when and who else they might follow. If you focus solely on your wants, you will miss opportunities. Educators want content they can use to teach their students; students want any information; buyers, media, etc. want to know who to collect, and when and where events are.

5. Content: Either with a team or other artists, create a list of the kinds of items to post and tweet about such as events, your practice, your installations, the technologies/techniques behind your work, artists who inspire you, or events related to your exhibition. Include other organizations or galleries in your reciprocal memberships. Create a separate list of all your events in a year; include all of your programming dates and who’s involved; plan to post about them in advance.

6. Sort: After you’ve made a long list, sort your content into categories such as events, announcements, educational notices or critical posts. Sort it out now so you can manage it more easily and again you will have a clear understanding of your content.

7. Frequency: Think about how often you want to provide each type of content. Is it daily, weekly, or monthly? A blog update might be once a week, but your information about events might only be as needed. Your video content might be monthly, but your general art information about art news might be once every few days. Again, sorting is key.

8. Assign: Prioritize your audience and assign them a number. In a grid, write out your content and under it make a list of who might be interested in that content. Your events might be interesting to 1,2,3,4,5 and 6, but a blog about your process might only appeal to 1 and 5. It will quickly become apparent who you might be attracting and who you are ignoring.

9. Style: A scholarly website has a different look and feel than a Hollywood gossip site. Depending on who you are, you’ll have a different content style. The PIPSIE acronym keeps me on course:

     Positive
     Intelligent
     Personable
     Smart
     Informative
     Engaging

This might not be your style, but decide on your content style and stick to it. If your style is consistent, your followers will return.

10. Listen: Decide whom you should be listening to and what you should be listing for, and again make lists. Who are your influencers and whose opinions matter to you or your audience? Put them in lists on Twitter or use other monitoring tools for key words to watch for or engagement opportunities. Hashtag these keywords, places, events, or art forms to maximize visibility. Read more about monitoring here .

11. Channel: Not all social media platforms are created equal. If you are trying to connect with professionals, perhaps starting a discussion group on LinkedIn is best. Do a little research and decide what the strengths are for each platform and remember to change and reuse your content from one platform to another.  A video of you in your studio for Vimeo or YouTube can also be posted with links on Facebook and Twitter and embedded in your website, blog, or Tumblr accounts.

Akimbo is offering a content plan building workshop this fall. Stay tuned for registration information.

James Fowler worked in public relations with organizations in various industries to achieve their communications goals and streamline their media messaging, monitoring and metrics. James currently maintains a fulltime studio practice in Toronto and has taken a keen interest in social media and eMarketing. He joined Akimbo in the spring 2011 as Social Media Director.

LETS CONNECT! Please leave your comments and questions below - We'd love to hear form you! You can also join our coversations on Twitter and Facebook. If you know of someone who is using technology in a new and interesting way, think we might investigate a new trend or want to make a suggestion for a TweetChat topic, please write us at connect@akimbo.ca 

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