This topic has 1 reply, 2 voices, and was last updated 5 years, 10 months ago by 
.
-
Posts
-
Hi everyone! I’m currently doing my MFA thesis on using social media as a networking tool, specifically Instagram. I figured this forum would be a neat way to ask about this – if you have any thoughts on this please let me know! I’m trying to gauge how many people use Instagram “professionally”.
- Has anyone had success or failures with using Instagram to network?
Do you share photos of your work through Instagram?
If you have an Instagram, how often do you use the “stories” feature?
Have you connected with other scenics through it?
Is there a benefit to posting process photos on Instagram vs. your website?
Have you gotten any jobs or side work from being an Instagram user?
Do you think it’s worth it to “market yourself” online in today’s social media driven world?
Anything along those lines would be helpful! Thanks so much!
I love using Instagram to share photos of my work and look through other peoples work as well. I’ve found the hashtags #goscenicartists (woohoo!), #scenicart, and #scenicartist help me find some other pretty amazing scenics. In addition to finding other painters, I’ve discovered other shops I was unaware of, broadening my knowledge of who’s who in the industry and just generally getting an idea of the cool work that’s being done outside of my city. Because I’m not currently looking for employment I don’t actively try and market myself on Instagram, but when I freelanced it was a great way to share bits of my process and things I was very proud of that didn’t necessarily fit into a “portfolio quality” photo. I know some scenics that incorporate their Instagram accounts into their websites, but I post too many photos of my dog to do that haha.
I’ve found that sharing photos on social media falls in a grey area with some of the theatres that I’ve worked for though. At my last theatre, we were told not to post any photos of our work online, unless it was on our portfolio websites. The reason we were told had something to do with the contracts that the theatre had with the union regarding the sharing of photos. Has anyone else ever run in to that? It was strange and never fully explained to the staff. At my current job, the theatre has created a hashtag for the staff to use when sharing images on social media. Since sharing work before a production opens is sometime such a grey area, I tend to share “snippets” instead of full pieces. Ex: I’ll upload photos of cool textures I’ve done, or funny things that have happened in the shop, but never full pieces or full stage shots until after the show has opened and/or my employer posts photos of the piece first.
- Has anyone had success or failures with using Instagram to network?
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
