Instagram ads boost art sales
By Marika Van Schepen
Ottawa artists have taken to Instagram to build a following, creating business pages to showcase and freelance their art. Now, selling artwork can be as easy as the stroke of a brush and the swipe of a finger.
And art enthusiasts can follow their favourite creators to add a bit of colour to their feed — or, ultimately, to their home.
Artist Emilie Darlington completed her undergraduate degree in Fine Arts from the University of Ottawa this spring.
Midway through her degree, she started @artworkbyemilie, an Instagram business account dedicated to selling and sharing her paintings and sketches.
She regularly posts finished works and progress shots of her bright, bold paintings on social media platforms.
“I think Instagram is one of the most popular ways for everyday people to connect with working artists,” Darlington said. “I follow hundreds of them myself.”
Ottawa artists such as Chelsea Lundy go one step further, using Instagram’s featured business ads to sell her “digital finger paintings” through the company Chelseadrawsyou.
Lundy’s a full-time web and graphic designer by day and virtual artist and entrepreneur by night.
She recreates people’s pictures by drawing on her iPhone screen using her fingertips instead of a stylus pen.
She started showcasing her art almost two years ago through a business page on Instagram and has recently started using the company’s ad services. Since then, Lundy has gained a following of more than 3,000 people, many of them from Ottawa. “I pick the post I want to promote, make sure I have a nice clear and concise message, and let Instagram pick the audience for me,” Lundy said. This feature has been a huge help in connecting Lundy with clients, she said.
Instagram introduced the advertisement features for small to mid-size businesses and brands in 2016.
The ads appear on people’s feeds like normal posts; the only differences is they have the blue “sponsored” tags and come from an account a user doesn’t necessarily already follow.
Instagram says users are two and half times more likely to click on its ads than any other social-media platforms. Lundy pays about $20 for one day of ad circulation, which reaches up to 7,000 people.
Aside from location, age and gender, ad buyers can target users by their interests and connections. This allows them to place ads directly in front of an ideal target market.
Ashley Piperni, an Ottawa general contractor and mother, recently had Lundy create a digital finger paint drawing of her family. She found Chelsdrawsyou through one of Lundy’s Instagram advertisements that popped up on her feed. Piperni said she uses Instagram frequently but had never thought of acquiring art through a social media app.
“It was super fun and easy to purchase art like this,” she said via email.
Lundy explained that her Instagram page @chelsdrawsyou and ads have made it easier for potential clients to get in touch with her: “The contact button in the bio is the most valuable part of creating a business account… Being able to point potential clients upwards to the contact button saves a lot of time.”
Lundy and Darlington said they are thrilled about the Instagram art community forming in Ottawa.
“The fact that I can share my art with anybody is a really special ability that older generations of artists didn’t have. It is such a valuable tool in this day and age,” said Lundy.
Two virtual finger paint portraits created and posted by Chelsea Lundy.