The Impact of Using Social Media as an Artist 👩🏻‍💻

Posted on Dec 3, 2021
tl;dr: might as well know how to use it, even if it's evil

Today, I am publishing the biggest thing I’ve ever written.

Download the PDF here: https://www.pdfhost.net/index.php?Action=DownloadFile&id=f42077e081d44f8b7a5bdbdc4d5fb4c4

It is a document called ‘The Impact of Using Social Media as an Artist.’ Part report, it outlines how social media has become an important tool for work, networking and creativity. Part guide, it explains the differences between social media platforms, alongside tips, examples, and advice on safety and mental wellbeing online. Part conversation, it interviews different artists on their approach to social media (including Monique Jackson, v buckenham, the Kirkwood Brothers, Vince Laws, David Tovey and Babeworld). And part assessment, it looks at a recent commission that was shared on Instagram and Twitter to examine how arts organisations can best present artwork in online spaces.

I’ve written this hoping it can help both sides of the table — so that artists know how they can use social media to their advantage, and for organisations to know how to better support the artists they work with. I’ve also written this because it was a commission, lol. The text was commissioned by Unlimited, who ‘run an arts commissioning programme that enables new work by disabled artists to reach UK and international audiences.’

It’s one big PDF for now but over the coming weeks/months, I’ll be pulling out small parts of the text and sharing them as blog posts with audio recordings on Unlimited’s website so don’t be put off by the size of this (it’s honestly so big).

Finally, this document was published on the International Day of People With Disabilities. I hope what I’ve written can help platform disabled artists, or help them better platform themselves. Writing the report with this important end date in mind helped me think through my own experience of disability and I am very glad to have had the opportunity to do this.

Text on Unlimited’s site here: https://weareunlimited.org.uk/the-white-pube-investigates-the-impact-of-using-social-media/

the impact of using social media as an artist