Thoughtful Thursday: Beyond Brick & Mortar
I am a reluctant late comer to social media. As an educator in my previous life, I hid from the probing light social media casts on your private life. In fact, I frequently advised about social media mishaps involving both students and adults and at both the personal and professional levels saw more negatives than positives. There is a fraternity of folks who proudly wear a badge of never-Facebookers!
And then life changed for me…retirement, opening a business and the pandemic. Each of these life-altering events provides a different lens through which social media may ease the transition between what was, what is and what could be. Google “love, hate relationship with social media, numerous articles expound on the topic. According to a 2019 Wall Street Journal poll, America shares the paradox of loving the medium that a majority feel is a time-waster (82%), advocator of lies and mistruths (55%) and 57% claim it divides us. Yet in the very same poll, 70% of participants engage in some form of social media daily!
Social Media, during the Coronavirus era, has been a life-saver personally and professionally. Businesses are able to survive and some even thrive moving to the safety of a virtual format. For the art gallery world, this means sharing the work of artists and even sharing the artists’ story. Art lovers and collectors have always wanted to meet the artist who renders the work they find so moving and inspirational. And those once highly valued, highly successful meet & greets are now replaced by a 3-minute virtual tour, interview or a “visit with” video, while online shops and art auctions promote sales. The virtual world encourages you to provoke, build, and grow relationships with your art lovers, as all are potential collectors! And this is not so different from the hoped-for outcomes of the face-to-face gatherings of a few months ago.
Foundational to both forms of social interactions are relationships. Virtual relationships, like face-to-face relationships are built on engagement, communication, trust, integrity and time. These are values that transcend business and become a part of who we are and what we do. So even as we shift to different methodologies for sharing information, we are communicating and connecting with an ever-growing audience; an audience so large and vast they wouldn’t fit into our brick and mortar gallery! Interested in building a relationship with art and artists, visit us at www.Lespoissonsgallery.com or on Facebook!
Jacalyn Beam, "Harbor Dining"