{"id":321,"date":"2014-11-28T10:06:55","date_gmt":"2014-11-28T10:06:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rachel.we-are-low-profile.com\/?p=321"},"modified":"2018-02-13T16:09:39","modified_gmt":"2018-02-13T16:09:39","slug":"kickstarter-as-a-way-to-generate-excitement-about-arts-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rachel.we-are-low-profile.com\/blog\/kickstarter-as-a-way-to-generate-excitement-about-arts-practice\/","title":{"rendered":"Use Kickstarter as a way to generate excitement about your arts practice"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post is part of a series ‘7 Things Artists Could Learn From Board Game Kickstarters<\/a>‘ where I highlight some of the lessons artists and arts organisations could learn from the world of crowd-funded boardgames…<\/p>\n

\"KICKSTARTER_FOR_ARTISTS_Mousetrap_Patent\"<\/p>\n

<< PART 5:<\/strong> Focus on your timescale and actually delivering<\/a><\/p>\n

Use Kickstarter as a way to generate excitement about your practice<\/strong><\/h3>\n

(…as well as a way to launch something new<\/strong>, give a worldwide exposure<\/strong> to your work and find new audiences<\/strong> for your work!)<\/p>\n

Running a Kickstarter campaign as an integral part of your arts project has the potential to generate lots of excitement around your practice, vastly expand the number of people who know about your work and gives you a good excuse to get in touch with people (in general, and in particular those whose opinion you value or who might be useful to your career) to tell them about the exciting things you do.<\/p>\n

One of the strongest lessons I have learned by working on boardgame projects is the importance of tapping into the geographically dispersed (but electronically highly connected) community of interest that surrounds what is often referred to as ‘the hobby’. Art and arts practice functions in many similar ways (although within the field of contemporary art this interest has been professionalised and would find the term ‘hobby’ dismissive), with hubs of activity where people meet to share their passions, lots of associated online chatter and discourse, and importantly a strong, highly connected community of interest who define (at least in part) their identity around their interest. These are people who like to recommend things to others, who get excited about new things \/ projects \/ ideas and who are excited by ambitious people doing ambitious things – essentially, they are the people you are going to help you get your project out there!!<\/p>\n

Expand your social reach<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Think about elements of your project that people are going to want to share and consider this when you prepare your project page, what you send out into the world via social media and when you prepare press releases about your project. If there is nothing that people are going to want to share, you need to seriously re-think attempting to fund your project.<\/p>\n

In the run up to, and during, your campaign you are going to need to increase your activity on platforms like Facebook and Twitter. I would recommend focusing most attention at users who are engaged in your sphere of interest online, as they will be most comfortable with using Kickstarter as a mode of backing your project. Obviously, print materials can be useful for when you meet with people face-to-face but online activity will pay off to a greater extent.<\/p>\n