Art Entrepreneurship & Social Media (Research Proposal #1): A Case Study on ANCO Artistry

RQ:

How does one support themselves as an art entrepreneur in Savannah, Georgia? How does an art brand (ANCO Artistry) best promote on social media in 2025? This study is exploratory, using content analysis and interviews to explore online brand promotion. The literary review defines relevant concepts and key terms such as Art, Entrepreneurship, Arts Entrepreneurship, Social Media Strategy, Facebook, Instagram, Meta Business Suite, Vendorship, Paid Promotion, etc. Using ANCO Artistry (ANCO), as a test subject, I will explore both in-person vendorship and social media marketing for a budding art brand in Savannah. ANCO will register as a vendor at the 2025 Pooler St. Patrick’s Day festival. The date has not yet been announced but the ANCO team is monitoring the city website for announcements. I will develop a social media plan for pre-festival, festival, and post-festival promotion and engagement including interviewing fellow vendors.

Literature Review

I started with the article What Art Entrepreneurship Isn’t by Gary D. Beckman in the Journal of Art Entrepreneurship Research (Beckman, 2014). I chose this article because art entrepreneurship is a difficult field to describe and there is much dogma around what makes someone an artist. I wanted to start with a clear and well-defined understanding of the field so choices in the social media plan made based on this insight are well-articulated and understood by the audience. Closely connected to art entrepreneurship in 2025 is social media management. I next chose Impact of Social Media Marketing on Small Businesses in Iconic Research and Engineering Journals to begin investigating social media management through a small business lens (Bastian, et al., 2023).

What Art Entrepreneurship Isn't

Focusing on the nebulous definitions of Art, Entrepreneurship, and Arts Entrepreneurship, Beckman concludes that a non-linear, theoretical approach is the most appropriate for definition attempts due to the diverse nature of the fields. He argues that this non-linear approach must include circumscribing, embracing, and theorizing to achieve a complete understanding. Circumscribing must happen because “at the micro-level, the field is highly (if not hyper) contextualized … yet when examined at the macro-level the field appears to serve two broad groups of emerging arts entrepreneurs:” those who want to produce art and those who want to affect how art is produced. These categories and specifics must be identified to begin building an understanding of the type of business and art being discussed. Embracing refers to combining the art education perspective with the business education entrepreneurial perspective. The intersection there is what emerging arts entrepreneurs are missing in our formal art education. Theorizing refers to the long history of attempts at explaining the definition of art: what qualifies as art, how it should be judged, and its true function in society. The research and discussion around these questions go on and on. Beckman finishes by stating, “I would suspect that most readers at least would agree with the premise: A definition of ‘Art’ lacks consensus for many, many reasons.”

Beyond definitions and mentioned when he talked about embracing, Beckman recommends that art schools collaborate with business schools to integrate entrepreneurial theory into their curricula. I know I would have greatly benefited from this being more incorporated into my BFA requirements. I will use this discussion to help my readers understand what constitutes “Arts Entrepreneurship” for ANCO Artistry and build on this knowledge in my discussion of appropriate social media strategy and application. 

Impact of Social Media Marketing on Small Businesses

This article argues for a positive relationship between social media strategies/engagement and some key small business objectives: brand visibility, reaching a wider audience, and competing with larger companies. Bastian et al. discuss the most and least effective social media platforms finding that Facebook is the most frequently used and impactful for small business marketing. The authors delve into the challenges that come with small business social media marketing including connectivity, competition, customer loyalty, and return policies. 

Discussing Chaffey’s Theory, Bastian, et al. state that social media marketing is informal and customer behavior is highly connected to communication and networking. They go on to say, “Firms use social media to increase client purchasing alternatives, encourage purchases, and retain brand loyalty.” Chaffey argues that social media is imperative for online marketing and raises product awareness, purchasing, and brand loyalty. The article then expands on Chaffey’s Theory by discussing Ashley and Tuten’s work which details that engaging on multiple platforms with tailored content is pleasing to the customer and provides critical data to the small business owner. This article also discusses the Marketing Mix Theory, its 4 Ps (Product, Price, Placement, and Promotion), and adapting it to the modern market. While this theory is still applicable and successful in the relatively new environment of social media, it is clear that there is much research to be done on how this is best applied to small businesses.

These theories explain how businesses can effectively use social media to engage with audiences and create more effective social media marketing plans. The authors end with a few recommendations for readers: engage with the audience, use paid advertising wisely, monitor social media engagement, evaluate engagement data, and stay up to date with platform trends. I will use this data to highlight successful social media practices for small businesses, apply an arts entrepreneurship lens, and use this knowledge to create a plan to promote ANCO Artistry.

Where Next

I am looking at work by Agafonow & Perez, Cueto, and Goldman published between 2014 and 2024 to investigate and define key terms relevant to Arts Entrepreneurship. To investigate social media strategy and brand promotion through a small business lens, I am looking at work by Fan, Pentina & Koh, and Travassos Rosário & Carmo Dias published between 2012 and 2023. 

Methodology

The study uses content analysis and interview methods to assess the best strategy for arts entrepreneurship promotion on social media based in Savannah, Georgia in 2025. Because this is a saturated market being the home of Savannah College of Art and Design, social media marketing is evermore important for brand visibility, reaching a larger audience, and product promotion. To address this need, the study will follow ANCO Artistry through the process of vendorship at the 2025 Pooler St. Patrick’s Day Festival. The date of the festival has not yet been announced but the ANCO team is monitoring the city announcements for vendor registration. The study will use research discussed in the literary review to develop a social media plan promoting ANCO Artistry. I will use Bhandari and Melber’s Social Media Strategy and relevant articles to develop target audiences for online art purchases and which platforms are best used to reach said audiences. I will then create content tailored to the specific platforms to be released before, during, and after the festival. The measurable variables of these efforts are detailed in the following section.

Measures:

• Effect on follower count after engaging in conversation at the festival

  • Create a sign with the QR code for the ANCO website with one-click access to all of our channels from there. There’s an added benefit of increasing website traffic.

  • Measured by logging the follower counts at the beginning and end of the festival to determine the number of followers gained. Extra validity: keep a tally of people engaged in conversation who then scan the code and follow.

  • Control: Only posting about visiting our booth during the festival period.

• Effect on follower count from pre-festival promotion

  • Measured by logging the follower counts at the beginning of the study and at the start of the festival to determine the number of followers gained.

  • Control: Only posting about festival preparation and promotion during this pre-festival period.

• Effect on follower count through post-festival engagement

  • Measured by logging the follower counts at the end of the festival and at the end of this study to determine the number of followers gained.

  • Control: Only posting about festival activities on ANCO accounts during this post-festival period.

• Engagement throughout the study period

  • Measured by logging the number of comments (by ANCO and audience members), likes (etc.), 

  • Control: Only posting about festival activities and replying to conversations started in those threads.

• ANCO Profit Margins throughout the study period

  • Both online and in-person purchases

  • ANCO website with links to its Etsy page to be included in every post.

• Effects on Website Views

  • Measured by logging the number of views at the beginning and end of the pre-festival, festival, and post-festival periods

  • Control: The ANCO website is only advertised through social media promotion and festival engagement.

• Proposed Survey Questions for Fellow Vendors

  • Interviews will be conducted at the festival and during a scheduled interview with my neighbor who is an art vendor by profession

  • Open-ended Interview Questions

    • How much do you utilize social media promotion? Which platforms do you use and for which marketing purposes?

    • What kind of art do you make? What kind of content do you create to represent and promote your art/business?

    • What types of content, in your experience, get the most engagement?

    • Do you monitor your social media engagement closely? What are your KPIs (key performance indicators)?

    • Do you use paid ads? Have you found them effective? On which platforms would you say they are most effective?

Limitations

The results of this study will be a singular example of social media strategy application. ANCO Artistry is in its vendorship infancy and there is much to be learned through trial and error. The theories analyzed and employed here are our first attempt at successful arts entrepreneurship. As mentioned, this study is also location-specific. The online nature of social media marketing suggests applications to wider geographical audiences, but this study will target its ads to Georgians and South Carolinians. Additionally, the Meta accounts associated with ANCO Artistry are/began as the personal accounts of Anna Currence O’Neal (this study’s researcher and author). The starting followership numbers are therefore inflated by connections unrelated to ANCO’s business operations.

Potential Future Studies

How does networking with fellow vendors affect assimilation into the arts entrepreneurship field and the art world at large? There is much research, some of which is discussed in the current study, about the importance of networking both in the art world and entrepreneurial circles. Entrepreneurship through an art lens is as diverse and complex as the art world itself. This could make for compelling research about melding the two fields more concretely.

Does posting about only your upcoming event have a downside? Should we pepper in seemingly off-topic posts that show company personality more directly? For example, what are the benefits of employing TikTok-style videos that share less polished and authentic content capturing ANCO operations? There is much discussion about why TikTok was and is so popular in the 2020s thus far. One such explanation is that the TikTok trend of shaky, less-polished videos gave content creators an authentic vibe (meaning the general feeling of something) and pulled the audience in by making them feel like the creator was speaking directly with them (Gault, 2022). The argument is that the feeling of community in TikTok was enhanced by this videography trend. This is directly in line with the core characteristics of art vendorship and the ground-level art world outside of the gallery: an authentic representation of an artist’s processes, product promotion, and brand personality.

The online nature of social media marketing suggests applications to wider geographical audiences. A future study could explore the effects of wider social media targeting, perhaps targeting audiences more based on interest than geographical location. This would be a change of variables from the current study and would provide an interesting contrast of geographically local versus interest-based engagement.

Citations

Agafonow, Alejandro & Perez, Marybel. (2023) “How a social enterprise wanes: The Transaction Costs of Credible Commitments at Etsy.com,” Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics. 35(1): 83-107.

Bastian, et al. (2023) “Impact of Social Media Marketing Small Business Growth,” Iconic Research and Engineering Journals. 7(1): 333-338.

Beckman, Gary D. (2014) "What Arts Entrepreneurship Isn’t," Journal of Arts Entrepreneurship Research. 1(1): 3-18. 

Bhandari, Heather D. & Melber, Jonathan. (2009). “Art/Work: Everything You Need to Know (and Do) As You Pursue Your Art Career.” Free Press. 

Cueto, Alejandra. (2024) “Work is Freedom: The Entrepreneurial Self Among Street Vendors,” The Sociological Quarterly. 65(4): 584-604.

Fan, Xiruo. (2023) “Social Media Marketing Strategies,” Advances in Economics Management and Political Science. 23(1): 59-64.

Goldman, Laine. (2014) “The Liminal Freelance Landscape: Geography, Proximity and Community,” Journal of Arts Entrepreneurship. 1(1): 73-96.

Pentina, Iryna & Koh, Anthony C.. (2012) “Exploring Social Media Marketing Strategies in SMEs,” International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising. 7(4): 292-310.

Quesenberry, Keith A. (2021) “Social Media Strategy: Marketing, Advertising, and Public Relations in the Consumer Revolution,” Rowman & Littlefield. 3rd Edition.

Travassos Rosário, Albérico & Carmo Dias, Joana. (2023) “Marketing Strategies on Social Media Platforms,” International Journal of E-Business Research. 19(1): 1-25.

Gault, Grace. (2022) “Authenticity’s ‘TikTok’-ing Clock: Exploring the Implications of Sophisticated Tools for Performing Authenticity on TikTok. Media & Communication Department at Muhlenberg College. Undergraduate High Honors Thesis.