Introduction to selected organisation and importance of social media strategy for its business

Han’s Art & Living

Established since 1997, Han’s Art & Living started out with a desire to explore different forms of art to stimulate art inspiration for children. It was formed with the belief that art play a huge role in molding one’s thinking process, bringing out finer virtues among children. Han’s Art & Living serves as a platform for aspiring artists to showcase their talent through their art pieces.

Importance of social media strategy for its business

However it requires a large amount of resources to to keep true to its philosophy of providing a unique experience for each child attending its arts lesson. Apart from creating a positive environment for the children to feel relaxed to create art, it is also crucial to sustain the business. A delicate balance between business and the arts have to be struck. Hence, Han’s Arts & Living expanded its outreach through setting up an online website which provide customers with an overview of its business. Subsequently, they also introduced an online store so that customers could purchase artworks online.

Being a relatively new and growing scene in Singapore, the art companies and brands are not as well established as they would want to be. Han’s Art has a philosophy of creating a unique experience for every art session, which may put pressure on its resources to sustain that philosophy and the business. Therefore to strike a balance in developing its business as well as portraying itself as a unique art destination, it is important to tap into channels that would help to boost coverage as well as establish good standing and showcase some sort of competitive advantage. Having a good media outreach using social media platforms would garner increased publicity in hopes of generating higher participation rates. In addition, social media is growing in usage and thus the ease and convenience of sending messages to an audience as well as establishing efficient and effective two-way communication will be greater.

Research question and value of the study

Propelling cultural foundation to springboard the artistic and cultural movement lies in the growing usage of social media.

The art scene in Singapore has been growing over the past few years, with the government investing more in art fairs and creating world-class museum spaces¹. Some initiatives include Art Stage Singapore that debuted in 2011, and Art Week, that showcases the many great works of both local and global talents. The growth of social media has also increased rapidly across the years, and thus a link can be established between enhancing the prominence of Singapore’s art culture through the effective social media usage.

Project Planning and Method

Arts and culture are closely intertwined. There are many art forms – plays, symphonies, ballets, paintings, sculptures, literature, film and photography. The traditional art forms which includes Chinese calligraphy, Teochew opera, bangsawan, Malay dance, Tamil literature, Indian dance. Yet there are many activities that do not conform to common perceptions of arts and culture, such as getais, community singing, drumming, hip-hop. For the purpose of this project, we will be defining arts as a subset of culture. Hence data collection for number of museum visits, ticketed sales performing arts events and presence on social media will be a tool to gauge the level of engagement in the arts scene. Such social media sites includes – Youtube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Social Media Strategy for Han’s Art & Living

Partnership with local museums

Since Han’s Art & Living has a group of local artists in place, it is worthwhile to collaborate with museums in Singapore during the Singapore Arts Festival to boost the awareness of Han’s Art & Living. Some examples include the National Library ground floor spaces that have been previously used for craft events and exhibitions.

We can also adopt the Pass-it-along promotion method in order to boost sales and create greater awareness. Han’s Art & Living could thus collaborate with companies such as Groupon, to promote their cause. We believe that through this, we will be able to utilise one’s network and experience a greater response

Riding on the waves of government initiatives           

With a need to differentiate Singapore from the rest of Asia, the government has been actively promoting the arts and culture scene in Singapore through initiative like Arts and Culture Strategic Review (ACSR). The initiative aims to double the percentage of Singaporean visiting at least one arts and culture event each year. As this initiative is driven by the private sector, the community and the arts and culture sector, there will be a groundswell of support for the local arts and culture scene.

Increasing online presence through the usage of Instagram and Facebook

Han’s Art and Living could increase their online portfolio by engaging and promoting their art classes through Instagram and Facebook. Snippets of videos showcasing the formation of art works can be an effective way to promote their art classes. They could also do so by creating events such as Lucky draws for their followers in order to pique the interest of the public. In addition, they could hold instagram giveaway contests for discounted art classes or vouchers, based on the competition criterion. An example could be “document your favourite Han’s Art experience and stand to win art supplies!” which would not only attract children who are competitive and are interested to create and draw, but budding or beginner artists who may be in search of unique or basic art supplies that Han’s Art could provide for in this case.

Facebook would be used for event promotion, as more adults/ the older age group would be the more frequent Facebook users and could be new parents and are in search of fun places to learn arts and craft, that Han’s Art is trying to garner awareness of. These could be advertising not only classes within their own location but events held externally around Singapore, like collaborations with any Art’s festival or museum event.