How to Sell Your Art on Altamira
What is Altamira?
Altamira is a new communal marketplace for art, artists, and their fans. Altamira facilitates community around art to provide education, social proof, emotional connection, and seamless transaction. It aims to create the best way for artists to sell their work, build their brand, and engage with their fans while empowering art enthusiasts and collectors to find community-reviewed art.
It is like Instagram but just for art.
Why is Altamira great for Artists?
Altamira’s mission is to empower anyone who wants – to participate in the art world. To do this we are focused on becoming the first choice of artists to sell their work and growth their reputation. We only allow artists to sell work on the platform and offer the lowest commission structure on the market, just 10%.
Most artwork gets written about by critics who are on Altamira, so this is a great way to get your work written about. @marlene-llanes work, !In the Comfort of my Island, is a good example of how this can benefit the artist.
Shipping is taken care of. Altamira has two options for it. The first is 'white glove', where our shipping partner will coordinate the pick up of your piece from wherever you are, pack the piece, and take care of everything from there. This is best for work above $5k. The second is self-ship, where we send you a printable shipping label and you are responsible for it from there. This is best for pieces below $5k. Both make shipping really easy for you.
How do I sell my art on Altamira?
Like most social media, and most things in life, the more you put in, the more that you get out.
Sign up
It is really easy to participate. Go to Altamira.art and sign up as an artist. There are three different user types, so make sure you're signing up as an artist. If you don't, you won't be able to post any artwork. After a short review process, Altamira will verify your account. Once this is done, you're able to post your work just like you would on any other social media platform.
Post your work
If you have ever posted on any social media platforms you can post on Altamira. Altamira studied the designs of popular sites like Instagram and Airbnb to create a very simple upload process.
Image - Post one or many photos of your artwork. You can also post a video if you happen to have one. Be sure whatever you post is high quality and shows the artwork well. In addition to a photo of the entire work, close-ups of specific details can be great. A picture of the piece in context can be great too ie: in a living room.
Title - Just the name of your piece. No descriptions or emojis here.
Description - A picture is worth a thousand words, but a good story is worth a thousand pictures. Use this space to weave a narrative about the work.
Price - Altamira allows artists to price works however they want. Pick a price that accurately reflects the value of your work.
Best Time To Post - There is no single best time, but there are considerations to keep in mind. The homepage is based on a 24-hour cycle, new works hit the homepage at 12:01 am PST and are added throughout the day. Altamira does not adjust for time zones so be sure to double-check you are posting at the time you’d like to in PST. There is no “magic” time to post.
Promote your work
Altamira has a large and growing community of critics, collectors, and decorators, but the more you promote your own work the better it will do. Upvotes, comments, and critiques signal strong work to the community. Plus for every collector, critic, and fan you bring to Altamira, know that most other artists are doing the same. It's a win/win for you and them.
Tell your supporters - Works that have active conversations and higher upvotes generate more interest and tend to do well overall. Just be thoughtful about how you ask for support, asking for upvotes directly is discouraged. People should upvote the work because they like it, not because they’re peer pressured into doing so.
Ask for critiques - If you are connected to any art critics ask them for a short review of the work on the piece’s page. This third-party credibility goes a long way.
Post on Social
General Tips - Keep it brief. Include an image that grabs people’s attention, no hashtags, and tag @art.altamira on Instagram and @altamira_art_ on Twitter. Altamira looks for artist posts that they can amplify by retweeting or sharing from their accounts. 🚀
Link directly to the piece’s page - Not just to the homepage.
Tag vs. @ mention - Tag people in photos instead of @ mentioning them to have a cleaner post (less “blue”), unless you specifically want to highlight the person as part of the content (rather than get their attention). You can only tag in photos.
Reshare when you’ve been featured - If Altamira features you, get the most value from it by resharing it. On Instagram, stories are a great way to do this, on Twitter, retweets, and in the newsletter, email forwards.
Promote your profile
The general idea here is to make sure you link to your Altamira profile wherever possible. Every artist gets a profile with all of the work they’ve posted on it as well as some information about them. It’s sort of like a mini website.
Add your profile link to your social media profiles - Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook all have a way to add links to your bio. Be sure your Altamira link is in there. For Instagram, tools like LinkTree are a great way to add more than one link to your profile.
Add your profile link to your website - This can go anywhere on your website but the footer or wherever your social media links are is usually a good spot.
Make sure your Altamira profile is complete - Make sure you have a profile picture, banner picture, bio, and links to your website and social media.
Participate in the community
The more you participate, the more you will be noticed and the more vibrant the community will be for everyone.
Upvote work you like - This helps the best work get featured. Different than the traditional art world where 100 people in New York decide what great art is, Altamira asks everyone to participate. This is your chance to help break the status quo.
Critique and comment on other artists' work - Not only is this good karma, but it also helps you get noticed, especially if you say something insightful or interesting.
Respond to critiques of your work - This is good etiquette no matter what platform you are on, but it also helps build positive relationships on Altamira and goes a long way in creating a vibrant community.
Follow other artists and critics - When they post something you get notified making it easier to engage with community members whose work you like.
Getting in the Newsletter and Altamira’s Instagram
Altamira sends a newsletter and posts on social to thousands of readers and followers every weekday with the previous day’s top-voted pieces and/or works that have been critiqued. The best thing you can do to make it into the digest is to post great work that gets upvoted and critiqued.
A few other things that will get you in the newsletter:
Curate Collections: Create content around your work. If you posted an amazing abstract work, curate a “best abstract works” collection. Doing so provides Altamira with cool content to share with the community. If they use your collection they’ll be sure to give you a shout-out. Let them know if you made a collection on social media.
Write critiques: Doing so provides Altamira with cool content to share with the community. If they use your critique they’ll be sure to give you a shout-out. Let them know if you critiqued something on social media.
Write an article: Same story as critiques and collections, but this comes with the added benefit of making you more findable on search engines.
Ask Altamira: Reach out directly to us and they will usually work with you to get you featured.
Be consistent
Altamira is social commerce, so posting once and hoping your work sells will not get the job done.
