How To Promote Your Art Online
Posted on | May 30, 2009 | 4 Comments
… and other ways to engage in Shameless Self-Promotion using Social Media.
I attended two(!) networking events this week. The first was a happy hour organized by my financial advisor extraordinare, Michelle Alberda, and held at Marx & Zavattero Gallery. It was the first “Cool People Party of 2009,” and I still have a warm and fuzzy feeling about having appeared on a guest list with such a flattering title. We enjoyed the recently hung show, Lineage by Lisea Lyons, basked in our collective coolness, and traded ideas and business cards. Little did I know that my new (and cool) acquaintance Suzanne Gregg‘s question, “How are you marketing your art?” would set the tone for my art-related activities this week.
The following evening, I attended (at the invitation of my networking partner-in-crime) a workshop called Using Social Media To Grow, Market and Sell Your Fashion Line. It was put on by Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center and Willo O’Brien.
- Social Media Matters. Maintain a consistent-looking presence on Facebook (profile and business fan page), Twitter, and Flickr. Update those channels often. Use Facebook to create event pages and invite your “fans.”
- Blog, blog, blog! Write your own blog, comment on others’, and participate on discussion boards. This helps increase your on-line presence and helps you meet other people who do what you’re doing. Use key words in your blog entry and link to other sites. Tumblr is an easy way to blog if you’re not much for writing. WordPress is a great platform if you are into writing.
- Share your process. “How To” tutorials on your blog or site can be very popular and drive additional traffic to your site See, e.g., title of this blog entry.
- Name-drop yourself. Get people to read your blog and visit your website by reminding them about it. All. The. Time. Include it in the footer of your emails, send updates on Twitter and post updates in Facebook. (Remember to use key words in your tweet!) Tr.im is a nifty service that will provided a tweetably short URL and allow you to track how many people actually use the link.
- Engage in only authentic communication. In other words, people can tell when you’re not being honest, are only using them, or are simply just not listening to them.
- Give good buzz, get good buzz. Contact bloggers and sites that seem to fit your work and your audience to see if they will feature you. Post positive reviews of companies or sites that you do business with or want to do business with.
- Sign up here! Add a button on your website so you can compile a list of people who are interested in receiving updates about your work.
- Ask questions. Ask your on-line communities what they think about new work or for ideas for new work.
- Get by with a little help from your friends. Ask your friends, family, and new people you meet about places or individuals who might be interested in your work.
Thanks for your comment–it’s great to know you’re following my blog! And sorry for the delay in posting–your comment (and I, as it turns out) got buried in a bunch of spam …
Pretty cool post. I just stumbled upon your blog and wanted to say
that I have really liked reading your blog posts. Anyway
I’ll be subscribing to your blog and I hope you post again soon!
[…] A Creative Career In The Digital Age. It’s kind of a continuation of what I learned in the marketing seminar a few weeks ago. It’s a pretty interesting […]
I have been creating greeting cards and postcards for about 5 years. I learned that I was spending too much my time emailing clients, finding website to host and everything needed to run a business. I stopped and now I spend most of my time doing design work and use Supprint to sell.