Twitter Artist

Just as networking with people has ALWAYS been the key to success in any field of business (Remember the old saying NETWORK = NET WORTH), now online social networks like Twitter and Facebook allow you to expand the reach of your networking efforts beyond traditional geographical boundaries. This allows you to be a global networker in your field of interest – great news in a niched interest area like art. But to be successful you need to have a strategy…

Consistently good online content will lead to attention and commercial rewards – and this is just as true for art as any other form of content.

A very simple but effective social marketing strategy is to tell your social networks about new content on your artist website. Invite them to visit your site regularly – and keep your website and blog full of new work and fresh content to keep them coming back.

When you do this, you are achieving three important things:

• You’re bringing real visitors to your website

• This regular flow of traffic can potentially help your search engine Relevance leading to even more visitors

• You’re growing your social network so that even more people will be exposed to your work.

A few things to keep in mind though…

• Social Marketing can help you build a solid brand. The quality of your images, bio, logo, etc on your Facebook and Twitter pages should reflect the direction and inspiration of your art business.

• The quality and content of your posts is really important. If you spam a lot of noisy personal content it’s not going to contribute to branding your art business.

• In our experience with Twitter we’ve noticed that there are three distinct patterns of behavior in Tweeting artists. The first group tends to tweet incessantly and on all manner of topics – very few arts related. Don’t do this! It’s like Junk mail!

The second group is what I call the “twitter arts news feed”. It’s literally like watching a news feed from Reuters in arts related topics. I really don’t like this for two reasons. Firstly – I can get that from my newsreader any time I want. But much more important – the reason I followed you was because I wanted to “get” you as an artist. I want to know what you do and what inspires you. I want to know when you have interesting art stuff happening that I can go look at or participate in!

The third group sends out tweets once or twice a day that draw attention to something art-related they are doing or something relevant or inspiring happening elsewhere. The headlines are interesting and primarily arts-related. This is a much better plan!

Inspirational quotes are great too. But don’t forget that we want to be inspired by YOUR art as well as all those great old masters and sages!

More things to keep in mind:

• You are judged by the company you choose to keep! As an artist that means that you should follow and join at least some online groups associated with the arts. If all your followers are promoters of online dating sites – how will that look?

• Try to connect with Arts Professionals as well as other artists. It’s a lot of fun to connect with other artists all over the world and this is very valid use of social networking – and it will bring results too. But remember to also put your Social Marketing hat on and attract arts organizations, galleries, collectors, and other potential buyers of art.

• Keep your artist image in mind at all times. That doesn’t mean be boring – it means be authentic and build your artist brand!

One final and very important point is to maintain some boundaries between online social networking time and art studio time. The Internet is like fire – an excellent servant but a poor master! Make sure that it is not taking your attention away from your true calling with your amazing artistic creative process. And whatever you do, don’t forget to also foster the communities in which you participate with live humans face to face!