Social Media-no substitute to truly connecting

So much to learn, so little time. I have worked feverishly to learn as much as I can and use the marketing tools that are more easily available and affordable than ever. My thought is before showing your art; build an audience to show to.

I have learned that you can’t fake social media. It’s not something you can throw out a like or two, connect a little, stay outside the crowd and give a comment now and than.

The point of social media is to connect, really connect with people, customers and friends who may know other customers and other friends. It replaces the coffee shop where every one goes and tries to be social and ends up isolated behind a laptop.

If you spam, you will be rewarded with a big slap down from the powers that be. Spam is more than just sending out stuff that no one needs, it’s trying to build connections based on your needs and not whom you are connecting with.

Likes are very common but comments and interaction, that’s a very different thing. How do you resonate with a group of strangers and make them friends instead of strangers. You connect with honesty, you show them that what they are doing is important to you and you share and share more.

If you think your doing yourself a favor connecting with multiple tweeters, this is where spam has an open door. Your numbers of followers will grow quickly but so will your spam files.

Connect with genuine like-minded people with some of the same interests as you. Choose your followers and whom you follow wisely, all tweet followers are not the same.

I have noticed shares and plus 1s have replaced the likes and the random follower now and than. I have learned more about the people I connect with, been invited to join more groups and have had some wonderful conversation back and forth.

I have also learned the idea of SEO optimization-you better get the words out you are there and the only way is tag, tag and tag some more with words that are proven that people are searching for. Ask yourself why other artists dominate the Google search and learn from them.

I have just updated my website-something that has needed to be done for quite a while. It was created in wordpress and I am enjoying not only the increased functionality of available development tools but also I am being able to streamline all of my social media avenues through the site.

This is all about building a brand. Build something that connects all of your media, improve how the Internet finds you and make sure when some one does find you; you are available to connect, yes truly connect. Next blog post, positives and negatives of building a store and what exactly that entails. Please stay tuned.

Some very helpful links for artists marketing themselves.

http://www.artpromotivate.com Graham Matthews runs this and it's just an amazing site about all aspects of promoting your art.



http://www.artbizblog.com a great blog by Alyson B Stansfield, a very distinguished and helpful art biz coach.