In the last month, I have joined StumbleUpon, facebook, and LinkedIn. I felt like I was missing out on something and we'll just see if I was. I can't spend much time on these social-networking sites, but I do what to know what they're all about. If you have a good experience with one of these, by all means leave it in the comments.
Your Artist Mailing List: Rethinking + Assessing
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22 thoughts on “Social networking for artists”
I never found Linkedin very useful. Stumbleupon seems to have a lot of non-professionals or journalists. A plus place for journalists. Facebook.com has many,many artists and photographers and broader base of age mix. As soon as I joined Facebook and started hooking up and posting and multiplying myself and posting events, paintings and on others message boards, my BLOG hits went through the roof. It is like a feed for my blog. But it’s a job like anything else and a daily stop there and a few posts usually is enough to fuel the blog fires. The key is to have “content” and get friends that you already know to link up. Marilyn
Someone had me join facebook and I found it really annoying. Maybe I’m just not hip enough to understand the point of it. As per the comment above I realize my blog keeps me busy enough, would I really want to start another site that keeps me busy all to have more traffic at another site?Look forward to hearing how you feel after interacting with the sites more.
I use Facebook, primarily to keep in contact with our teens (my husband is a youth pastor)and to keep in touch with friends we don’t live near. I thought about joining artist groups, but wouldn’t it just be other artists viewing your site? I should start an art buyers group – I’ve never looked maybe there already is one. And I confess, I never thought of Facebook as being able to further my career. I’m also interested in reading more comments and opinions on this topic.
I really hate these social networking sites. It is simply a personal thing. I joined MySpace and investigated Facebook a while ago. I only used MS to look up people I already know. I am bored by the “so and so wants to be your friend” emails. I think my dislike of these sites comes from noticing just too much silliness and not enough “business”. Since I have my own website and art lists, I don’t mind letting people know about me and what I do art wise. However, I simply don’t have time to scrutinize endless profiles and send out chummy emails to the members of these kinds of online venues. I’ll pass. Sheree Rensel http://www.wizzlewolf.com
In the last year I’ve found Myspace starting to really pick up with artists and galleries. Many of the smaller co-op or underground galleries have created Myspace pages to advertise shows and artists. Also there are organizations that work to publicize opportunities and events for artists there, as well as drawing classes or model workshops and other artists of course. While many of the organizations have email lists you can subscribe too– I somehow find it easier to sort through on Myspace as it comes in bulletins and it doesn’t clog my email. Plus many of these organizations put out more notices on Myspace because it’s more informal. Also I have found it a great way to keep connected with fellow artists or fans of mine who could someday become buyers. I’ve found that by de-personalizing a Myspace site as much as possible (not showing as much personal information) the annoying spam & friend requests decrease significantly. I hope that someday Myspace will have “artist” pages like what they have for musicians, comedians, and filmmakers. I just barely tried Facebook but so far it hasn’t been as helpful but I’m still exploring it.
Social networking sites can be annoying, but they has helped my business. A gallery found my work through my MySpace profile & I am showing my jewelry regularly there now. Also, there are some new social networking sites specifically for artists, and others specifically for crafters (as a jewelry maker doing mainly one-offs, I can often fit either category fairly well) that are nice for discussing marketing and other art business topics.
I have set up pages on Linkedin and Facebook, but find that the contacts I have made there have not been as valuable as the contacts I have made from our web site, and blogs. I set up a page on YouTube mainly to have a host site for several “In Studio” type short interview videos I made showing my husband talking about his artwork, and I have had very good leads come from that source. I was even able to embed the video player on our web site. There are many social sites I can set up pages on, but I try to stick with the ones that I feel are worth my time, and produce the results I am looking for.
Thanks, everyone. I find these comments very helpful. And, I won’t feel so bad if I’m not able to participate in these sites. I kind of have my hands full with a bunch of other Web sites and this very active blog.
Dear Alyson and Everyone, I have to weigh in on this as I have had Facebook connections from the get go….before it hit mainstream. (If you are curious why, check out my Facebook profile.) It’s great for personal stuff….and Scrabulous. Now on topic……….My Facebook notes are set to automatically upload my blog posts…..no extra effort on my part at all.They are visible to all my networks and all my friends which is their broadest possible privacy choice. Readers can read within Facebook or click to see the original post. I don’t know whether or not there is increased blog traffic; just added Google Analytics today. We’ll see.
Correction…I just updated my privacy settings so anyone can see and comment on my notes. Feels scary, but I guess it’s really no different from my blog itself. Thanks for bringing up the subject, Alyson.
There is a very active thread on Wet Canvas regarding StumbleUpon. Here it is: http://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=425555. I found it informative. I find Linkedin to be more corporate and techie without a lot of great content and prospects for artists. I’m seeing reports that Facebook is more popular with all ages in Europe and is still more of a college kid function in the U.S. That said, I’m also reading how Facebook is being used as a new PR tool by some. Here’s a link to an article titled: Is Facebook the future of PR? http://objecttowers.typepad.com/the_new_view_from_object_/2007/07/is-facebook-the.html. When I have been able to do a little more research and get real-world experience, I plan a series of posts on my http://www.artprintissues.com blog. To some extent Web 2.0 with all its developments and new things to try gives me the feeling of Bubble 2.0. I can’t see how all these services can survive. There are too many and as you already point out, busy people don’t have time or patience for trying them all, even when they work.
I have had varied response from StumbleUpon. The only thing I don’t like about it is that it is very hard to track exactly what site on Stumble is driving traffic your way. (same with MySpace) But I have had some spikes in hits that are usually attributed to someone ‘stumbling’ your site and it spreads like fire. Then it quickly dies out. I have Facebook also, and have noticed some traffic coming from there. (No where close to Stumble) I suppose it needs to be nourished a little to see how effective it might be. So much time is involved in just keeping up with the blogging community let alone more time spent with these others.
Nancy: I’m going to have to look into that feature on Facebook. It would be cool (I think) to link it to the blog. Barney: Thanks for the link to the thread. I am looking forward to your posts on this topic. Mark: I agree–so much time. I can’t keep up with it all, but I did want to at least put forth an effort to see what it was all about. I haven’t mentioned my MySpace page, which is terribly neglected. http://myspace.com/artbizcoach
Great discussion! I just discovered this blog. I’m an actor, not a painter or craftmaker, but it’s great nonetheless. I use Facebook to promote my shows quite heavily. I’ve been doing a series on Artist Housing Projects and how artists make a living in “complimentary careers,” if anyone’s interested in seeing it. I’m also looking for artists to interview in the series, so let me know if you’re interested.
I’ve been on FB, Twitter, LinkIN a year now and other than cross-posting a link to my little known blog with FB (where I post once a month and only if I really have a need to say something – I’m an artist, not a teacher) – am not sophisticated enough to know or understand Google analytics, so have have no idea what “good” it’s all doing me . Occasionally someone “finds” me, but that happens when I’m googled too. I’d love (and pay for it!)if someone would publish an e-book for newbies about terminology, etc – have been picking it up in bits by following threads and blogs, but it took me a day to understand LOL!
and, look, I just left a comment on a 3 year old blog – see what I mean…
That you caught this and replied gives me hope – Ive been hearing about you for two +years+ (don’t know how long really) , mostly from clintavo, who had a gallery in Houston when I was just starting – now I know why! I’ve been doing a lot of hit/miss reading, etc. – am pretty savvy/ but not – guess I’ll have to buy your book even if I know what’s in it (see post to Arianne from alumni request for posts, to be published after the telesummit) – been doing art full-time for 30 years, but maybe I need to see synthesis in some cohesive form – I really like your blog and can’t resist violating the 5 min limit when reading it…
Thanks,
Marianne Hornbuckle
Marianne: You crack me up. That made me laugh out loud (your 2nd comment). Check out my Hot Posts (tab at top) for lots of info on Twitter.
Marianne: I’m happy for you to violate a 5-minute time limit when you come here!
I have two accounts on FB (a personal and a strictly business Fan Page); a LinkedIn account and a Twitter account. Here is my personal experience:
FB Fan page (Mary Palmer Artist): Seems to be a great place to advertise local notices for shows and miscellaneous sales by resellers as well as notices when I have finished a new painting (with an image) Any postings I do on my FB Fan page automatically updates to my Twitter account so it saves me time in posting two places at once. I even post some random comments and thoughts for the day. The point in this is mainly to continue to get your name out in front of people. I follow people on twitter who are only business. Hint – See if you can get your mailing list all signed up for your Fan Page.
LinkedIn : I am recently finding Very useful because I have started to interact with some professional art Groups and am getting some wonderful professional information that pertains to Only Art Business.
Helpful Hint: A great program called “TweetDeck” allows me to see all of the new entries on all of these 3 sites at one time without being on the sites themselves which is nice because if I see anything interesting I can followup on it, allowing me to multitask at the same time.
Pingback: Artists’ use of Social Networks « AnneZozo's Blog
Not sure if anyone knows this or not but you can even schedule tweets. This is similar to setting up an email autoresponder chain. On Facebook you could create your own art-related page in your niche, people naturally start becoming fans (even when there’s little-to-no content on the page!). Then, as owner of the page, you have an audience you can speak to when you have something to say. I grew a Monster Energy Drink page to thousands of people. It only had 1 pic of the Monster logo. You could also hire someone/outsource your social networking efforts to people on oDesk for example. Just my 2 lousy cents 🙂