Art Career Experts » social networking

The Golden Rule of ethics for artists on Facebook

ace — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 14:16:45 +0000

Facebook is one of those marketing areas that is new enough to have vague “rules of conduct.
Most of us grew up with the Golden Rule of conduct, “Do unto others what you would have them do unto you.”
And in its learning and growing pains, Facebook is now pro-active in giving us the tools in dealing with lewd, malicious or hateful intent and posts on Facebook. We can report, block, unfriend or otherwise eliminate the offending party.

For artists, photographers and musicians, there is another arena of behavior, along with the Golden Rule, which, although not written in stone, should be observed. It is assumed that if you opt to friend or like an artist or his page, it is because you like that artist or his work. To friend or like an artist with hopes of piggy backing off his possible success is unethical. There are plenty of sites on Facebook that are expressly there to encourage artists to interact with advice, tips and ideas without going through your artist friends pages and hoping to score a commission from their friends.

Observing the following “Code of Conduct” will insure that the respect that you show an artist will be reciprocated. Feel free to add more!

1. Do not post photos of your work on another artist’s page without permission. Private message or email him first. This applies to those 1:00 am posts with photos that will stay up for hours on another artist’s site until discovered.

2. Do not comment/post on another artist’s work and then add links to your work.

3. Do not try to get around #2 by commenting on how you “do it” (work in a articular medium, apply shadows, whatever, etc) in the hopes of having viewers click on your site through your avatar.

4. Do not try to make the artist’s friends “your” friends for the express purpose of showing them your work (in hopes of luring them away or getting a commission.)

5. Never contact another artist’s friends or friends of friends with promises of “doing it better” or “cheaper.”

If you have done any of the 5 “Don’ts” above, either intentionally or unintentionally, start living the “Golden Rules of Facebook for Artists” and keep your friends for a long time!

By respecting your artist friends and their hard work, you are also respecting yourself and what you have put into your art and your livelihood.

Marketing with Pinterest

ace — Wed, 23 May 2012 11:14:26 +0000

Some interesting observations in this article that are worth noting. It may help you decide if you want to devote time to yet another online social networking site!

Guest post by Valeria Bornstein of Fame House

Pinterest has quickly become one of the fastest growing social media sites, now boasting over 11.7 million unique visitors per month and 17.8 million registered users. Pinterest’s rapid growth is the result of a few key factors. First, their platform is visually appealing. Users select items of interest based primarily on imagery, so there is very little text to read, ultimately retaining a user’s attention for much longer.

Another factor is that Pinterest users can sign in through Facebook or Twitter, which automatically integrates them into their existing social networks. This means that sharing across social media platforms is already built into Pinterest, even if one may not have any Pinterest “followers” yet. Yet another key advantage for Pinterest is in its easy-to-use interface. People can navigate it and create new boards without much trouble or confusion – very clean, and very simple.

There are shortcomings, however……..

http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2012/05/using-pinterest-for-artist-marketing.html

Do your own Creative Research!

ace — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 12:09:25 +0000

Creative research sounds like an oxymoron (jumbo shrimp) but actually that is exactly what you need to do!

So just what is “creative” research? It’s a combination of reading, not jumping on every bandwagon, analyzing real facts and risk taking. What is important is to look at what YOU are doing in your particular art area.

The truth is, in this new economy, with the constantly changing social networking sites and new consumer thinking, the “blogging experts” are simply casting their bait into the same waters you are and hoping for a bite! Their job is to keep you thinking they have all the answers.
Your job as a selling artist is to do your own creative research and start thinking like a fish instead of reading “all about the new bait guaranteed to catch a fish!”

We are constantly exploring, tweaking and testing not only the avenues that have worked for us all along but the new ones, those that, in our long experience, show the most “common sense” promise. We continue to do well in our art business and what we share with you are the results of our Creative Research .

Think of all the time some of you may be spending daily on the computer reading other people’s blogs and devote some of that time to your own creative research. Sometimes you just have to get out there and do it!

What is most valuable to our members on this free site is factual information.
Share YOUR results based on what YOU have experienced. And hey, it’s OK to have less than stellar results We have fallen on our faces a few times too but that’s how we learned to walk
Start your creative research today!

The Artist Action Plan-plain talk for non-whiners

ace — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 19:53:28 +0000

The Artist’s ACTION Plan-by M Theresa Brown
Plain talk for artists who are tired of the whining and want some action!

OK. It’s been a tough couple of years. We all admit it. Everyone and every business has felt it to some degree. As working artists, whose total income comes from the sales of our art, we have had to improvise, expand,tweak, adjust, invent, add and scramble to live a comfortable lifestyle and pay our bills! To us, making a business plan has always been a call to action and we have done it successfully for over twenty years but never so much as the past two years!
So, IF you have heard enough of all the artist whining that has been going on about the economy and how no one is buying art and how no artist should have to sell or market and where is the guaranteed way and place to sell one’s art, then this article is for you. The economy is what it is and to achieve your goals in your plan of action, you simply have to make a few adjustments in your thinking and decide to work within the framework of what is here and now.
And as you can tell, at Art Career Experts, when it comes to selling your art, we have always felt that there is WAY too much emphasis on “making the artist feel good” talk and not enough on action. In a world where people feel it is their right and duty to “feel good” about everything, the fantasy world of expectations of what being an artist is all about has led to many thousands not realizing a dream. The reality is that all successful artists have had to work hard. Developing a strong work ethic has never stunted any artist’s creativity. And whoever thinks that is simply looking for an easy out!

So with that in mind, if you need your ego stroked and your hand held, and my “get ‘er done” directness offends you, there are plenty of other bloggers making big money soft peddling the “artist life fantasy!” So I won’t apologize for skipping the feel good stuff because if you are serious about making a living with your art, you will be more interested, and won’t mind, getting down to brass tacks and making a Plan of Action for the year. Your mindset needs to be on getting it done and turning it into your reality. The one guarantee is that once a plan is written out and put into effect, it is a record of each quarter and each year of your art business and shows you exactly where your ideas are or are not working.
1. Start with what you accomplished last year. It does not matter how you felt your year should have been- look at all the positive events and accomplishments.
2. Look at how these accomplishments helped you realize or move toward your goals. Look at what you planned to do and didn’t get done. Did that hinder you or did you end up taking another path toward your goals? Everyone has a goal whether they wrote it down or not. Let’s assume for the sake of this article, that you are a visual artist and that your goal is to make $50,000 in art sales income this year.
Let me digress as I am going to assume that you have the ACE marketing book or audio or workbook or even the basic business plan. To have and have read or listened to them indicates your decision to get serious. Because the basics are in them all and you will already know the over 75 places online and offline to sell your art! To not have any of our marketing tools means you’re not ready to commit to ANY plan as you are still seaching for the one that suits your needs. Be truthful and know yourself
Now, what you want to do is look at how what you did or didn’t do last year moved you towards or away from this goal. This is what you need to know to be able to make this year’s Plan of Action and make it work.
The Goal: Earn $50,000 this year in art sales. That is approximately $4200.00 monthly. It is a figure that needs to stay in the back of your mind.
The Action Plan: So how are you going to do that?
1. List every place or way that you sold a piece of art last year or recently and decide that you will improve on it!
2. Look at every place on the ACE list of where YOU can sell your art in public.
a. Narrow the list to 2 places that you can actively pursue
3. Commit to either Etsy or Ebay for your online store.
a. Set up the store
b. Monitor it daily
4. Look at WHO else can help you sell your art.
a. local Gallery
1. contact them with portfolio of work
2. see what they do that will help you
b. Friends, co-workers, family
c. art groups, co-ops, businesses
5. Art Shows
a. which ones will support your kind of art?
b. use common sense and decide if local or distance is the way to go
6. Newsletters-monthly
7. postcards/snail mail-quarterly
8. emails, phone calls, follow ups
9. What else can you do with your art? Multiple “streams of art income” WORK!
a. classes/workshops
1. online and/or offline
b. new products
1. online/offline and where
c. reproductions in all forms-same thing
d. etc.
10. Social Media
a. commit to Facebook and develop your page or your friends
1. Hint: stay away from controversy on your business page!
b. Linked or Twitter-you can survive fine without them-work them if you want
11. Website-
a. This is all in the ACE books -you need one
b. Blogs-yes and keep it up
c. Youtubecan be a good thing for traffic-no experience required-simple
12. Cut your losses-eliminate or cut back your time and effort on anything that is not giving you some return for your investment in time and money!
13. ALWAYS know where you are financially! And which one of your streams of income is falling behind or not working!
14. Plan your marketing using all the free outlets-be very selective with paid advertising.
15. The five words that will stop you from being successful are “I don’t feel like it.” Decide to change the way you are working and stop complaining! It’s too negative.

Remember the 80/20 rule. Twenty percent of your effort leads to eighty percent of your results. Look at what worked last year. Build on that. Look at what MIGHT work this year. Build on that. Nothing works if you don’t try.
We want to work smarter not harder. It’s hard enough already. If you didn’t love doing it, you probably wouldn’t. Keep you eye on the ultimate goal. Think of it as a destination. Your action plan is your ACTION PLAN. It is way past time dreaming that past artists had it easier or that an artist should not have to market or that marketing is a “necessary evil.”
Does it really matter if you get to your destination by a different route than you planned? No. What matters is your attitude. Stop blaming others. Then add your determination to roll up your shirtsleeve, work with what you have and start making your goal a reality.
“Even a kick in the rear is a step forward.”

Linkedin-is it helpful?

ace — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 11:01:47 +0000

One of our members emailed me to ask if I had found “Linkedin” to be useful.
My response is a No followed by a “not yet”
So do I expect it to be useful? Honestly, who knows?
I had (like many) started a Linkedin profile then let it sit and then a few months ago, someone whose business acumen I respect, asked to join my network. So I thought “What the heck” and did so and so I have done more “joining” in the past 3 months than I ever did the first 2 years of it.

If you follow the ACE blog, blurbs, comments at all you’ll know that I feel the best solution for all the networking sites is to simply participate in the ones you can keep up with. The advent of even more new social networking sites has most of us heaving a big sigh and thinking “what? Another?”

So yes I am on Linkedin as M Theresa Brown. I think I may be on there also as Theresa Brown…..really not sure (Now don’t you feel better?)
The point is, other than the initial activity “I’d like to add you to my network”, nothing else comes of it that I can see. I do not post, do not advertise on it so back to the question of is it beneficial?

Well, rather than giving a flat out NO (my first thought) as you all know, I am a firm believer and experienced user of the “rule of seven” so I see Linkedin , at the moment to be one of those “hear, see, read, or experience” ways of getting your name out
And with that application, it only takes a minute to network here and there so in the course of daily activities, this one ranks low in possibly wasted time.
So immediate benefits? Don’t see any. Long term? Well I will not hold my breath but just to be sure, I’ll continue to add business contacts to my network ! So don’t hyperventilate over the multitude of online social sites. Handle only what you can handle. After all, at some point you have to find the time to create your art!

Theresa

Do I really need Facebook?

ace — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 11:33:53 +0000

We can always use an extra laugh and I thought this funny email making the rounds pretty much said it all! Actually the “over 30″ remember life before it was controlled by electronics and it is always good to remember that we sent men into space without “how to” ebooks

Sent by an over 55 yr old……………..

When I bought my Blackberry, I thought about the 30-year business I ran with 1800 employees, all without a cell phone that plays music, takes videos, pictures and communicates with Facebook and Twitter.
I signed up under duress for Twitter and Facebook, so my seven kids, their spouses, 13 grand kids and 2 great grand kids could communicate with me in the modern way. I figured I could handle something as simple as Twitter with only 140 characters of space.

That was before one of my grand kids hooked me up for Tweeter, Tweetree, Twhirl, Twitterfon, Tweetie and Twittererific Tweetdeck, Twitpix and something that sends every message to my cell phone and every other program within the texting world..

My phone was beeping every three minutes with the details of everything except the bowel movements of the entire next generation. I am not ready to live like this. I keep my cell phone in the garage in my golf bag.

The kids bought me a GPS for my last birthday because they say I get lost every now and then going over to the grocery store or library. I keep that in a box under my tool bench with the Blue tooth [it's red] phone I am supposed to use when I drive. I wore it once and was standing in line at Barnes and Noble talking to my wife and everyone in the nearest 50 yards was glaring at me. I had to take my hearing aid out to use it, and I got a little loud.

I mean the GPS looked pretty smart on my dash board, but the lady inside that gadget was the most annoying, rudest person I had run into in a long time. Every 10 minutes, she would sarcastically say, “Re-calc-u-lating.” You would think that she could be nicer. It was like she could barely tolerate me. She would let go with a deep sigh and then tell me to make a U-turn at the next light. Then if I made a right turn instead. Well, it was not a good relationship.
When I get really lost now, I call my wife and tell her the name of the cross streets and while she is starting to develop the same tone as Gypsy, the GPS lady, at least she loves me.

To be perfectly frank, I am still trying to learn how to use the cordless phones in our house. We have had them for 4 years, but I still haven’t figured out how I can lose three phones all at once and have to run around digging under chair cushions and checking bathrooms and the dirty laundry baskets when the phone rings..

The world is just getting too complex for me. They even mess me up every time I go to the grocery store. You would think they could settle on something themselves but this sudden “Paper or Plastic?” every time I check out just knocks me for a loop. I bought some of those cloth reusable bags to avoid looking confused, but I never remember to take them in with me.

Now I toss it back to them. When they ask me, “Paper or Plastic?” I just say, “Doesn’t matter to me. I am bi-sacksual.” Then it’s their turn to stare at me with a blank look. I was recently asked if I tweet. I answered, no, but I do toot a lot.”

P.S. I know some of you are not over 50 . I sent it to you to allow you to forward it to those who are.
Us senior citizens don’t need anymore gadgets. The tv remote and the garage door remote are about all we can ha

The Power of Social Networks

ace — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 01:30:32 +0000

The Power of Social Networks

Although I have shared my insights and successes about social networking before, (especially Facebook) , there is nothing I can improve upon in the following article from marketing book author, Penny Sansevieri!

I am constantly encouraged at how many artists, once they see their business as a business, discover that ALL businesses operate in essentially the same fashion..and that their business is no different when it comes to the basics such as marketing, social networking, customer relations, etc.

Enjoy this nice, clearly written article from a writer’s perspective and see how it applies to you as an artist!

http://www.jerrysartarama.com/blog/post/2011/04/04/The-Power-of-Social-Networks-by-M-Theresa-Brown.aspx

Marketing your art in real life….

theresa — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 02:32:13 +0000

I spent an hour on my computer today listening to a promoter’s webinar on secret tips for online social networking. Actually I was working on a large commission so I alternated between glancing at the computer screen and turning the volume on my laptop as high as it would go and painting on the artwork at the easel. So what did I learn? Well it seems that the very serious marketers want to make their advice fit everyone. Most of them want to be all things to everybody. So much of the advice is not for me….really. They market advice because that is all that they do. I am not sure where their real life is, but it’s not what you or I do! And I knew that this free webinar was a prelude to buying the $395.00 special for only $149.00 (plus $350.00 worth of bonuses) if you buy it within 48 hours! And honestly, I would not have begrudged the price had the webinar on social networking had something in it that I did not know already! But when the kind ladies mentioned that one way to devote the required computer time to say, networking on Twitter, was to use an assistant…… well I knew I was not in their reality world! I write on this blog and send out our newsletters and maintain our Facebook and blogs in between creating and finishing commissions, marketing for the commissions, and Steve painting and then photographing his work to go online…and running an Art business. Driving to the art shows, the homes of clients. We’ll be filming “how to” videos next week at the Burning Oak film studio and these are painting ones. My “Single moms Guide to Making Money as an Artist” is coming out shortly in the audio format (the ebook is online), I just sent the taxes off to the accountant, my Corgi is due to have puppies next week, the snow is coming back tonight as a wintery mix (again)…and in short, we share what we know in between our careers as people who make their living as artists. Our real world. And yours! In the recent past I added the care of children to that list and that alone is a full time job….so I felt a bit cheated when I listened to yet another webinar full of vague advice that is so far removed from real life that I almost laughed. Because the laws and rules of social networking change daily. Absolutely NO one is an expert. So my point is for you to adapt advice to your world. We promote real advice for artists. We are not corporate nor do we care about a “glass ceiling”. Our livelihood is from our art products, not our marketing products We are not out to conquer the world or make a million bucks. We promote the ways and means to show other artists how to follow in our paths or forge their own way without giving up their real life! And that really, is marketing in real life!