25 Apr 10 steps to promote your art online
Are you an amateur artist? Are you a professional artist? Do you like photography?
Are you a craft maker? Are you a graphic designer?
If you are interested in producing art works, regardless of their nature, this article is for you.
Whether you have just started or you’ve been long enough in your artistic career, showing your art products to the maximum number of audience remains an important part of your path to success.
There are two types of artists; most of the first type are amateur artists, they produce art for their own personal interest and for close relatives and friends. Their works remain concealed behind closed doors, despite their originality and quality.
The second type of artists strive to display their works and share it either for commercial or artistic purposes.
Whether you are of the first or second type, your art is worth being seen!
In the past, art shows and galleries were the main means of displaying artworks. Unfortunately many talented artists were unable to approach galleries and art shows because of many subjective reasons. Artist nowadays have the privilege to access the most powerful tool “the internet”. Artists will no more suffer the rejection-associated bad feelings from the very subjectively selective art shows juries or gallery owners.
The new generation of artists can easily reach a huge base of audience, art fans and collectors. Needless to say, they have the potential to market their art and have a sustainable flow of sales.
This article is important for artists all over the world, particularly for Arab artists based in the Middle East whom many had suffered from repeated rejections and ignorance. (You can read my article on this subject: Arab artist: The past and future).
In this article, I am listing 10 steps that you should take in order to achieve the spread your art deserves and the success you strive for.
1. Define your goal as an artist.
This is the easiest step!
All you need in this very basic step is to take five minutes of your time to answer these questions:
Why do I paint?
Is it because I love it?
Or you want to earn money in return? Or the two things together?
How do you like to see yourself a year from now?
How do you like to see yourself five years from now?
What is your main goal? And your secondary goals?
Setting and writing your goals will help you draw a mental map and focus on achieving it. Start today by taking steps towards achieving one of your goals in a practical and gradual way.
2. You should have an online presence!
You have no excuse as a visual artist striving to display your artwork in the presence of this revolutionary technique that turned the equations upside down. It is possible for anyone, regardless of his or her background or level of knowledge about computers, to become visible in this virtual world. While there are many ways of doing that, I insist to go for a personal website as a professional representation of your work in visual art. Some may argue that having a website might cost a lot and is time consuming! But my answer is that you should consider it as an investment in your art! You have to sacrifice a little to gain more in the future. With a site of your own, you can control its content as you wish, and you will never face the problem of losing its contents which can occur when you have your site or blog hosted by a third party. Read my article on this topic: Dos and don’ts when you design your art website). Having a website of your own will give a professional look to those looking at your artwork online and it does matter if they are considering buying your work.
3. Have multiple accounts on social networking medias.
Fans like to follow you and need to know you closely. The good thing about these applications is that you do not have to upload your art work in each and every account. We as artists are quite busy and may not be able to keep up with all ongoing conversations in the different accounts! It is possible to upload your article or artwork in one and use the share button, it will automatically post it in all accounts.
(Read my article on this topic: Top 10 social media for artists)
4. Have your own blog.
Having a personal blog is crucial to any artist who wants to maintain a channel for communication with followers and fans. Blogs are also a good place to explain your artwork, techniques you are using and share your experience in the field with other artists.
5. Interact and comment on other artists’ work.
Many artists complain of paucity of support by other fellow artists. In the world of art, compliment, positive feedback and praising others’ work should be a factor for success and not a source of jealousy!
Getting involved in art communities is important to all artists because you are not working in isolation. Encouraging and supporting each other reflect how professional and courteous you are. Not only this will polish your image among fans and buyers but it will drive more visitors to your site and web accounts.
6. Make your site visible and easily accessible through the various social networking sites
by placing a link or an icon.
In the same way present your website address in the different social medias account
7. Follow and simulate successful artists.
It is not wrong to follow the steps of successful artist. I do not mean to copycat and breach the copyrights of other artists, I would rather encourage you if you consider yourself as a beginner in the field to pursue the artists you like by following their methods and techniques. You might be surprised to know that most art schools request from their students to copy the artwork of famous artists as part of their training process and there is absolutely no harm in that!
8. Take the advantage of all local opportunities to present your art on ground.
Follow art fairs and shows announcements and make sure you take part in any local art fair. Don’t get upset or feel frustrated when you are rejected. We all know in the world of art business hearing a “NO” is More than a “YES”. So keep on practicing and submitting until you get accepted. Always take a rejection as a challenge pushing you to improve your skills.
9. Participate in art competitions as much as you can.
You may not succeed in 9 and succeed in one! Or may not succeed from the first attempts! It doesn’t matter!
Your art presence and your exposure is what matters most.
10 – Produce a lot of high-quality artworks and show your best.
Do not show below the average-art that you have produced earlier in your art carrier just to increase the number of work displayed. The more you produce high quality artworks, the greater the chances of achieving the success and spread you are looking for.