Attention Artists: How Facebook, Twitter, Google+ YouTube & Other Social Media Sites Help You

Posted on July 11, 2011 by itees

Facebook and YouTube have become great resources for artists! (illustrators, designers, fine artists, photographers, musicians and actors…) Not only do we have the ability to post galleries and videos of our work, but we can create event pages about upcoming productions or exhibitions and invite all our friends. Our friends can share the events with other friends and so on. Facebook even stores our response, “attending” or “maybe” and will remind us of the event.

Today, we still receive direct mail postcards and brochures about upcoming productions and exhibitions, but there’s nothing better than having that information stored in a place we visit everyday. It’s a great way to be reminded as the event draws near.

Facebook also lets us feature our lastest videos so business owners can feature a new brand or product, actors can show a clip from an upcoming show, and musicians can feature their latest song.

We have the ability to create custom pages (iFrame apps) and they can include audio, video, forms, basically anything you can put on an html page and then you can set any of those custom pages as the landing page for newcomers. You can grab the link to that custom page and post about it, sending people to check it out. You can even load a store custom page and sell products right in there as well.

So okay what’s the ROI (return on investment)?

Since Facebook is FREE, I’d say the ROI is pretty amazing, but here are a few stats just from my own experience.

In the past two years my Facebook friends have tripled. It’s amazing to me sometimes over these many years just how many people I’ve met and know from the last! I have been invited to many more exhibitions, webinars, teleclasses and events, and by knowing about them and attending them (some in person) I have been introduced to so many new people.

As a creative, the larger your reach, the more opportunities will come your way.

As for Twitter, it has been a different experience. The sharing of bits of information can be a wonderful resource for news and meeting and learning about new people has it’s benefits, but so far I don’t see the ROI as much as on Facebook and I think it’s because the dialog on Facebook is much more personal and engaging. The conversation can be among lots of people at once, rather than just a dialog between two.

On LinkedIn, I have been using this networking site for a few years and have built a great business posse. My connections have also probably quadrupled. It’s a great place to share information with like-minded individuals and groups to have engaged discussions. When looking for companies to pitch to, or people who might help you, you can’t beat it’s database of millions of professionals.

I have a channel on YouTube and I can subscribe to other people’s channels… then YouTube sends me notifications when those people have uploaded new videos, as others get mine. I can embed a video in a blog post or just share it with my friends and colleagues on social media.

Savor The Success is a growing community of women entrepreneurs across the planet (15,000+) and I have been a member since 2010. This has been a very valuable resource for me. My visibility and clients are expanding due to this exceptional online community.

In the past few weeks, I joined this new community, Social Buzz Club, and I can see now how being a charter member and soon blogger of this new social media community is going to explode it all for me and super charge my online visibility. The sharing of valuable content between colleagues, having brand advocates in your corner for your own business, and being able to share that information with friends, what could be better?

Today I joined Google+ and so far it’s pretty great! Once I joined it instantly pulled together all my information for me… my profile photo, links to website, blog and social media, even all my company details. Now I’m connecting with people I know and you share on the wall like in Facebook or Twitter. I’m wondering why it recognized my YouTube account but doesn’t seem to load any of the videos there? Also it’s not immediately recognizing people but these may be kinks in the new system they are still perfecting. Check it out!

Jersey City Studio Tour – Hoboken Art and Music Festival 2010

Posted on October 4, 2010 by itees

Friday night the festivities began. The kick-off party at Grace Church Van Vorst in Jersey City brought out local artists and their art-loving friends. The exhibition was quite interesting with photography to 3D mixed media to painting on glass (Ibou Ndoye) to collages (Roslyn Rose). My only disappointment was they had a lovely spread of food but everything contained meat… sandwiches, pasta, meatballs… There are so many people who don’t eat meat, this truly surprised me… but the wine was very good and was donated by Jersey Wine & Spirits.

Saturday, I started out in Jersey City Heights to see some of the new murals going up just off Central Avenue & walked down to Pershing Field to meet a friend at the Community Center in the middle of the park. Inside were varied artists from photographers to painters and those working with mixed media. I was particularly interested in the work by Patricia Frank whose imagery using mixed media of wax and metallics gave the flower imagery a soft matte yet magical quality.

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After this we headed downtown to start the walkabout and visit as many galleries and friends as we can fit into a day. Some of the galleries/shows were, “Exquisite Corpse,” at 109 Christopher Columbus Drive, the 150 Bay Street studios visiting, Robert Kogge, Lynda D’Amico, Karen Fuchs, and more… Alley Cat Gallery where we met Leigh More, whose photography work of scenes, cloudscapes are printed on metallic paper and gave the clouds movement as you walked back and forth. (She will be having a show at Made With Love this Fall)… The Mary Benson Gallery where John Crittenden had one of his images (another of his is in the Exquisite Corpse show). We also visited to the OJO Gallery with work by Marco Beria.

After the galleries and catching a bite at Skinner’s Loft we were off to the Landmark Loew’s Jersey Theatre in Journal Square for the silent film classic, The Mark of Zorro with Douglas Fairbanks… which was accompanied by the fabulous Chris Elliot playing the Bob Balfour Memorial Wonder Morton Theatre Pipe Organ! Just outstanding!

On Sunday, I visited The Distillery, a gallery in Jersey City Heights which had an exhibition with various artists called, “Race.” This space is so nice and the work really great, I highly recommend a stop in.

Afterward it was time to switch gears a bit and head down to Hoboken for the Fall Arts & Music Street Festival on Washington St. It was a gorgeous day, sunny and cool and perfect for browsing at the craft vendors and listen to some music… Some of the vendors were the same as are there at most of the festivals but there were some new ones… Liberty Animal Rescue getting the word out about their upcoming events for support in their cause… Bike Hoboken — I signed the mailing list. I’m also a member of Bike JC. One craft vendor caught my eye with her originally crafted and interesting jewelry, Pam Meyer and Alchemy. I bought the most interesting industrial looking yet feminine flower ring…

Anyway, it was an exhausting weekend, culturally packed, so visit my gallery and have a look.

You Call THAT A Website?

Posted on December 11, 2009 by itees

Okay, I may be in a lousy mood, and this is going to sound like a rant, so get ready!

If one more person builds a website without caring that it looks like crap, I don’t know what I’m going to do!

Recently, an artist friend contacted me because he wanted to start a new business. I was hopeful, because what I’m best at is a new business start-up, logo design and giving them, their identity… that all around consistent look. I also love working with the arts community. I spoke with him and we discussed various things, but… today I got an invite, and realized he had just pushed ahead with the site, without me. Now aside from losing a potential client, I went to look at the site to see what had been developed. To say I was disappointed and horrified is an understatement.

There are (links) pages that don’t even apply to his company. So does this mean he copied or worse, another site’s pages and is planning to just update the content when he has time?

What could he be thinking?

Why do people feel so urgent? Pushing their information out there, without any control to how it looks, or if it will attract an audience. This has really sent me into a depression, and the realization that on the web, content will always win over style. I suppose only on the web this may be true. When I’m looking for something or shopping, functionality and directness will always win over pleasing design and pictures. But don’t we want to push our content out there in a pleasing way?

There has to be a balance between the content being current and wanting it to look nice. We’ve got to make any client, whether an artist, musician, author, small business owner or fortune 500 company understand that these things go hand in hand. And an artist should know better!