Today we start with a question:
What is the most important asset you have when trying to sell your art using online channels? The answer is You.
You and your work are your brand identity. Everything you do, including writing blog posts, need to reinforce your brand.
Write Blog Posts Which Reinforce Your Brand
It’s a cliche but Real Collectors buy a piece of the artist a little bit at a time.
Of course, some folk just buy a piece of creation based entirely on its own merits. Most do not. Most folks buy art from the people they know or have met, or from people they think they know.
The personal touch is crucial and that is the same when you are trying to use digital channels when trying to sell your art.
If you are posting to Facebook, Twitter etc or writing a blog, you need more than just a photo and a few lines of text to get the job done.
Creating Content Which Can Reinforce Your Brand
YOU and your art are the keys to good content marketing.
The fine artist Bonita Ellmore of Cedarbank Studio has achieved this balance and built a following on Twitter of about 30k. Bonita has a blog which shares her work, her garden, some cooking recipes too. She is not afraid to share her lifestyle with the Real Collectors who help her live the life she enjoys.
It’s clever. The bog is interesting and never has a picture and only a couple of words, it’s engaging.
The effort needs to be consistently maintained.
What is ‘good content’ when considering content marketing?
You and your art are the keys to creating the best content for your blog to be shared with your other online channels.
Creating content is not like sharing a picture of your kitten or baby to your personal FB account. It not reposting a meme on Twitter. You need to spend some time thinking about who you are, your creative style and your brand. You need to be sincere and that needs to come across in your writing.
When browsing the Cedarbank Studio blog posts, it soon becomes clear that there are certain themes which reinforce the message being portrayed. It does not repeat content, instead, it uses complementary subjects which as an aggregate cleverly show us a lifestyle; a philosophy even. This is something Real Collectors will be able to buy into.
The blog has a clear and recognisable voice and in all likelihood, that voice is the artist.
It is worth pointing out that there is a limit to how much lifestyle you share on your blog. The categories need to make sense and relate directly or indirectly to your work.
Inspiration
Inspiration for your blog, like your creative process, can come from anywhere. It is likely that your creative and artistic expression are, in part at least, influenced by your surroundings. Celebrate that. It does not really matter if you are living in the middle of nowhere on the edge of some sea-swept peninsula in Scotland. Likewise, if you are living in the hustle and bustle of a city, the sheer ‘noise’, movement, colour, busyness, and variety might seep into your style of writing and the categories you choose to explore.
Your Real Collectors want to find out about you and your lifestyle. They want to relate to you, your surroundings and what you get up to when you are getting inspiration and when you are working. It might seem reasonable that a ‘take out’ category in New York or London will be a whole lot more interesting than if you were perhaps to live on the edge of a nature reserve where restaurants are thin on the ground. Similarly, if your points of interest are the expanses of moors somehow pushed down by huge dark gravid stormclouds, maybe ‘weather’ would be a category you could use.
In all likelihood, you don’t live in either the bustling city or expansive nowhere. Maybe you live in an estate where row upon row of similar-looking houses and yards stretch street after street and so on. Maybe you live in a suburb and if you do there are such gems to find here too. There is so much to be said for finding the gold in the everyday. Celebrating mediocrity.
This is not said tongue in cheek, but sincerely. I grew up in a suburb where SE London buts up against the beauty of the Kent countryside. It was neither the city nor country and yet it always tried to be both. Where I lived was part of somewhere called the ‘London Borough of Bromley’. It seemed boring, but I can see know that it was full of life and life is never boring; if you start looking. Neighbours had affairs, police harassed young people and old people moaned about the past.
What I would not give to spend a day with my parents, or walking to the Memorial Hall, or seeing the Carnival Queens at May Day; or buying a piece of art which somehow resonates within me these sentimental feelings….and therein lies the rub!
We know you can do it
Our point is that wherever you live, there is an essence to that place which you can use to your advantage. So, look around you and get inspired.
If you have a blog, tell us about it.
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Art Market Direct
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With ArtMarketDirect.com artists are able to take control of their own careers, list their own pieces for sale to collectors and undertake their own fulfillment of orders.
The only stipulation on ArtMarketDirect.com is that the work you list is your own and is original. Where prints are for sale, we ask that all image copyrights belong to you and that you are legally disposed to sell the pieces you have on offer.
The site is FREE to use with only 10% sales commission OR for those willing to bet on themselves with only a nominal subscription (from less than £1/month) to upload unlimited artwork and very low 3% commission on sales. If you are a creative, ArtMarketDirect.com is the best option you have.
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