Drakenhart Studios

Art Blogs: A Definition

First, to detail what is a “blog”.
The term blog is a shortened form of a short form term. I kid you not. Blog stands for web log, which is the short technical term for an internet journal website. In the last several years blogging, or posting journal entries online where others may read them, has become hugely popular. Many companies have jumped on the bandwagon to their benefit, as blogging gives one the ability to reach out to clients in ways that the old standbys, opt-in email lists, show a weakness. (However don’t entirely discount opt-in email lists. That will be a different article.)

Next, covering what is an “art blog”?

An art blog is simply a website or blog-site wherein you share your artwork with people in a digital, journal-posting, environment. Generally the idea behind an art blog is a place where one can post about one’s own artwork and the various topics related to it. Primarily, you post finished art samples, WIPs (Works in Progress), and share you experience with working on a piece. However some artists have found that sharing other art-related content adds value to their art blog as well.

Every artist is their own expert after all. So art-related content, writing about art-related topics, sharing your ideas, hopes, dreams, WIPs (Works in Progress), and asking for critiques benefit not only you but others who follow your art blog. One is able to post about specials, sales, special commissions, ask for help from other artists and more. What goes into am art blog is entirely up to the artist themselves.

The comment section of your art blog allows for conversations about the topics your share, as much as it does just general comments, so there is the chance of interaction, communication, and sharing of ideas. One doesn’t get this benefit from opt-in email lists. The closet one gets to this level of interaction may be in an online forum, but such places aren’t as centered on an individual artist’s work. Art blog are more personal, and more focused on one particular artist and their artistic journey.

Benefits of an Art Blog

The benefits of an art blog are many. From personal satisfaction and the need to share, or in some cases show off, art blogs offer a marketing medium, interactivity, and do the one thing so many companies seek to do in their daily routine – attract business and build up a potential client base. Sharing of information, tips, tutorials, advice on art business, and more, art blogs offer a wide array of mostly untapped potential.

Focused Interactive Communication
Aside from opt-in email lists which are a staple form of communication online, and forums that do not focus on one particular artist’s works, art blogs are a powerful form of communication with other internet users. Art blogs let visitors and potential clients see the artist for the person and the professional they are in a “fresh” way.

It is similar to, but not the same as, being at an art gallery opening so folks can speak with one directly. Art blogs give users a chance to communicate with the artist and ask questions about the art, style, choices made, inspiration, and techniques.

Art blogs offer the artist a way of talking about their artwork even as they post samples of it. Many physical Galleries, as well as some of the online, digital-style, flat web site galleries, don’t often allow the artist to share information about their art aside from specific details (dimensions, print availability, medium, etc). Some physically galleries may offer pamphlets, flyers, or other means of physical sharing, but that isn’t true communication as there is no interaction between artist and viewer. Some of the community-style online art galleries offer communication, yet there is the competition for traffic one must deal with in those regards.
An art blog offers a direct, clean, clear cut way of communicating with an audience that is there specifically to see a particular artist’s works.

Unique way to Showcase Art
This is a much different style of posting art then it is when one uploads it to a gallery-style web site. With most normal gallery-style websites an artist leaves their comments in the description section with the art is highlighted by being left to “float” on its own. This is reminiscent of traditional gallery showcasing. The difference with some gallery sites is that the description can host more than just the flat basics of the artwork in question. The artist can leave a comment, thought, poem, and more as well.

However in many cases, from what I’ve witnessed, this is sometimes totally over looked.

As an observation, I’ve noted that descriptions which flow around the artwork as one might see in a magazine article, or have the artwork as part of the discussion as is sometimes seen within various art forums, seem to be read more often. From an aesthetic point of view, the blocks of text are broken up as the commentary flows around it. This can make it easier to read for the viewer. Art posted within the embrace of text offers the text more interest, especially if what is spoken about relates to the images shared within the post.

Think of your old grade school text books and how the images helped to explain, or gave importance to, bits of informative text. Remember the bit we learned in school from our art professors about how an artist’s “wins” with their artwork? Getting a viewer to stop, maybe double-check, pause, or otherwise slow down to truly view and appreciate the artwork? Adding a message around the art gives the viewer pause as they become a reader. The information shared within the text portion of the post offers the reader a chance to develop into a more interested viewer of the artwork. Win-win.

Unique Traffic
Traffic, be it foot traffic in a physical art gallery, highway traffic passing by billboards, or digital traffic visiting a website, is vital. If people don’t see the art, then to them it doesn’t exist. However you want to appeal to those who will better appreciate the artwork, so you want specifically unique traffic as well. It doesn’t help the abstract artist if those who appreciate realism visit their site, for example.

Blogs in general generate a lot of traffic on their own. The content is fresh, new, and constantly updated! The search engines, especially the big ones, love fresh content and an artist who posts about something specific (niche-marketing technique), or focuses their art posts to a more narrow category, will naturally drive amazing amounts of traffic to their websites.

Art blogs have a special bonus of visual appeal as they add artwork to the mix of text. Combine specific notes on a piece, along with some tips, advice, or a learning experience with images of the piece and the artist will find an increase in the number of unique visitors.

Should I Get One?

Generally every artist will benefit in some way by posting to a dedicated art blog. However, it really depends on the amount of time an artist puts into it, how thick their “skin” when it comes to negative comments, and how well they interact socially. Remember that online, public sites are accessible to just about anyone, even detractors and “trolls”. One must always show some level of professionalism when interacting with their blog followers, although stiff and overly formal isn’t required. One may put as much of their personality into their posts as they wish, but it must be tempered with the courtesy and respect one wishes to receive for themselves.

If you feel you have to defend your artwork, have a tendency to write inflammatory posts, or “argue” instead of having “professional debates” maybe an art blog isn’t for you. Such blogs attract more trolls and detractors, and showcase the artist as being overly temperamental and unprofessional. This can harm potential sales, drive away potential clients, and does not add value to an artist’s site.

Only you know you best.

On the other hand, if you are a social butterfly and are capable of handling negative comments without “fighting” with your commentators, then an art blog may be something you want to look into. There is inherent value in this form of showcasing one’s work, and it adds overall value to the internet as well. This is especially true when one is posting educational, informative, and/or helpful tidbits along side of their artwork.
In some cases, though not as wide spread as one might think, some artists forgo the typical “gallery”-style website and only maintain an art blog specifically for the purposes of sharing their artistic journey. Running an art blog is about what you want and what you can handle as an artist.

Art Blog Posting Tips

I have seen successful and not so successful art blogs in my time. So let me share with you just a few tips when posting to your art blog.

Focus:
The idea is to keep it as art-centric as possible, and to keep away from the “generic blog” feel.
Keep your art blog to a theme, or single idea. Also, keep in mind what sorts of art-related content you are adding to you art blog. The more focused the blog, the easier it is to find specific information and thus the more useful viewers find it.

Don’t lose focus and start posting non-art-related stuff to your art blog. Keep as much personal, non-art-related, posts out of your art blog as is humanly possible. Generally I mean posts that talk about what your cat fluffy did yesterday that you found funny. If Fluffy inspired you to draw a small cartoon of him/her then by all means add it to your blog, otherwise you clutter up the blog and make it harder for visitors to find what they want to view, read, and learn.

Think about what you want to accomplish with you art blog. Are you just sharing your journey? Are you trying to use it as a mode of advertising? Is the art blog meant to share tutorials and how-to’s? Are you offering advice on art business? Do you have years of experience in watercolor paints and wish to share tips and tricks on certain difficult techniques? An art blog can successfully focus on very narrow aspects of art, or mix a number of them together in a way that complements each other.

Personal:
Many art blogs come across as dry and overly stiff. Most of the time people want to see a little bit of the artist’s personality shine through. The way we write often reflects how we talk and act, and that adds a personal touch to any blog.

However, text is very neutral. Others can read into it meanings, reactions, or attitudes that are not actually there. So be careful of any jokes, or sarcasm that aren’t obvious. Even if you think it is obvious, don’t expect your visitors to know what you mean, understand a bit of sarcasm, or “get” a joke. The internet brings us globally closer together, and culture clashes can cause hiccups along the way.

Enhancements:
Videos are very popular right now. You may want to make a video tutorial, or show a work in progress as it is worked on. This can be incorporated into your art blog without losing its focus. One can either upload Video (or podcasts, or both) to one’s artblog or talk about what the video is about.

There is even the option of further narrowing your focus by simply hosting a vlog (Video Blog) and nothing more. This goes over well for sites that are specifically focused on art tutorials, or offer advice on techniques.
Photography of inspirational sites, people, places, and things (keep in mind trademarks and copyright issues when posting photos of certain things) can be posted as well.

Such sites offer a range of benefits to the art communities as a whole, especially as a reference site for other artists! Such sites that boast photos often is an inspiration to other artists. Photographs of WIPs are popular, as seeing a work as it progresses often helps other artists to understand a technique or style. Many non-artists like seeing photographs of paintings in frames, or images of sculptures being worked on. Many businesses that create objects to sell may post WIPs to show potential clients the level of detail they are offering in their work.

In fact a Photo-blog is a form of art blog in and of its own! These can range from a professional photo portfolio, to travel pictures of favorite destinations, and into a collection of references. A Photo-blog may even offer tutorials of how to capture the best picture.

Just be sure you have a policy in regards to the photographs you take to post, and to the copyright issues for posting such on your art blog.

Policies:

Make sure your policies, copyright, trademark, and such information is easily accessible and openly public. In many cases mistakes are made that cause untold headaches for you and others when this isn’t made painfully obvious to your visitors!

Overview

An art blog is a way of sharing your art in a unique, non-traditional manner that requires a little bit of fore-thought. If done well it adds content to the internet that is compelling, fresh, and new.

Keep in mind that art blogs are public, and may require a few stiff but professional reminders as to your rights as an artist. Enjoy it but don’t abuse it.

Above have fun with it!

Needs and Online Life

Online life is an interesting one. The needs of those who spend their time online are even more interesting. We seek connection. The success and the power of the various social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace are evidence of this powerful need to interact.

We have a deeply in-grained need to socialize and interact. Humans are a very group-oriented creature, built to be social on many different levels.

The internet both draws us farther apart and hides our lives as much as it exposes us to everything and anything that companies, communities, and/or individuals throw at us. But, unless it is securely hidden behind firewalls and encrypted passwords, anything that is posted to the public can be accessed eventually, even years later. (See: The Way Back Machine)

Voiced opinions, hobbies, and affiliations are more easily dug up online then it is offline. Google anyone’s name or handle and you may be surprised what you find. The more unique the name or handle, the more likely you’ll find out information about someone they may not want know to, say, a potential employer or employee!

We feel we have a unique freedom in general when it comes to the internet, but unless we self-censor in some way it could be detrimental to our professional side. But more on that in another article.

The internet serves our needs as social creatures. It indeed serves it well.

Fame and Need

Some people crave fame, others abhor it but recieve it anyway for various reasons. The net feeds the needs of those who seek fame as well as those who seek the famous. Being in the limelight is hard for anyone, even those used to it as one life it scrutinized as if under a massive social microscope. It doubles in intensity when one is online.

Fame and popularity can be more of a bane then it is in the real world. At least in the real world people who stalk your house can be instantly arrested for trespassing. Where as online stalkers can grab a different email address, then sign up in your forums from a different location. They can do this over and over and over again.

Those who are famous have an immense power over many others, be it offline or on it doesn’t matter. People will look up to, try to emulate, or have a special respect for those who are famous (or infamous even in some cases). Those who are well known, are known because of something they are, something they’ve accomplished, something they’d said or done, or they may be famous because of events in their lives that move us emotionally, mentally, or socially. But online the reaction/response can be tripled or more.

Examples
I have seen what this can do in the art world among fantasy illustrators. An Artist who has issue with another can inadvertently start a “war” between the fans. Even a small issue made public can cause all sorts of problems that weren’t originally expected. This is based on a sad fact that some users are “Trolls”, these “battles” between the fans can get ugly because of them.

For instance, if one has enough skill as a hacker, the offending artist’s website could go down (this is an extreme example). Otherwise blogs are filled with detritus, dirty laundry, and more. People craft websites of hate and disparaging remarks, or may start “groups” united against this other artist.

I’ve seen it get more moronic then that.

But why?
The difference in this and the real world is that the online world is, again, far more accessible. Where as such groups are sure to exist in the real world, online it’s very easy to find them with but a mere search query!

The Power behind Need

Need can drive some people to organize. It is how many countries rose up in rebellion from the status quo of their ruling country and became an independent countries of their own. Needs, whether perceived, believed, or real, drive us.

Some newer legislation for air-travelers rights in the US were started by ONE person commenting in other blogs and on news sites. A woman made a difference for her and other airline passengers because of her need for satisfaction over a set of poor choices that put herself and other passengers in a very bad situation!

There was an issue that involved passengers not disembarking from their plane even though they were at their destination. There were a set of events that caused a super-long delay, as they sat on the tarmac and waited for hours longer then they had either food, water, or toilet accessibility. This is not a common occurrence to be sure, and it wasn’t something the airline had anyway of realizing might happen. But happen it did, but the reparations paid by the airlines were little to none.

Her plane was the second within a span of years to have this trouble.

So she searched online and found news reports, blogs, and the like. Leaving comments she began networking. She asked people to contact her, and eventually set up a website about it. Within months, rather then years, she was able to get enough signatures and voices to force NY legislators to do something about the problems some airlines were having. Google “Air passengers rights”. You’ll be surprised.

This woman had a need. Offered information free of charge as well as offered the ability to get something done.

Spoken of by Others

Trent Reznor is an amazing artist of the music industry (in my personal opinion). I recently discovered that he has done what so few other companies did, and that was to immerse himself into the online “world” directly. In order to learn how to market himself, NIN, the works of his band, and more, he decided to get to know what the social networks and interactive communities online were like, personally.

He discovered the power of the social networks because he directly interacted with them in such a way as to be a part of the massive, world-reaching online community. There was an aspect that he figured out, and it’s a bane that I wish more companies would wise up towards.

Spam.

It’s been around for years in the both the offline and the online environment. However, most companies don’t seem to understand that the old forms of advertising cannot be “tweaked” to fit online. They are ignored mostly by the online population, because they don’t offer anything in return.

Those who are part of the online communities want one thing really, and that is to be engaged and to interact with the things that most interest them. People will buy stuff that either entertains them, engages them, interacts with them, teaches them, or otherwise gives them something in return.

The many blogs, sites, and marketing places I’ve stuck my nose in has offered this bit of advice time and again. In order to get, you have to give. Content is more then just filler fluff or copying someone else’s articles. It’s more then re-tweeting, or re-posting, or re-hashing the same old topics. It’s about real meat and potatoes sort of content, and understanding that in a time of tight money that leads to a tighter grasp on one’s wallet. You can’t expect people to pay for things they don’t need.

“Anyway, we’re in a world where the mainstream social networks want any and all people to boost user numbers for the big selloff and are not concerned with the quality of experience.” ~ Trent Reznor

It’s the quality that counts. It’s what you offer that counts. This is not about numbers, this is about knowing what the consumers need. It is about what they really want. They don’t want fluff, or fizzy-drink ads, or other such stuff.

From AKA Marketing comes an article that is almost 3 years (and counting) old. Everything in there is valid even today. Let me further expand on what I mean.

“… be sure that your content will have specific appeal to your target audience.”

This is the basics of niche marketing. In fact this is what niche marketing’s whole main directive is about. Finding a specific “thing”, be it a product type (fine art), a service (theme creators), an information site (Wikipedia), how-to site (birthday cake recipes), a community (fans of insert-something-here), and the like, narrow it into a very focused ideal, and most of the marketing will be done for you!

“Next you want original content, if someone asked me what I considered good content I’d say that it was content that’s different and unique and not the same as the content on the other website I just came from.”

This is the Power of Need. Even if it is a perceived need, it drives us to want more then what many companies or individuals are actually offering. Those that supply that need, that cater to the real needs we have for information, education, understanding what we are looking at or preparing to buy will draw more people to them.

Examples

#1 Article sellers:

Selling your article to a million article buyers dilutes your articles uniqueness and will eventually hurt those who buy them from you. This in turn has a domino effect. The less they are effective, the more your articles are labeled as “non-sell-able” and the less money you make on them. If you are going to sell articles, pick and choose who you sell to carefully. Some individual sites will offer anywhere between $50 and $200+ dollars for original articles. This keeps their sites full of original content, and keeps money in your pocket. Win – win situation!

#2 Peat and Repeat:
“Peat and Repeat were walking along. Peat fell down and who was left? Repeat. Peat and Repeat were walking along…”

Don’t do it if you can help it. It’s one thing to find an article that you’ve found engaging and want to share that with your personal networks of friends and family. That’s natural, but don’t copy. For one reason it’s plagiarism and thus illegal.

On another side, with how visible the net is in the long run, eventually you’ll get caught and your “authenticity” will suffer for it. Black Listing is a favorite subject in the online world. I know. I’ve watched in in action since 1999. Not pretty!

Another reason, though by far not the last, is that copying someone’s idea reduces the quality of it. It is the same reduction in quality that selling your work to a million article buyers does to a single article. If there are a number of copies online, the search engines aren’t going to know who’s article is best, because they are all the same.

However, discussing it, reviewing the article, and putting your own spin on it is much better for the article itself. Linking to it rather then directly quoting it alone, or offering both quotes and links are by far the better choices. Doing such is the power of “By Word of Mouth” in action!

There is more on this topic and if you Goggle it you’ll find this same information repeated so many times that it becomes almost it’s own mantra. “Content is King”!

GIVE back to the online community, don’t just try to take.

Overview

Need is a much more powerful selling point then companies seem to realize. They try to market stuff as “items you need” and forget that many of their consumers are smarter then that. I don’t NEED a new car when I have public transportation, for example.

Don’t waste the time of site visitors and users. Give them something of interest related to what your site is about if you want to sell them something. Be real, be helpful, be honest, and above all don’t be a troll. *nods sagely*

Don’t repeat content. Passion is the key and if you have passion for something it will show through! Discuss topics rather then cut and pasting them to share. Share links instead of copied text. Pass on the information, sure, but do it thoughtfully.

Share. Share your thoughts in a constructive way and you’ll find more people following you!

Love. Love what it is you write about and share that love and passion with the world. You’ll soon find others that share that passion and who will link you into still others they know. It’s a positive domino effect, done in exponentially ever increasing numbers.