One of the most beautiful things I've gained from blogging for the last 10 years has been the connections I've made. Besides the lifelong friendships, I've had connections lead to:
- *My art and writing in over 5 books (published and soon to be published.)
- *My art and writing in several magazines.
- *Gallery shows.
- *Partnerships for teaching workshops.
- *Radio interviews.
- *And most importantly, loyal patrons of my art.
Some artists try to use blogging to boost their art career and find it to be a frustrating process. They don't have great results, burn out quickly, and eventually stop updating their blogs all together. So how do you make blogging fun and beneficial for your art career? Here are five tips that have helped me along the way:
1. Blog Your Process: People love to see the behind the scenes action and learn more about how artists create their finished products. Create blog posts that share pictures or video of your works-in-progress. Share details about your materials, your thought process, your initial sketches, your happy accidents, or whatever you feel comfortable sharing. Following up with posts about the next steps or the final product keep readers coming back for more and get them excited about your work.
For example, I first blogged about my painting, Dive Deep (shown to the right) here, and later I shared the finished product here. Sharing the progress and story behind it, led to interest, which led to the sale of this piece.
I've seen other artists successfully use live streaming video services like Ustream, to share a live painting demonstration.
2. Develop Relationships: For me, blogging isn't solely about selling my work, it's simply a beautiful byproduct of the process. When I started blogging, it was purely personal, but because my art is my passion and is so personal to me, it soon became my main focus. The way my blogging has been the most beneficial for my art career has been through connecting with others and developing relationships online. The easiest way to do that, is to share myself and reach out to others.
3. Get Involved: It's time-consuming to get involved and put yourself out there through blogging and other forms of social media, but it's also fun and fulfilling! Some ways to get involved online:
- *Visit blogs of others (and comment on them!) Visit other creatives, but also any blog that interests you. I've had buyers find me through comments I left on the blogs of others. Sometimes, it's the perfect way to connect with a like-minded soul!
- *Get active on Twitter, sharing your own links, but also sharing the links of others, any other links you find interesting, and little bits of your day-to-day life. If you only share links to what you've got for sale, you'll bore your followers.
- *Join Flickr and add your work to groups that fit your style.
- *Share your updates on Facebook and/or create a Facebook fan page.
- *Take online classes and be an active participant (surprisingly, this has also led to lots of buyers for me!)
4. Join Challenges or Create Your Own: Another facet of getting involved can be to join an online challenge. These are free online gatherings of people committed to a common goal. A couple examples are Illustration Friday and Nanowrimo. Those are some bigger examples, but there are also smaller groups popping up all over the place, for any topic or goal you can possibly imagine. If you can't find one that speaks to you, you might consider starting your own online challenge and hosting it on your blog.
About 8 years ago, I was interested in the online challenge Nanowrimo (in which people challenge themselves to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November), but I didn't want to write a novel, so I decided to start my own challenge, Art Every Day Month. I challenged myself to create a piece of art every day for the month of November and posted every piece on my blog. The following year, I invited others to join in, and over time, it has grown into a group of 400+ people creating together, sharing their work and encouraging each other. It's truly inspiring! On top of the regular visits by participants, lots of interest builds around the challenge, which leads to lots of new readers.
5. Stay Inspired: In the last 3 years, I've been running the Creative Every Day Challenge, which involves a weekly check-in on my blog. Having a consistent reason for people to return to my blog is great, but it's also fun way for me to connect with lots of creative people, and it also helps keep me motivated to continue to post and expand my work online.
It's important to stay interested and inspired with your blog or it will become another chore and eventually you'll want to abandon it. Find ways to make it interesting and fun for you. If you enjoy doing videos, do them. Or try doing interviews with people who inspire you, write book reviews, share links to things that have inspired you lately, host a giveaway, offer a teleclass. Do whatever it is that excites you. When you're excited about the content you share, readers will sense that and want to come back for more, which will lead to more interest in your blog, your artwork, and connections that lead to beautiful things!
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Don't have a blog, but want to start one? For starting out, I recommend Blogger, WordPress, or Typepad because I've found them to be user friendly for beginners.
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Leah Piken Kolidas is a mixed-media artist and creativity guide, living near Boston, Massachusetts with her husband, four cats, and baby on the way! She blogs and leads creative challenges at Creative Every Day and sells her artwork at BlueTreeArtGallery.com.