A lot of attention has been given to social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. But there is another social networking site that artists often overlook. That overlooked networking site is called LinkedIn. Even if you already have a presence on Facebook or Twitter, there are a number of reasons why it makes sense for artists to have a presence on LinkedIn as well. On today’s show, I’ll discuss the advantages of using LinkedIn to promote your artwork and give you some tips on how make the best impression.

1. LinkedIn has a couple of advantages over other social networking sites

• LinkedIn is more business-like and professional than Facebook or Twitter…personal stuff is not the focus
• Getting connections is bit more secure than other social networking sites

2. How artists can use LinkedIn

• LinkedIn is a great place to meet higher end clientele. If a lot of your work is with professional, companies, corporations, or organizations, LinkedIn is a great place for you to be
• There’s a number of artists also on LinkedIn. Join some of the artist groups to get advice and information
• LinkedIn profiles also show up on search engine results. This gives you another place to be seen

3. LinkedIn Tips

• Fill out your profile as completely as possible
• Update your status regularly
• Update your profile regularly
• Start gathering contacts
• Give and get recommendations
• Ask and answer questions
• If you have a blog, connect it to your LinkedIn profile
• Show your artwork on LinkedIn through Slideshare. Get an account on Slideshare, create a slide show with your artwork and use the Slideshare app on your profile
• Join and participate in some related LinkedIn groups
• Advertise your LinkedIn profile

Twitter, Facebook, and now Google Buzz…social networking has certainly been the buzz on the internet for the past few years. If you have an online presence for your art, then you’ve no doubt heard that you need to be on at least one of these networks. Or do you? Do you HAVE to jump on the social networking bandwagon in order to promote your artwork online? In this show, I’ll talk about 5 reasons you might want to avoid using social networking to promote your artwork

1. Your customers aren’t on social networks- While there are a lot of people online, not all of them are using Facebook or Twitter. As of August 2009, it’s estimated that 17% of the time spent online is on social network sites like Facebook or on blogs. If you have an audience that’s not social networking savvy or an audience that don’t spend a lot of time on the computer, then social networking might not be a priority for you.

Reality check- That 17% figure cited had actually increased by 6% from the previous year. Keep in mind that while your current customers aren’t there now…there’s nothing saying that they won’t be in the future…plus there’s a chance that you’re ignoring potential new customers.

2. You’re too busy creating art- While it’s important to market your art, you also have to make sure that you’re spending enough time in your studio so that you actually have something to market. Social networking can be an enormous time sink if you’re not careful.

3. You hate being on the computer- If you only use your computer to check email and avoid it like the plague the rest of the time, you’re not going to be really excited to spend even more time setting up a Facebook page or taking time to tweet about your latest work…and your lack of excitement will show.

4. You’ve tried it and not gotten any results- If you’ve already been on these social networks and don’t seem to get any results, then there’s nothing wrong with moving on to other techniques that will yield better results.

Reality check- a good honest effort is more than just a month or two of sporadically tweeting or logging onto your Facebook page. Just like any other method of marketing, social networking does take time.

5. You’re doing quite well without it- You’re selling out at shows, you’re getting plenty of sales on Etsy, and you’re always filling in orders with your gallery accounts…so whatever you’re doing now is working just fine.

Unless you’ve been under a rock, you’ve heard of the popular social networking site Twitter. Perhaps you’ve even started your own Twitter account and started tweeting. But what’s the best way to use Twitter to marketing your artwork? What are some of the things you need to avoid? And how does sending out messages that are only 140 characters long useful anyway? In this episode, I’ll go over some of the do’s and don’ts of using Twitter to marketing your artwork.

1. Lurk before you tweet- If you’re new to Twitter, follow some folks first and get used to how Twitter works.

2. Know what you want to accomplish with Twitter- do you want to market yourself on Twitter? Do you want to use it as a news gathering resource? Do you want to get your artwork better known? Figure out what you want to accomplish with Twitter

3. Pay attention to your profile- Your profile is how people on Twitter learn about you, make sure that you make it appealing to those that want to follow you.

4. Be selective with who you follow- You’re not obligated to follow those who follow you. You’ll find that Twitter is a lot more useful if you’re selective with who you decide to follow. Pick people with the same interests or those that would be interested in what you do.

5. Use 3rd party tools to help your Twittering- Tools like Hootsuite, SocialOomph, and Tweetdeck are designed to make it a lot easier for you to keep up with your twittering. Make use of them.

6. Don’t make it all about you- Me, me, me…please buy my stuff is quite boring. And you won’t get many followers if all you’re tweeting about is yourself. Make sure that a good portion of your tweets contain useful, non promotional information

7. Tweet regularly- Carve out some time everyday, every week to send out some tweets. Twitter is not going to be useful to you if you don’t tweet on a regular basis.

8. Give it time- While Twitter can work a bit more quickly than other types of online marketing, you still need to be patient and give yourself plenty of time to figure out your best strategy

If you want to learn more about Twitter, get my free guide and video tips on how to use Twitter here.

You’ve probably heard of image sharing sites like Flickr, Picassa, and Photobucket and perhaps you even have an account so you can share photos of your last vacation with your friends. But did you also know that it can be a great way to help promote your artwork? On today’s episode, I’m going to discuss some of the benefits (and pitfalls) of using image sharing websites to promote your artwork.

1. What are image sharing sites?

• an image sharing site allows you to host and share your photos online
• most image sharing site has a “social” aspect that will allow you to friend other users, send photos to friends and family or distribute photos through Twitter, blogging, Facebook, etc

2. Sign up with a site and make sure you fill out the profile

• Image sharing sites are social sites…make sure that you fill out the profile so that people learn more about you
• Be sure that you include your website address and information about what you do in your profile

3. Share photos of your work

• Upload photos of what kind of artwork you do
• Don’t forget to include photos of your studio, of works in progress, yourself at exhibitions, and shows, and of yourself!
• Provide detailed titles, descriptions, and tag your photos properly with relevant keywords. This will help you get found by other people…and you’ll pick up some traffic from Google Images.
• Use the sharing tools of the service to help you blog about your work, share photos with potential customers, or distribute photos to people that follow you.
• Be sure upload and freshen up your profile with new photos regularly

4. Get social

• A lot of these sites allow you to form and join topic specific groups
• Find or create a group related to your art and start interacting with the other users
• If there is a friending or contact feature, use this to start building contacts

5. Some pitfalls to avoid

• Read the terms of use and copyright and make sure that you retain the copyright to your images
• If you have professional photos of your art, make sure you have the right to post them
• Some image sharing services allows you to set whether you want other users to share your images or not. Be sure to check these out so that other users know if they can use your images or if they can use your images

If you’re an artist trying to promote your artwork or sell your artwork online, you’ve probably heard of social networking sites like Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter. Perhaps you’ve already dipped your toe into the social networking waters. But is it working the way you’re expecting? Is it getting you results or does it feel like a waste of time? Social networking can greatly benefit your marketing efforts IF you take the right approach. On this episode, I’ll give you some tips that you can use right away that can help you successfully marketing your art through social networking.

1. Have a goal

• Most of the time wasted on social networking is because you don’t have a goal
• What do you want your social networking to accomplish? More sales? More customers? More traffic to your website?

2. Know the abilities and limitations of your social networks

• Not all social networking sites work the same…take the time to learn how each one works
• Each social network has their own culture…take the time to learn what’s acceptable and what’s not
• Pick social networking sites that match your goals

3. Don’t try everything at once

• Pick a couple of sites and get good at them before you try the next one
• Choose networks that play to your strengths
• Be aware of new networks but don’t feel compelled to chase after them

4. Keep track of your results

• Track your activity on your social networks and monitor your results
• Don’t be afraid to try new things or drop networks that don’t work for you
• Maximize your time on networks that work well for you

Are you a Facebook user and you’re interested in how to market yourself effectively on Facebook? Join me on Wednesday, October 28th at 8:00 p.m. EST for my teleclass, Marketing with Facebook: How to Use Facebook to Promote Your Business on the Web . In the class we’ll talk about the how’s and why’s of using Facebook for your business and how to effectively use Facebook to market yourself. For more information, visit: http://www.craftedwebteleseminars.com/facebookmarketing/

http://www.craftedwebteleseminars.com/facebookmarketing/

The social networking site Facebook is estimated to have more than 250 million active users and over 120 million of those users log into Facebook everyday. That’s a lot of potential new visitors to your website who could turn into potential customers. If you have an account on Facebook, you already have access to a great tool that can help you bring more traffic to your website. But Facebook is so huge….where do you begin? In this episode, I’m going to outline five Facebook tools that you can use to bring more people to your website.

1. Facebook Profiles

• Fill out information about your interests and links to your websites
• Add photos and videos of your work to your profile
• Use lists to divide your friends into manageable groups
• Don’t forget to comment on people’s status updates and events

2. Facebook Pages

• Pages are “profiles” for businesses and companies
• Unlike profiles pages are public
• Apply a Page Fan Box to your blogs and websites
• Use Facebook ads to bring more people to your fan page
• Add photos and videos to your page
• You can have an unlimited amount of fans

3. Facebook Groups

• Find groups that your customers would be interested in and join them
• Participate in the discussions, comments on photos, wall comments, and other things added by the members
• Create your own group for your business, either public or private
• Unlike Pages, you can message your group members directly
• There’s a 5,000 member fan limit

4. Facebook Apps

• These are little “applications” that add different features to your Facebook profiles and Pages
• Use different apps to connect your blog to your Facebook account, connect your Facebook to your Twitter account, and to encourage people to go to your website
• Be sure check out the following apps: Networked Blogs, Blog RSS Feed Reader, FBML, Twitter, Birthday Calendar

5. Facebook Events

• This allows you to invite people to events either outside on inside Facebook
• Use events to invite your friends and page fans to sales, promotions, gallery openings, open houses…any event that you want to send an invitation for. You can also make your events open to anyone on the Facebook network
• Dress up your events page with photos and videos

The great thing about the Internet is that it allows you to meet new people and interact with potential customers and art buyers. But at the same time the Internet gives buyers, customers, and even outright strangers the ability to bad mouth you, your work, and to act like outright jerks. What do you do when someone decides to use your blog or your Facebook account to spread nasty and untrue stories about you?

1. Don’t hide. The best protection is to be active online

• People will talk about you whether you’re online or not
• Being active online will allow you to monitor what’s being said about you
• Google your name and your business. Use Google Alerts to monitor your name

2. Build your reputation online before someone builds it for you

• Join social networks and participate. Interact with online friends
• Start a blog. Encourage comments and join in on the discussion
• Be helpful, treat people well
• Answer direct questions and offer solutions

3. Set some rules

• Your blog and your profiles are your “home” on the Internet, set some boundaries
• Write a comments policy for your blog and enforce it
• Get familiar with your moderation and privacy settings

4. Handling complaints and negative comments

• Resist the urge to erase or retaliate
• Listen…the complaint may be legitimate
• Offer sympathy and solutions
• Don’t be afraid to let other’s see the complaints and your solutions to them

5. Dealing with an out of control jerk

• Intervene in the case or outright lies, abusive or offensive language or harassment
• Don’t engage directly with the jerk
• Tell your side of the story to the rest of your community
• Remove the jerk if necessary