How to Create (and destroy) your Reputation Online as an Artist! – Skinny Artist

How to Create (and destroy) your Reputation Online as an Artist!

Create and Control your Reputation Online!

 

Unlike high school, getting a reputation online as an artist isn’t easy.  We can’t just smile and charm our fans and potential customers with our good looks.  Sure they might stop by and admire your stuff, but chances are they’re not going to be buying anything unless they end up feeling a real connection to you, not as an artist, but as a human being.

People don’t buy art — they buy the artist

Let’s be honest here, people can get good-looking art or decent sounding music virtually anywhere these days, which is why nobody’s really looking to go out and buy another piece of art to hang up on their wall or another book to shove in their bookcase — what they are really wanting to buy is a story.  This might be a real story that you tell them about how a particular piece of art came to be along with the thought process and motivations behind its creation, or it could also be the story of you.

It’s not enough to be the best at what you do; you must be perceived as the only one who does what you do. ~Jerry Garcia

This second type of story, however, is far more important because it’s not a story that you tell directly, but it’s a story that is told about you by other people. This is your reputation as an artist.  It could be good story, it could be not-so-good story, or there could be no story yet to tell (i.e. they’ve never heard of you).  Either way, it’s up to you to create, build, and then maintain this reputation throughout your career. Great artists such from Warhol, Versace, Dali, Picasso, Hemmingway, Twain, John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia, to Lady Gaga understood the value of  creating a very specific reputation for themselves.  We’ll talk a little bit about how we can create this type of reputation in a minute, but first we need to take a closer look at some of the reasons people would choose to buy something online from one person but not someone else.

What do they want from me?

The internet offers us as some unprecedented opportunities, as well as some unique challenges to selling our creative work online.  Since most of our customers will never meet us face to face, they have to base their decision on what we say or do online.

We buy from people we trust

Think about this for a moment. When you’re looking to buy that new book or DVD online, are you more likely to buy it from a site like Amazon or from a site called MovieTimeRUs.  Chances are you are going to go with Amazon because most of us have not only heard of Amazon, but we also instinctively trust them because we know they’ve already had millions of satisfied customers.  This is called “social proof” which essentially means that if everyone else is doing it, then it must be okay.

Unfortunately, there is no universal e-Bay like feedback rating system for us as creative professionals, people who buy our work rarely write reviews or testimonies about our greatness.  So instead we  have to rely on our word-of-mouth reputation as well as our charming personality.

But what if no one knows who I am?

We buy from people we like

This turns out to be the real secret of online success for the individual artist. When it comes to buying something like art, writing, or music we want to buy from someone we know and like.  Again, we can find good art/music/writing anywhere these days so what often makes the difference between one artist and another is how we feel about them.  [Keep in mind that I’m using the term “Artist” here to describe any kind of creative professional]

Okay Dale Carnegie, so how do I get these people to like me?!

Create – Share – Connect

We do this by first creating an online home where our future friends and fans can stop by and get to know us a little better.  It can’t just be a one-way conversation either, which is why we have to find ways to interact with our visitors and show them what a cool cat we really are.

Give what you have. To someone else it may be better than you dare to think. ~Henry W. Longfellow

We also have to share something of value with them.  This could be a story, an idea, a resource, etc.. The point here is that we have to give them something other than our sales pitch when they drop in for a visit because nobody likes to get the Amway ambush when they’re just stopping by for a cup of coffee.

Finally, we have to find a way to connect and grow our own circle of friends by going out and visiting our neighbors once in awhile.  After all, it’s kind of hard to meet new people if you never actually leave your virtual house.  Go out there and explore the online world around you.  If you take the time to look around, I think you’ll discover that there really are some cool kids out there to hang with.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these steps:

Create

  • Create a virtual home for yourself where people can easily stop by and visit you.  Be sure that you have complete control over this space because it will be the foundation on which your future reputation will be based.
  • Create some content on your site that has nothing to do with the work you are selling. Remember that you have to give your visitors a reason to stop by and visit on a regular basis.  Give them a valuable resource or tool they can use.  Things such as how-to tutorials, interviews, and other website tools and resources.  Also keep in mind that the many of your visitors will find you for the first time through search engines so think about what your visitors will be searching for and what they may want to learn or know.
  • Create a space for building community and encouraging interaction.  This could be anything from creating a forum, running a poll, to inviting your readers to comment on your content.

Share

  • Share your story. Remember that it’s going to be your personality that will set you apart from all of the other artists in the world. The best advice I can give you here is to not try and be someone you’re not. Most people these days have a pretty keen online bullshit detector and if it starts going off they’ll not only avoid you, but they’re going be telling all their friends to avoid you as well.
  • Share your successes but also share your doubts, fears, and vulnerabilities. Nobody likes to hang around with that one kid who never shuts up about how great he is, and whatever you’ve done, he always seems to have done the same thing better — Don’t be that person!  Look, we are all already feeling insecure enough without listening to some jackass telling us how great life/business has been for him.  It’s okay to talk about the good stuff, but don’t forget to include some of the warts and worries as well.
  • Share other people’s stuff.  Believe it or not your not the only person who’s out there busting your butt trying to make a name for themselves online.  Remember that we’re not playing a zero-sum game here where if you tell someone about another great artist you know, they’ll end up falling in love with her and you’ll lose a potential customer. Sometimes we just have to take a step back and put our little food-grabbing reptilian brains on hold for a minute in order to understand that this just isn’t the way things work online.  This is an idea that we’ve talked a lot about in our latest Skinny Art School series.

Connect

  • Connect with other artists in your field.  When you are first starting out, the vast majority of your visitors are going to be other artists who are trying to find their way through the online jungle just like you.  Some of them may be looking for advice or inspiration, but chances are, most of them are simply looking for a friendly face.  The one thing no one tells you about being a creative professional is that it can often be an isolating and lonely experience.  We live the majority of our lives inside our own heads which means that our social interaction with the outside world can sometimes be lacking.
  • Get involved with the community.  Where do artists in your field hang out? Make an effort to find out and then go there on a regular basis. Forums and communities on sites such as Flickr, DeviantART, WetCanvas, and RedBubble were made so artists could have a place to hang out, complain, and put off work for as long as possible.
  • If nothing else, get on Twitter and Facebook.  Even if you can’t imagine dragging your introverted little self into the forums, you should at least get on Twitter and Facebook in order to connect with other artists. We’re not trying to make ourselves out to be some kind of experts here, after all it wasn’t that long ago that we became Twidiots ourselves.  And as far as our sad little Facebook page goes, we obviously don’t have a clue what we’re doing, but we’re still out there making it up as we go along.
  • Comment and Link to other artists blogs. Everybody wants more comments and links for their own blog or website, but stop and think for a moment about how many links and comments have you given out in the last week? How about in the last month?  Somehow it seems that most of us forget that we have to give in order to receive.  Giving other people comments and links makes them feel appreciated and loved, which is just good karma for everyone.

One last thing. . . .

Your online reputation builds slowly but can fall apart quickly

It takes time and persistance to build your online reputation as an artist.  It’s not a one week, one month, or even a one year kind of deal.  Not only does it take years to build this reputation, you also have to guard it carefully because it often only takes one act of stupidity in order to destroy it.

I was reminded of this fact recently when I read about  Thomas Kinkade the world-famous artist who spent years carefully creating his reputation as this moral and religious “painter of light” only to see it come crashing down around him with a fraud and public bankruptcy hearing and more recently a DUI arrest.

The lesson here may be that in a world where news travels around the world within minutes, we cannot afford to risk our reputation as an artist.  Luckily, it turns out that the easiest way to protect your reputation is simply to . . .

Be Real.

Be Yourself.

Support Others.

Live your Art.

.

How are you building your reputation online?

Photo courtesy of Get royalty-free images at SXC!

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About the Author

Drew is a writer, teacher, and head custodian of the Skinny Artist creative community. You can also find him online at OutmatchFitness.com where he writes about fitness, nutrition, and his continuing battle with father time.

Great article – thanks! I thought I’d help you out with your sad little Facebook page so I signed up to follow … or like … or whatever FB has decided to call it ….

http://www.etsy.com/shop/anotherbrightidea
http://www.feliciakramer.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/anotherbrightidea

Drew

Thanks Felicia for taking a chance on us and being our friend! We’ll try not to be one of those super needy friends but you never know :)

Great article, thanks! I’ve also joined your facebook fan page and added to my facebook page favourites as well. Good points made about being real and not always sticking to the good times – we all have some difficult stuff we can share and we’ll all be better off for that honesty.

http://www.lillybeckart.com

Drew

Thank you Rebecca for your kind words! The fact that you were willing to be our friend on Facebook gets you bonus points — I know now that it’s only a matter of time before we hit double digits — Lucky for you that you got in on the ground floor :D

Thanks again and I hope to hear from you again soon!

[…] popular (not that we have to worry about that).  It’s all goes back to this idea of “social proof” that we talked about before, where if enough people think you’re cool, then you […]

Thanks. Just found your site today, and I already love it.

Drew

Hi Gabi, thanks so much for stopping by! I love your avatar by the way. I can almost hear you shouting at me through my laptop. . .it reminds me of my mom :)

Talk to you soon!

Firstly, this is my first post to your website on my first day here. I’ve read a few articles and they resonate with me.
Thanks for creating and sharing your thoughts, experiences and ideas. I’m sure they’ll come in very, very useful over the next few decades. :-)

Drew

Thanks Bryan for your kind words of support! It’s always nice to know that your words resonate with someone else. As I’ve said before, the whole point of us being here is to support each other as we travel down this crazy dark path together. So welcome to the clan, and I hope to hear from you again soon!

P.S. You’ve got some incredible photos on your site :D

I so appreciate people like you taking the time to publish such helpful information. I’m learning so much about what to do and what not to do.

    Drew

    Thanks Jean!

    In the same spirit of gratitude, I really appreciate people like you who take the time to not only stop by and read these words, but also who take a moment to leave a short comment just to say hello and let me know that amazing people like yourself are out there.

    So thank you :)

found your site through the ‘is etsy dying’ article on google, which i have commented.
i think you have some really good points on how to go about creating an online (and even offline) reputation. it’s definitely very valid for getting sales on my work and finding commissions. but is something i have only just started to doing because it’s only recent that i found my general style and im soon ending university life, which means i have to find ways to support myself.

    Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts with us. I think in some ways we are all still beginners in this brave new world of online marketing. In the end, however, it comes down to creating relationships with other people by opening up and revealing at least some small slice of our personality.

    As I’ve said time and time again on this site, most people end up buying the artist not the art. Sure we love a good-looking piece of art to hang on our wall, but what we really want is the story behind the art. We want to have that connection — even if it’s only through a simple email or status update. We want to feel somehow personally connected with the the person who created that piece of art. That’s why we get our books signed by the author, or our CD autographed by the band. That’s why millions of people follow celebrities on Twitter and Facebook, in order to make that kind of connection even if it’s only in our mind.

great post – just finding the time to explore your blog posts though I signed-up for your artists directory some time ago.

congrats on your great job with this tremendous artists’ resource.I look forward to revisiting and sharing on my blog as I progress.

thanks,

Gail Kent
Gail Kent Studio

I realize that this article was written a couple of years ago but I just stumbled upon it today and found it very insightful, especially in this crazy economy. I haven’t been creating art for a long time, people seem to appreciate it but except for compliments I haven’t had any sales and was thinking about calling it quits. I know I am not a very good marketer and especially not good at blowing my own horn but this article and others I found on your website served as a reality check, making me realize what it takes to make it. And I don’t mean Picasso make it, but a few sales would be nice, just to know that I am not banging my head against a brick wall :)
Anyways, I found your post inspiring, honest and realistic and I thank you for that.

Thank you!
Ivette

    Thank you Ivette for your kind words!

    I’ve found that there are very few creative artists out there who really enjoy the so-called “art” of marketing. We simply would rather create than try to sell. Somehow we’ve all been led to believe that if our work is really good enough, than you shouldn’t have to “sell it” it should magically sell itself. Well perhaps that’s true if your name is Damien Hirst or Stephen King, but for the rest of us mere mortals, we constantly need to find new ways to get our work (and ourselves) out there in front of people so they can recognize how awesome we really are!

    Welcome to the community Ivette and stay away from those brick walls ;)

      Thank you Drew and I will try to ;)

I’ve just stumbled on your site and i’m so glad i did. All the articles i’ve read are insightful, and this one on creating an online presence is giving me the little nudge i need to start putting myself out there in a more serious way. Thank you for taking the time to create such a resourceful site for working and aspiring artists.

    Thanks so much Mafalda for stopping by and we really appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts with us. I know it’s not always easy putting yourself (and your creative work) out there sometimes, but the good news is that it gets easier the more you do it :)

Hey Drew and the gang, (a great title for a compilation album)

I’ve been reading Skinny Artist for a while now, and have benefited tremendously from it.

I love how straight forward everything is, and I find the Skinny School to be a great way to keep my timid-I’d-rather-not-have-to-talk-to-anybody side in it’s place, which is not running my career.

To answer your question at the end of the Blog: I have what I call the FTP marketing tree, which allows me to create at least some base line of building my online community without needing to spend all day doing it. Which leaves me free to educate myself and create more art. It’s been successful for me in gaining new twitter followers and more traffic to my online home which is a communal site.

This also what I’ve been trying to do more of, community and collaboration. I’ve spent too long trying to be a lone ranger… as poetic as it feels, it’s too long a journey for my short life here on this groovin’ planet.

Oh… by the way.. it’s Facebook Twitter Pinterest… not File Transfer Protocol… hehe.

    Thanks so much Angela for kind words and for the compilation album idea!

    After reading your comment, I was all excited to hear more about this revolutionary new marketing tree system of yours using File Transfer Protocol (FTP) ;) I think you really do need to limit yourself somehow and focus on just a few social networks instead of trying to master them all. I’ve seen too many artists sign up for one new account after another only to abandon them later.

    You’re absolutely right, community and collaboration is the name of the game these days especially online. The more you can connect with other creative souls around you, not only will they support you emotionally, but you’ll often find all kinds of new opportunities that will reveal themselves as well.

    Thanks again Angela for your kind words and for being a part of our little creative community here. We really appreciate it and I hope to hear from you again soon!

Loved the article, love the site. Thanks so much for the tips, it all makes perfect sense to me.

Very inspiring article! The one thing I definitely need to work on is to become more active in the artist community in order to increase my online presence. Definitely a good motivator!

[…] something dormant inside of me. He spelled it out well and I looked over his documents about networking with the writing community and found the documents for creating a virtual […]

Thank you Drew – fantastic article, I really enjoyed it.

best wishes
Janee

I must say i really like this article. It isn’t looking down at anyone, but offers good advice.

Solid, practical advice.

Hey Drew,
I have found this awesome website of yours today and it is the best thing that happened to me in a while.
I am having a lot of fun reading all the articles, every single one of which is like taken from my head. AMAZING information and support for all artists everywhere. I am merely a newborn in this field, but would love if people can give me some feedback on how to improve my website and my self. I hope to be a good artist and a person and am willing to aid anyone in this long journey.

A.H.

Brandon Lee

Drewwwww, I’m pretty much walking in the dark here with developing as an artist and your blogs/advice is definitely helping me find some light. so thanks for that

Kitty-G

This is cool! I am graduating high school this year and I just jumped back into art. I have no one I can talk to about art or literature as a friend. I want to see other people’s art and learn about how they get inspired. I think it would be fun! I have a business called Whimzy Wallz and I paint murals on their walls either in the home or offices! I would like to further my knowledge about other artists out there!!♥:-D find me and my work on tumbler @kittypicasso !

Wow, I appreciated so many things you wrote here, very helpful… created some ‘homework’ for me!

Just stumbled across your website today. It’s awesome! Lots of great articles. Thanks for all the helpful info.

Thanks for a great article. I started doing fine art photography in 2012, but seriously neglected the “social” and “relationship building” parts.

As from the beginning of 2015 – I’ve started investing time and energy into social media, sharing what I love doing with others.

I love what I do – creating beautiful images – but since I’ve discovered sharing and caring, my business really started growing :-)

Thanks for a great website

Regards
George

Hi Drew, I just stumbled onto your site and enjoyed reading your articles. I do not consider myself an artist but I do have a hobby that has gone mad (REALLY mad). Being a very late starter and slow leaner (I have been in hibernation), I just want to say ‘thank you’ for being here and making time to share. Ta!

UK

Well building ones reputation as an artist online can be to me as illusive as the weather. I have been struggling promoting my art on Facebook for a number of years now and and get many likes on my artwork however wonder how to get these same people to tell me what is it about my me or my art that they like or dislike.

Kenneth C Young

    You’re right Kenneth it can be difficult to see how your social media fans and followers actually translate into the real world. The “likes” are nice, but without some actual comments or feedback, it is hard to tell what exactly they liked or didn’t like about your work. My only suggestion would be to maybe try asking a specific question about a particular piece of artwork when you post it in order to get some additional feedback. It can might be a question about your choice of color, technique, composition, etc.. Anything specific in order to encourage some discussion in the comment section. Best of luck!

Thanks for the info. I have given up my 9-5 job to pursue making a living doing what I love, creating art! I still have a lot of work to do. I’m very grateful that there are people like you out there that are willing to share the knowledge you’ve gained over the years.

I love all your expert tips advice and ideas.
It’s very helpful of you, I’m sure many people
benefit from it, including me. Keep up the great
work. You really know the subject well.

    Thanks so much for the kind words Sheree, I really appreciate it!

Comments are closed

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