Tips to Expose and Promote your Artwork Part 2: The Artist on the Internet

Let's keep talking about getting your art seen by the masses. As mentioned in Part 1 of this article, technology is a great ally for any artist that want to get expose and known. The internet is a great tool for promoting your artwork, and attracting possible clients. However, is important to use it well and provide high quality material to every online publication; after all just the whole world can see it.

In order to create a good strategy to promote your artwork online, is important to know what tools are available and which are the most suitable for you and your art. Here I'll mention some tools and tips to help you exposing and promoting your art.

1. There are lots of websites for artists to show off their work in their galleries, or help them create their own gallery with unlimited space for free. Some of this places or most of them, i should say, allow you to participate in forums where you get in contact with other artist. This is great, since you can always learn from more experiences artist that have been using the internet as a marketing tool for their art. Remember to work with your property license, in order to protect your work. Later on in this article I'll give you a list of some of this websites.
   
   Online art galleries and communities
   
   
   • www.ebsq.com - art community where you are in control of your art. You can expose your art, write articles, enter shows, make links to your other webpages, make your whole portfolio, participate in forums, etc.
     
   • www.nobullart.com - create online gallery free, sell your artwork. Meet other artist in your art and get feedback.
   • asingularcreation.com - free community that promote and showcase your art. Offer free personal gallery and contests, forums, tutorials and online drawing groups among others.
   • gfxartist.com - a community for the digital artist. Being alive since 2000, it offer tutorials, articles, news, gallery, interviews, contests and communication between artist. Have to register to make use of their services, but is free.
   • artist.artistrising.com - show and sell your art using their sales and marketing tools.Forums about art, create a personal library and build collections.
   • flirck.com and photobucket.com - these two are well known are well known free galleries.The good thing is that you can make your galleries private and show it just to potential clients; or public and share it with the whole internet community. I like this as a good tool, to just upload the artwork that is specially created for a client and letting he/she see it as it progresses.
     
2. Create your own website or blog. Again, this are great tools for promoting your art, specially blogging, you can create a blog for free and make daily or weekly post about your ideas, projects, etc. This is the same with the website, but keep in mind that although there are free website services, it is more convenient to pay for a domain and hosting services. This way you are creating your brand and shows that you are really serious about making your art a business. However, you can still try the free website services, to see how is the public response.
3. Look in online art communities for freelance jobs. There are sites that post jobs for artists to make on a freelance basis, helping you create an artist resume and references.
   

Note: Art communities are a great tool, not just because you get your artwork showcased, but because you mingle with other artist. Knowing people in the same industry as your is a great thing, because it open the doors to meeting more people which mean more contacts and possibilities.

Yes, you read it right, advertising your advertisement. What do I mean by this? Well, you are already advertising or promoting your artwork with your website, blog, gallery and exposition among all the others discussed in this article and on its part 1. However, this is not enough, you can not sit back and wait until someone finds you. You need to attract traffic to this galleries and websites, etc; how do you do that?, easy advertising them. Let me show you some tips on how.

1. Pay to advertise your websites and studio. A famous advertising server is Google AdWords; you can use others but this is one of the best. There are also online directories where you can register your online address and stuff (you can find free ones).
2. Create instructional videos, showcases videos and upload them in your webpages and Youtube. This is another great way to show your work.
3. Visit other art blogs and websites and make useful and respectful comments. When signing it write down your website/blog address. That way, those interested in what you have to say can trace you back and visit your site.
   
4. Write about your art. I know, more writing, but this is a really effective way to do it. And since your are writing to bring traffic to your main advertisement sites, here you just need to briefly touch topics related to your art and solutions or ideas related to the services you provide. Make your writing interesting and amusing, so people want to click on your link and visit your main pages. There are different kind of writings and places where you can do this. For example:
   
   • e-zines (online magazines) - there are lots of good places all over the internet where you can create a free account and write for free about you art, without worrying if it will get publish or not. You are in control, you just hit the publish button when you are ready and that's it. Right now your are reading one of those free magazines articles. Hubpages.com is one of the largest e-zine magazines that offer writers, artist, businessman and whoever has the need to communicate something to do it in an easy way. Do your research and write in as many as you can (remember not to duplicate content).
   • books and e-books - write a book talking about a special technique you use, or with projects and ideas for another artists or beginners. You might be thinking that this is expensive, but there are lots of options that will not cost you a cent. For example, to publish an e-book you don't have to pay a thing, you just upload it and set the price. The provider you're using will keep a percent of the sales and you get the other percent. There is also the option to produce printed copies of your book. This might be a little tricky, but there are out there companies that provide this service without having to pay money upfront. What they do is that they print your book by order; if some one order a hard copy of your book then that copy or copies are the only ones printed and shipped. Again you get a percent of the sales and they keep other percent. Keep in mind, that this option also require advertising your advertisement. This is all a circle, and as you can see requires a lot of work from you.
     
   
   

Making yourself known as an artist, require a lot of work but is not impossible. If you are serious about making it as an artist, don't hesitate and start planning your strategy and working on it. Remember, I just provide you some tips to help you start, but there might be hundreds of other ideas. You will find them when you interact with other artist, try what you think might work better for you and your art. Don't rush it, do one thing at the time and once you are comfortable with it keep adding.

Seek for the help of trusted friends and family, they can help you promote your art as well without costing you a cent or too much of your precious creative time. If you have any more ideas or have used other successful approach please leave a comment, it will help other artist to learn more. Good luck, and I hope to hear from you and your art.

To read Part1 of this article click here.