Recently I stopped reading a lot of blogs and sites that focus on art, art as business and giving advice to artist even though I’m very curious about those subjects. Many articles posted on such sites offer advice on marketing, branding and (self)promoting your work both through social networking and other means of connecting with “audience” and clients. Now, to be quite honest, at this point, just a thought of self-promotion, social networking, creating an online presence and branding makes me want to scream. Whenever I read an article on how to promote and market your artwork I feel horrible. I feel like total failure at self-promotion (especially when it comes to social networking) and here are few examples why:
I can’t bring myself to have a Facebook account- seriously, I never had one and from everything I read and heard about it it seems like a machine for privacy violation. I don’t really care that supposedly “everyone has one” or that is supposedly “a necessary tool for self-promotion for artists“. And, yes I’m one of those people who believe that Facebook is a tool for collecting personal data on people and sharing and selling them to who-knows-who without our knowledge.To me, it doesn’t seem right to support that company.
I don’t want to have fans or followers- I deeply respect people who take time out of their lives to look at my work, visit my blog or flickr, send me e-mails, comment or communicate with me in any other way. I deeply respect people who appreciate and support my work in any way and I also respect those who constructively criticize it. I don’t like ideas of fandom and following because they automatically presume that one is on receiving end ( receiving attention, admiration) and one is on the giving end, and that someone is better than others.
I don’t really want to share too much of my private life- even though I read numerous advice that I should in order to give personality to my work and make people more interested in it.
How much sharing is enough? We are encouraged to share our lives on blogs, Facebook and Twitter, our daily snapshots on instagram, our photos on flickr, our inspiration on tumblr and pintrest, our portfolios and CVs on behance, linkedin, our videos on youtube and vimeo…list goes on and on… and we are being convinced that’s the right way to promote our work, if we don’t do it, we are not being relevant, competent and we’ll get overrun by competition because in this globalized world, as artists, we’re not only competing on local level but on world level. At least we’re lead to believe that because when you’re convinced that the rest of the world is your rival you become motivated by fear, anxiety and feeling that you can never do enough, give enough and be enough. So to overcome that you feel you need to share more, promote more, build a better brand and buy more things even though none of those activities make you more creative, productive and satisfied.
At which extent are social networking sites and gadgets that are presented to us as valuable tools actually useful? I can’t help but wonder: are all this means of connecting, networking and self-promoting ( and advices on how and why to use them) actually helpful or it this just clever marketing strategy at work- making us buy into consuming more products.
Also, I wonder have we created a culture in which we believe that we have to share everything, our thoughts, ideas, pictures etc (often without being too selective about them) and that by the very fact that we are sharing we deserve to be liked or followed? Even if we don’t create anything but simply share (re-blog ) work of others we still believe that we should be liked, followed, admired. It’s not my intention to underestimate anyone. Hey, I’m first one to admit I over share at times and I’m definitely not selective enough when it comes posting my work. I just have a feeling that we are creating a culture in which quantity is more important than quality, in which we let our egos run wild and we expect that our every thought, snapshot, tweet is valuable and should get attention and if doesn’t we feel bad or less worthy. Am I completely off with this one? I hope I’m wrong.
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Sometimes I feel, in a world where we are constantly encouraged to share more, I want to share less, become more selective about what kind of content I share even though, judging by common belief and advices that would make me less competitive. But my intuition tells me the more I buy into an idea of competing , the more I’ll get caught up in scarcity mindset, not believing there’s enough for everyone, the more I’ll be afraid, the more my creativity and energy will drain and I won’t be able to produce valuable work that is worth promoting in the first place ;)
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How about you? Do you thrive at social networking? How do you promote your work?
svaka čast na ovom postu! Potpuno se slažem , jer i sama često razmišljam na sličan način o svemu tome..Što se tiče self-promotion-a, nema gore od mene, zazirem od tog svega i drago mi je da nisam jedina.. i sama se često nađem kako me hvata malodušje od količine umjetnosti i umjetnika, čiji su radovi dostupni putem interneta…sve je to vrlo često overwhelming.. Kao i ti, ne osjećam se ugodno dijeleći svoje privatne stvari sa ostatkom web-publike pa to izbjegavam koliko mogu..
ah da, i hvala na ovom postu, djeluje utješno i umirujuće, malo je ljudi danas koji nas podsjećaju da ima dovoljno za svakoga !
ja imam facebook, ali na njemu dijelim minimum minimuma – uglavnom umjetničke fotografije i fotke rukotvorina. dobro mi dođe za komunikaciju s ljudima koji žive daleko, pa četamo. u biti, meni je fejs ranije pomogao u promociji mojih papirnatih radova, ali sad imam filing da se više ne možemo toliko osloniti na tu vrstu promocije jer su ga se ljudi lagano zasitili, osjećam pad pozornosti. za promociju mi više sad služi blog.
ja sam inače dugo vremena pratila razne savjete o networkingu, internetskoj promociji i sl., ali sam prestala jer mi se ne sviđa način koji oni preporučuju, a to je da – grubo rečeno – budemo lukavci koji proračunato planiraju svaki svoj potez na netu kako bi grabili kupce. to nije to. mislim da kad netko ima dobar proizvod, da će on biti prepoznat kad tad. bitno je danas da je autor prisutan negdje u cyber svijetu i dostupan ljudima, ali ne da internet marketing nalikuje mišolovci za mase…
u dobrom smjeru razmišljaš i ne obaziri se na većinu.
Interesting post, when governments are building billion dollar data centres to monitor and collect personal information we make it easy by plastering personal and tracking info all over the web! I’m on Facebook, mostly to keep in touch with family and a few friends (and blog images!) though sometimes one gets surprised about its knowledge of oneself… just last week I got a sponsored ad pop up inviting me to join the’ Grumpy old men’ group… how they worked that one out I just do not know :-)
Mislim da si potpuno u pravu. Iako svjesno ne želim vjerovati u teorije zavjere, imam osjećaj da se s nama na razne načine manipulira kako bi što više svega konzumirali, a krajnji rezultat je zarada velikih korporacija. I sviđa mi se tvoj optimistični zaključak – vjerujem da ima dovoljno mjesta za sve, neprestanim nadmetanjem i strahom od neuspjeha možemo samo otjerati kreativnu energiju.
I da, facebook je za mene mašina za oduzimanje vremena jer tu zapnem i izgubim se u bespućima nepotrebnih podataka a kasnije imam neugodan osjećaj da nisam bila nigdje i da nisam radila ništa.
moje je mišljenje da ne moraš biti član neke mreže da bi se za tebe/tvoj rad čulo, ali isto tako mislim da umnoge olakšavaju i pomažu u poslovanju. Facebook koristim uglavnom radi nakiTIĆa (a sve manje u privatne svrhe) i mogu reč da preko njega prodam većinu nakita koji radim, a i ostvarila sam neke kontakte s galerijama i sl. Pritom se doduše ne vodim savjetima koje Isidora spominje, već nekom svojom logikom i nastojim biti ne nametljiva (ne previše)… Reklamirati se s mjerom, rekla bih da je to ono čemu težim kad već koristim Fejs.
Lana-hvala na komentarima!
Isidora- da, i meni se savjeti za internet promociju čine jako proračunati i neiskreni.
Bob- yeah we’re just doing them a favor of gather more info on us :)
Lilla Indigo- što više se stvari zahutavju na svjetskoj (a i na lokalnoj razini) meni se sve više čini da te teorije zavjere imaju smisla i da se čovječanstvo podhitno treba osvjestiti :)
Tina- ti si jedan od pozitivnih primjera kako koristiti fejs na pametan način.
Self-promotion > samopromocija, kako eksplicitno i prostituirajuće zvuči prijevod po naški :/
Jesi li se ikad zapitala bi li radije da ljudi prvo uoče i cijene tebe, a zbog toga i tvoj rad ili da uoče i cijene tvoj rad, a kad uoče osobu koja stoji iza tog rada, počnu više cijeniti i tebe ;)
Bitno je samopromovirati svoj rad, ali to nužno ne znači svugdje i po svaku cijenu… Kom je stalo do tvog rada, pronaći će te makar bila na jednom jedinom kutku međumrežja… Do tvog bloga dođem preko 7 gora i 7 mora, putem komentara i uguglanih riječi, ali dođem sa iskrenom zanimacijom za novosti… i nisam prestala povremeno dolaziti usprkos stavkama iz gornjeg posta :)
Marija-hvala na komentaru! hahah, da, riječ samopromocija stvarno ne zvući nimalo privlačno :)
Oh i like the bears, currently sitting here, cold and chilly but enjoying your art. Doodling is my current past time and dedicated a journal to just that. Its part of my toolbox, (when feeling low, i know i can reach in to my toolbox and pull out a sharpie or purple pen and doodle away the sadness).
Thanks for sharing the cheery bears. :)