Are you finding it difficult to build your online audience? In this post, you will discover 5 ways to create shareable content for art blogs.
Create Shareable Content For Art Blogs
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It is becoming more and more difficult for artists to be noticed online.
It has also become a challenge for many artists to grow their following on Facebook over the past couple of years.
Even if an artist has built a decent following over the years, they are finding it near to impossible to have their posts seen by their fans.
Instagram has recently become more popular by visual artists over the past year, but I predict that it will soon become a challenge to reach an audience as well.
Why is it becoming more difficult to reach an audience on social media networks?
Mark Schaefer covered this topic in his book, The Content Code: Six Essential Strategies to Ignite Your Content, Your Marketing, And Your Business.
Mark discussed how the internet is being overloaded with content.
The amount of content that is being published on a daily basis could never be consumed by one person in a day.
This is one reason why Google, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube and all other social media platforms and search engines have developed a sophisticated algorithm. These platforms have to filter out the content people are not interested in. If they fail to do so, people would not return.
Mark does explain how businesses of all sizes can make a presence online and reach a large audience by breaking the content code.
If you would like to learn more about breaking the content code I recommend reading The Content Code: Six Essential Strategies to Ignite Your Content, Your Marketing, And Your Business
How Can An Artist Build An Online Presence
First let me ask you this, “How do artists become noticed online when we all have the same tools available to us?”
The answer is written content.
The internet is driven by written content.
When you go to search for something in Google’s search bar, Google takes your query and finds the best match by crawling through written content.
Google does not understand images or videos. Images and videos are a foreign language to Google.
You might ask, “How can Google share images and videos in search results if they can’t understand what they are?” Google can do this because a description was written for the video or image. If there was no written description, Google would not be able to understand what the image or video is about and therefore it would not show up in the results.
So in order for you to be found online, you will need to create content that the search engines can understand so they can recommend it to the right reader as well as writing content that people will be willing to share with their friends.
Here are some ways to create shareable content for your art blog.
Mention Influencers And People
Mentioning influencers is a social marketing strategy that has grown quickly with marketers over the past couple of years.
Now that the majority of social media posts are images and videos, you will think a little different.
In the past, all I would have to do is post a drawing in progress and I would get a lot of shares and likes.
The same was true with my blog posts.
Now it is important to focus on people first when you are creating an online marketing strategy.
One way is to incorporate your influencers into your blog posts and social media posts.
You can see how I did this in this post with Mark Schaefer.
For this to work, you need to be tasteful. You do not just want to be linking to anyone.
If an influencer can support your message, incorporate them into your content. Provide a link to where your readers can learn more about the person you are highlighting.
The next step would be to let your influencer know about the post you mentioned them in. Twitter is a great place to do this. All you have to do is include “@THERE TWITTER NAME” and they will be notified that you mentioned them.
Don’t expect anything in return but they will take notice that you are supporting their message and they might be willing to share your content with their audience.
The person will also notice that you are linking to their blog or website. This is also known as creating outbound links.
An outbound link is when you link to a different site in your blog post. This will help you in two ways.
First Google will see your content as being more valuable because you are backing up your thoughts and second the person you have mentioned will want to learn more about you.
Another tip is to link to a person who might be interested in the content you are publishing on your social media posts. Again it is important not to become “spammy”.
Start A Conversation
If you want people to engage with your content, you will have to instigate a conversation.
Just because you publish a post does not mean people will engage with them.
Remember, their newsfeeds are swamped with content.
You have to do things that will help you to stand out and have them want to spend time on your posts.
One way to start a conversation is by asking them a question.
Here is an example of how I did this on Facebook.
I created this image on Canva, then I included “How are you planning to sell more art this year?
I would love to hear your thoughts.” in the post.
It is very easy to do and it only took me three minutes to create the image and post it.
I also do this with all of my social media accounts.
I ask a question, include a description of the post and upload an image.
The question sparks conversation and they can also read more about the topic by clicking on the link.
Use Hashtags Correctly
Hashtags help people to find related content.
There are some social media sites that thrive on hashtags like Twitter and Instagram.
The downfall is that there are many people who abuse hashtags. They will overstuff their posts with hashtags hoping to be noticed. In some cases that I have seen, people will use hashtags that do not even relate to their post.
This tactic does not work well.
If you want to see real results, use hashtags correctly. Create a word or a few words that describe your art business. Be consistent with all of your posts by including the hashtags you have created.
In time people will start to click on your hashtags to view more content you are creating.
If they enjoy the blog posts that you have written, they will share it with their friends.
Click-to-Tweet
Are you using Click-to-Tweet in your blog posts?
You might have heard me talking about the Social Warfare Plugin (affiliate link) that I use for social shares.
One of the many features I love about Social Warfare (affiliate link) is the ability to create Click-to-Tweet text.
[clickToTweet tweet=”One of the many features I love about Social Warfare is the ability to create Click-toTweet text. ” quote=”One of the many features I love about Social Warfare is the ability to create Click-toTweet text. ” theme=”style3″]
It took me 3 seconds to create the Click-to-Tweet above with my Social Warfare plugin (affiliate link).
This allows people to Tweet a Quote from my blog posts.
Optimize Pinterest Images
The last tip I would like to talk about is optimizing Pinterest images.
This is easier than you think.
Canva has temples that have the best image dimensions for Pinterest.
I create an image in less than 2 minutes on Canva then I upload the image into the Pinterest Image sharing option from my Social Warfare plugin.
Now whenever someone pins my posts, the image I have created will go on their Pinterest board. I have control of what people are able to “Pin”. This helps me to build brand awareness.
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The image is also hidden from my posts. This way I do not have to upload a large image directly into the blog posts.
After I have uploaded the image, I write a description in the description field. This will also be included in the “Pin”.
You can easily see why I recommend Social Warfare (affiliate link) to people using WordPress.
Conclusion:
These are some of the tactics that have worked well for me but I do want to mention, they will not work unless you write quality content your audience will love.
Try to incorporate some of these tactics into your art marketing plan and discover which ones work best for you.
Are you having a difficult time generating traffic to your blog? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below.
You might also be interested in:
- 4 Reasons Art Blogs Generate Thousands of Views a Month
- How Artists Can Increase Search Engine Rankings in 10 Months
- 5 Components All Art Blog Posts Must Have
- Tips for Choosing Content for Art Blogs
- Content Writing – Online Marketing for Artists
28 Day Blogging Challenge for Visual Artists
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