Art eXposed

There is a tremendous amount of value that comes out of online conversations in social networking communities. Today, the concept of PR 2.0 focuses on reaching people who are like-minded individuals who share similar interests through meaningful web discussions. And, as you venture into and explore different web communities, whether it’s MySpace or Facebook, you’ll find opportunity to build trust and strong relationships with people. Just by setting up a profile, you open up and make information available about yourself. By taking this first step, you are welcoming the opportunity to talk to people one-on-one and to listen to them. That’s the best kind of relationship building there is!

As an artist, there’s tremendous potential for you to speak directly to someone online who may be interested in your style of art or perhaps they will contact you to help them answer a question pertaining to a period in art history. Either way, you use dialogue to start the interaction and to build the “friendship.” In these social networking forums, you are also able to participate in groups, perhaps with other artists or with people who prefer a particular type of art. On Facebook, when you search under the word “art” about 500 different groups surface that you can peruse and join if you are interested.

Another great opportunity for you to speak with people who share you passion for art is by setting up your own blog and by blogging regularly. You can easily start your own blog through Word Press (www.wordpress.com) or Blogger (www.blogger.com) or you can choose to blog in a social networking community (whether your blog is posted as a part of your profile or within a group that you participate). Blogging is a great way to start conversations and learn about people and have them learn about you. However, whether you are blogging about your favorite artwork, your technique or your passion, it’s really important to make a solid commitment to blogging and to stick with it (however often that may be). Soon you will have people who follow what you say, and look forward to reading your blog, on a regular basis.

In the past, you may have heard that social networking is just a way to collect ‘friends’ rather than a PR strategy, but savvy people are realizing it’s so much more. In fact, it’s one of the best ways to talk to people who are like minded and who are able to share interesting insight. If you listen and listen hard, you will learn, and then you will be able to reciprocate with information that will guide someone else. That’s how to make real friends and possibly gain new followers who end up someday as your best customers.

By Deirdre Breakenridge, Art eXposed President.
Her new book: PR 2.0: New Media, New Tools, New Audiences

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The Art eXposed PR Toolkit is an easy set of communication templates that enable you to selectively broadcast recent news and information about your artwork and share it with your public. Let’s discuss what a PR toolkit is, what it does for you in terms of self-promotion and why it will help you to reach groups that want to learn more about your artwork.

What is a PR Toolkit?

It may sound complicated but it’s such a simple concept. A PR Toolkit is a set of PR templates that you are able to customize on your own for personal use. Art eXposed makes these templates available for download as a part of your membership with our community. These templates are assembled in individual Microsoft Word files. Whether it’s a news release template that announces a new piece of art work or an announcement about a recent award, you fill in the details and it’s ready to share with your friends, family, art patrons, prospects, galleries, associations and the media.

What does the PR Toolkit do for you?

A PR Toolkit is an easy way to assemble you best news to make it available to the parties who want to know about and share information on you and your artwork. As an artist, you need to spend time creating your artwork. Promotion is important, so we try to make it easy on you. The PR Toolkit templates are written so it’s easy for intended audiences to digest information use it in a useful way. For example, the news release templates are created for journalists who are looking to take your digital release and incorporate information into their stories or news briefs. These templates are media friendly and use an accepted AP style format that’s accepted by journalists world-wide. In terms of promotion, the more you fill in and use your templates, and send them out to an email database of interested parties, the more you’ll see those parties will take interest in you!

How does the PR Toolkit help you to reach different groups?

The PR Toolkit is designed to appeal to a number of different groups. You can cut and paste a PR Toolkit template into the body of your email message or send it as an attachment (but, only if the intended recipient knows you and is expecting the attachment). These templates are universal and can be used for many different groups. You can brand them with your logo or artwork and send them out as frequently as you feel the information warrants dissemination. With respect to the media, you should always be sending the media news release announcements regarding exhibits, awards and the unveiling of new pieces of art. You may not see a story every time, but the ability to send a customized release, at intervals throughout the year, will keep you and your artwork top of mind.

The PR Toolkit was designed by Art eXposed to make publicity and self-promotion easy. We want you to spend your time creating the ultimate masterpiece. Promotion, we know is very important, but when there’s only so many hours in day, the PR Toolkit is your best way to accomplish many things in a very short period of time.

Public relations is the softest selling tool in the marketing toolkit. It’s a combination of communication and public outreach to build trust and relationships with groups of people. Sometimes PR is best known as communication that changes an opinion, builds a reputation or helps to correct a damaged image. Today, artists can use a mixture of communications through credible third party endorsers or influencers (including the media, art critics, bloggers, etc.) or use direct to consumer PR strategies that reach current customers and potential art patrons. Regardless of the approach, PR leads to great relationships and endorsements from individuals that will help you to improve your personal reputation as an artist and/or to extend the reach of your network to get more exposure for your artwork.

There are so many tools in the PR toolkit. Let’s start with the traditional PR communication outreach strategies:

News Releases:
News releases can range from an announcement regarding the unveiling of your latest artistic creation to a release discussing an art demonstration you are giving for the members of a local association. News release writing begins with a carefully crafted message, formatted in a specific news style template (see the Art eXposed Artists PR Toolkit for examples) and is distributed to targeted media outlets, gallery’s organizations, customers and potential art patrons.

Endorsements:
Third party endorsements are written statements that provide credibility and can be used in a number of communication pieces including news releases, brochures, website content and information that can be sent to your art patrons and prospects.

Speaking Engagements/Demonstrations:
Speaking engagements and/or demonstrations are an excellent way for an artist to deliver expertise and knowledge on a subject to large groups of people, including prospective art patrons and/or current customers. Speaking in a public forum, coordinated by an independent art associations or gallery, can create enormous exposure for an artist and his/her work.

“How To” or Articles to Educate:
Working with the media to get articles placed in art trade publications, consumer magazines or those used as online content are a great way to educate and deliver information as an art expert. Articles that instruct or educate audiences position you as an authority and a likely source when an art enthusiast is interested in your particular artistic style or art genre.

These are all simple strategies to generate awareness so that influencers or third party endorsers will find your material interesting and write or talk about you. As you continually send your influencers credible and newsworthy information, they will look to you as a resource, as an artist that will be able to offer them expert information on a particular topic.

It’s important to follow-up in PR so that you are not just sending communication from your toolkit and then not know what’s being said about you. Always take the time to talk to your influencers or correspond with them regularly. Make sure you also taking the time to do Google or Yahoo! searches on your name or your artwork to see if you’re personal brand is the topic of conversation in print or online.

Most of all, the key to PR is to realize that relationships and building trust take time. If you want to have solid relationships with your influencers or third party endorsers make sure you do your homework. Know who these folks are, what they write about and exactly what they are looking for, so that you can aid them by offering your particular area of expertise. And, remember, when you are looking to build customers relationships or relationships with galleries, associations or members of the media, all of this requires a considerable amount of time and effort.

For every minute you spend building the relationship, the result will be strong connections that lead to favorable endorsements. Overall, PR is an excellent way to create positive communication about you, as an artist and your body of work.

Twitter is a Micro-blog .  It allows you to post short 140 char blogs, called tweets. It is also considered a moblog (mobil blog), because you can send your blog via your cell phone (text Message (40404) , or via their wap site m.twitter.com). You can also post from the web (http://www.twitter.com/) or by IM using their screen name  “twitterim”.  Internet developers are also creating other methods for you to enter information into your twitter blog.

So why should artists use Twitter?  Well unless you live in a cave, every art magazine, art marketing guru, and Internet site is telling you to blog.  But if you’re like me, it’s HARD to stop and take the time to write an article.  That’s why there’s twitter… for people like you and me.  Just a couple of sentences will keep your patrons happy and with an easy to use interface you have no excuse not to blog.

With Twitter you just let your patrons know what your doing. So when you’re  excited about something just send a tweet.

Let me give you a few examples of tweets you can post:

• Just started a new painting: The long Island sound on a cool fall day. (Sept 18)
• Spent the morning on the sound, 74 degrees … life doesn’t get any better than this. (Sept 19)
• Happy with the progress so far, can’t wait for you all to see. (Sept 21)
• Just finished the painting … check it out on Art eXposed !!!! (Sept 24)

You can post your tweets to your current blog, on your myspace.com page, or on your website using widgets.  Below I have place an RSS feed of the Art eXposed twitter.

The Art eXposed Twitter

Please wait while my tweets load
If you can’t wait – check out what I’ve been twittering

Dan Fenelon, an Art eXposed artist, uses the power of Public Relations (news release development and distribution) to land an article in The Daily Record.  We worked with Dan (aka Wavedog) to create a news release related to the work he does with a youth shelter in his area.  When the news release went out, we immediately received calls from local papers in Dan’s area.  Art eXposed was able to secure an interview and a photo shoot with The Daily Record.  Kid Robot, the maker of the vinyl dolls Dan uses in his art, was also very excited to be included in the “Tree of Life” project and our promotional efforts.

You can view the News release at: Dan’s News Release

Check out The Daily Record article at:  The Article