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

On By raynguyen91In ACM202 Advanced Digital ImagingLeave a comment

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 Twidiotsourselves.  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?

(from Skinny Artist http://skinnyartist.com/how-to-create-and-destroy-your-reputation-as-an-artist/)

Online Identity (Part 3): Web 2.0 – An Ideal Environment for Online Artists

On By raynguyen91In ACM202 Advanced Digital ImagingLeave a comment

We should never underestimate the power of art. Through the history, art have always been very closely intertwined with current trends and events in society. Now in the digital era and the time of what’s called Web 2.0 there are new trends and tendencies. The power in the art industry has shifted from powerful art personas to masses and consumers are producers at the same time.  It has opened new opportunities for artist of different genres and directions that were never officially appreciated before.

Newly emerged trend within art on the internet in Web 2.0 era is emergence of so called “Pro-consumers”, it happens when a single person becomes consumer and producer at the same time. Flickr can be seen as an example, I register to use the service and I am also consumer of the service provided by the site and in return I upload my product- artworks or images displaying my photo editing or photography skills.

My Instagram collage

Another new tendency that is brought on by Web 2.0 in online arts is that the largest proportion of innovations comes from amateur artists. Professional and well established artists no longer rule the world of art; they might set the trend or give a starting point to new ideas. However, all the progressive and innovative ideas come from the amateur pool of submitted material, selected and voted for by their peers.

The mentioned above development is leading society to development of ‘Ochlocracy ‘. Definition of Ochlocracy in the dictionary is “governed by the masses”. Meaning now society with the means of tagging, liking and commenting chooses trends, favorite artists and popular trends in art.  Now society is deciding what is in fashion, not the professional artists who want to promote their brand or product. This collective intelligence acts like a filter for these enormous amounts of information floating on the internet. This is just like natural selection just on the internet. Also things like tagging, re-tweeting help organize the content on the web, to provide users with more convenient search.

Behance Network is an online portfolio platform for creative professionals to showcase and discover creative works across multiple industries including photography, graphic design, illustration, and fashion.The network is an ideal environment for artists to showcase their talents with the interest level measured by number of appreciation, views and discussions. Opportunities are huge by engaging with the network: finding out the trends in art, teaming up with other professional to create collaborative works, improving creative career…

I reckon that the Web 2.0 encourages differences, variety and diversity rather than homogeneity.  It comes from the ability of all kinds of people freely expressing their opinion and making their own choices regarding what they consider art. All variations or modifications are appreciated and valued within internet world. These days difference is good, newness is better, people come out and show their talents because these days it is actually appreciated and we have a privilege to enjoy some amazing arts.

Along with positive change brought on by Web 2.0 that enabled unique and rapid development of art. This became possible through artists being able to showcase their works and talent freely, however, this lead to enormous amounts of information circulating online.  Every single piece of artwork comes from the artist’s soul; it showcases their personality and life experience.  And we’ve come to experience “the big brother phenomena” where some people provide a lot of irrelevant personal information. In contrast there are people who show unhealthy interest and fascination with other people’s insights into their private lives.

So in the end, I would say that the opportunities provided by Web 2.0 have brought tremendous change on the development of art in general and art on the internet in particular. The change has been mostly positive despite some minor shortcomings like “big brother effect”, when internet users upload irrelevant personal information. Except that, great number of artists got to showcase their talent and their works, and every single difference is appreciated, all the styles and directions in art matter.

References

Prada, J 2009, Web 2.0 as a new context for artistic practices, The Fibreculture Journal, retrieved from <http://fourteen.fibreculturejournal.org/fcj-098-web-2-0-as-a-new-context-for-artistic-practices/>on 30 September 2012.

Dovey, J and Lister, M 2009, Straw Men or Cyborgs, Interactions: Studies in Communication and Culture, vol. 1, no. 1, pp.1-18, retrieved on 30 September 2012.

Online Identity (Part 2): Internet Arts and Misconceptions

On By raynguyen91In ACM202 Advanced Digital ImagingLeave a comment

Compared to other forms of art, Internet Art (aka Net Art) is a form of art that few are familiar with. My internet-savvy mother (as I reckoned, she knows how to get the most out of the online world rather than her peers) was asked whether has she heard of the term ‘Internet Art’, yet, she’s got trouble of figuring out what it is or finding an example of it. This is understandable, considering that it has only been in existence for just over a decade, since the invention of the Internet and the expansion of digital technology.

Very interesting, after being given of some examples of Internet Art, my mum was very surprised that some of them she encounters everyday that she doesn’t even know. And the examples are those Interactive Google Doodles that you see on the homepage which replace the standard logo to celebrate holidays, anniversaries, special events and other important days. These are 5 interactive Google Doodles that I find interesting.

Pac-man logo allow you to use the keyboard to control the Pac man. Fun mini game!

To support Olympics London 2012, Google launched this doodle to let visitors play virtual basketball by pressing space bar. Click on this picture to play in case you missed it.

To celebrate 79th Anniversary of the First Drive-in Movie, Google transformed the logo into a mini animation clip.

To celebrate Les Paul’s 96th birthday, you can become an amateur guitarist by moving your cursor over the cords. Click on the picture to play the guitar!

The Jules Verne logo allows you to control the submarine, Nautilus by pulling the lever to ascend, descend, and moving left and right. Click on the picture to test your captain skill.