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samedi 12 novembre 2016

Building A Tribe Around Your Art; One Lovely Person At A Time

alt="Building A Tribe Around Your Art; One Lovely Person At A Time" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/building-your-tribe-500x331_c.jpg" />

Staring into the vast ocean of possible social media interactions can leave an artist lost, bewildered and paralyzed. The options are endless and the fluctuations of social media tools changes rapidly with new IPOs, acquisitions and site overhauls. Millions and millions of conversations are happening every moment on countless platforms- so how do you even scratch the surface of placing your voice in this endless echo-chamber?

Seth Godin made the concept of building a movement by connecting like minds and leading people through connection, culture and commitment in his book, Tribes. Take a moment to watch his href="http://www.ted.com/talks/seth_godin_on_the_tribes_we_lead.html" target="_blank">TED talk regarding Tribes and you’ll see how this concept can connect you with a movement surrounding your art.

Before we tackle the HOW of building your Tribe of loyal art lovers, we need to address the WHY.

Your Story and Why It Matters

style="width: 760px" class="wp-caption alignnone">class="border" alt="Building Your Own Tribe" src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/images/2012/0404-1.jpg" width="750" height="503" />class="wp-caption-text">Artists need to take their audiences to greater heights by personally interacting and touching them on a deep level. Building a community around artwork that is personal and meaningful will help create a strong and interesting Tribe.

Let’s assume the obvious that lead you to this article. You have an online presence for your art-based business or art career, but you’re not feeling the connection between your web site, blog and various social media outlets. You know artists and art lovers exist in this great, vast ocean of online interaction- but you’re not sure how to bring them into your online world.

Do you have a story? Of course you have a story- everyone has one! A better question is have you clearly defined your story for your audience in a way that shows who you are as an artist, what drives your work and why it’s relevant to them? Your story is what connects a person to your work and puts them closer to becoming a champion of your art, your passion and your movement.

Take a moment and think of your favorite brand or online personality. Can you see their story in your mind right now? Do you find yourself raving about a brand or product and telling their story in conversation as you recommend them to a friend or colleague? Think of Apple, we all href="http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-04/bz_apple?currentPage=all" target="_blank">know their story.

href="http://garyvaynerchuk.com/" target="_blank">Gary Vaynerchuk took the wine industry and turned it on it’s head- and created a loyal tribe in the process.

Instant brand recognition and association of that brand’s story made you a part of their movement. The moment you excitedly shared another brand’s story as an endorsement to your friends or colleagues, you became a member of their Tribe.

An amazing resource for artists building careers in the online space is Chris Guilleabeau’s href="http://www.unconventionalguides.com/art.htm" target="_blank">e-book Art + Money. In this book, he describes your Tribe in the following terms,

“These are the people who want to be connected with you, with each other, with your work, and with what your work stands for. These are your fans.”

Go Beyond ‘About Me’ Page

style="width: 760px" class="wp-caption alignnone">class="border" alt="Building Your Own Tribe" src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/images/2012/0404-2.jpg" width="750" />class="wp-caption-text">Chris Guillebeau, creator of a massive Tribe surrounding his work at his site, The Art of Non-Conformity, took a bold step when launching his first print book based on his website. He visited every state and each Canadian province so that he could meet his Tribe in person. He talked about his book, signed copies, mingled and then congregated at a local coffeeshop or bar after each event so that he and those who connect with his work could meet and grow as a community

Take a moment to build your story beyond the expected artist’s bio or About Me page on your site. Look at the following online artists and notice how they’ve built their stories and intertwined them throughout their online presences.

Kesha Bruce is an artist and art marketing consultant with a strong presence href="http://twitter.com/#!/KeshaBruce" target="_blank">on Twitter. She keeps her passions aligned with her art throughout her online presence and her story helps lead others in the art world.

John T. Unger is a metal sculptor who creates these large installations and is completely unconventional as an artist. His presence in person matches his online story perfectly and href="http://twitter.com/#!/johntunger" target="_blank">his Twitter interactions help reinforce his story and connect his Tribe.

Ken Kaminesky is a travel photographer with a strong following on both his blog and href="http://twitter.com/#!/KenKaminesky" target="_blank">his Twitter feed. Notice his use of graphics and design to help better tell his story and connect people- visually- with his art.

A simple truth to building a relevant audience is that when your story resonates with the right people, your tribe has begun to form. If your story is authentic and a direct reflection of what drives you and your art, people will be attracted to you by your story. These people will become your audience and they will return to learn more about you and your journey through this world. Your story will inspire them and will create a connection that will nourish all those involved.

And then you lead this movement of people- this Tribe- towards something profound using your art and your passion.

Presenting Your Story and Building Your Tribe

style="width: 760px" class="wp-caption alignnone">class="border" alt="Building Your Own Tribe" src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/images/2012/0404-3.jpg" width="750" />class="wp-caption-text">An artist’s Tribes come in all different sizes and find them in a multitude of ways. Live performers build their Tribes using their artwork and an intricate network of communication channels- both online and face to face networks.

style="line-height: 1.5em;">We previously tackled the topic of Tribe building for artists and took a more theoretical approach to creating a movement around your art work. A movement of loyal and engaged fans who connect with you and your story on a deep and meaningful level. Building a Tribe is more than just finding followers on Twitter and Fans on Facebook- it’s about being a leader of a group of people who look to your for connection, culture and change.

Once you’ve worked on refining your story, it’s time to weave it throughout your online presence. Be sure your story is placed in prominent locations on your website, blog and social media sites. If you have the time and resources, work with a designer or brand specialist to help refine your story and intertwine it with your site graphics, logos and other visual representations of your business. This step isn’t a necessity, but does help in making a cohesive story of you and your work that flows throughout your online presence.

If your art business has been around for some time or you are at a midway point in your career, hiring someone with brand expertise or a strong copywriter can add the outside perspective that is necessary for solid brand storytelling. Stepping back and looking at your work objectively, without emotion, in order to focus your story and tell it properly is difficult to do when you’ve been creating art on your own for many years.

Another major consideration in spreading your story is to be sure that your social media interactions, online writings and podcasts or videocasts also support the story behind your work. In sticking to your overall strategy of attracting like minded people to your Tribe, be sure that the voice you are using to represent yourself online reflects your story.

For example, if your story speaks to the many years of bartending and your art reflects the rough edges you acquired in your previous life as a master of the martini- speak in the same tone as you might behind that bar. Anthony Bourdain has built a massive Tribe- and a vast body of work- based strongly on the rough and raw voice that he acquired working in kitchens for many decades. For him to sugar-coat this form of his identity to try and expand his audience be being a nice guy would come across as unnatural and would actually turn his true fans away.

Make your story visual and accessible in a variety of platforms. For example, tell your story through a video production or by href="http://www.slideshare.net/jessedee/really-ugly-resumes" target="_blank">creating a visual CV or href="http://www.vizualize.me/" target="_blank">info-graphic based resume and placing them on your website and blog. Or you can use an href="http://about.me" target="_blank">About.Me page to give a quick summary of your story and then link your blog, website, visual CV, Pinterest page or Twitter account.

The possibilities are limitless when it comes to presenting your story online, just be sure the content you produce to tell your story is clear, professional and compelling and that the platform you choose supports your strengths.

Choosing The Right One For Your Tribe

So, with all the social platforms in existence, how do you choose the right one for spreading your story and finding your Tribe? Honestly, this answer could fill an entire library.

So, let’s just look at some basic theories for finding your tribe.

A Step-By-Step Guide On How To Find Your Targeted Audiences

First, you must identify your ideal audience.

Get specific here- who will connect most with your artwork?

Are you a novelist specializing in teen vampire love stories? Just go to the latest screening of a Twilight movie or a blog dedicated to this teen phenomenon and you’ll see how and where your audience is socializing. Are you a mother by day and a knitting fiend at night? Hit the mommy blogs and find women with similar daily juggling acts as yourself. You’ll not only have more women to share your stories with, you’ll have a direct ear into what your target market wants from hand-knitted goods.

Make a list of the main demographic that you feel will connect with your story. List their ages, average income, gender (if relevant), types of places they would socialize in person and online, unique attributes specific to the art you produce, etc.

Create a list of keywords that reflect some of the traits listed in your demographic list.

Go to href="http://www.google.com/blogsearch" target="_blank">Google’s Blog Search and begin typing in the keywords you created. Follow the links to these blogs and find several that reflect your target audience best. Add these blogs to your RSS readers, subscribe to their newsletters or bookmark the sites. Study the best blogs for the types of conversations that are relevant to your work and scan the comment section to see how people are interacting around this topic. Begin to look for problems that you might help solve with your specific knowledge or other way you can be of help to this community.

Go to the Twitter search function and repeat the same process for entering keywords in the blog search. Add a #hashtag before the keyword to help make the search more specific. If a person has added a #hashtag to a keyword, they want other people outside of their followers to notice the topic and engage. When you find someone who might fit your desired demographic, click through to their profile page and scan their information. Visit their website if one exists. If this person is a match, begin following them and add them to a special list that helps you categorize this connection. You might want to keep this list private since you’re using it for business purposes, but that’s a personal preference.

You can repeat these steps with other social media platforms as well. Simply seek out people who fall within your desired demographic and who look as though they would engage with your artwork and your story. Seek people who have something interesting to say and who are active in conversations within their chosen social media platform.

Begin engaging people in relevant conversations using these platforms. Look for people asking real questions and provide useful answers- related or not to your artwork. Be a genuine person here and dive into a conversation. Provide answers, advice or simply make a lovely comment and begin to build strong relationships with people over time.

Listen to your conversations closely and begin providing resources or articles that helps your target audience address a problem or provides entertainment. Create free e-books or manifestos that provide valuable information related to your story in some fashion. Our knitting mommy can create an e-book of knitting tips for newbie knitters. The vampire-obsessed novelist can provide short stories for free as a Kindle book and place weekly teasers about the plot on her blog.

The possibilities are endless for connecting your audience with your artwork. Get creative and provide something of value that people can engage with on a deep level. Creating community and connection will build a solid Tribe who believes in your art work and will create a meaningful online world for you to work within.

Authenticity and genuinely caring about others truly is the best approach towards building your Tribe and supporting your story in the online world. It only takes one person to truly connect with your artwork and you’ve created a fan. Continue to build these relationships and you’ll havehref="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/blog/socialmedia-marketing/5-easy-steps-to-get-10000-followers/"> an engaging and meaningful online community- and a Tribe of devoted fans.

Image Credit: All images by href="http://www.blog.crystalstreet.net/" target="_blank">Crystal Street.

Jerry’s side note: If you like this article, be sure to read Crystal’s followup-article on href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/featured-articles/how-to-build-a-long-term-successful-social-media-campaign/">How To Build A Long-Term Successful Social Media Campaign.

Page 24 – Web Hosting Secret Revealed

How to Write 3,000 Words Per Day Whilst Travelling Around the World

alt="How to Write 3,000 Words Per Day Whilst Travelling Around the World" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/default-image-500x308_c.jpg" />

I first set off from my native Scotland in 2003 for a trip to Asia and Australia. I had been working online for three years by this point, however around this time I started making enough to become self-employed through the internet. Since then, I have travelled all around the world whilst working online.

It is much easier to do this in 2013. When I first started travelling I had to constantly deal with slow internet connections. It was not uncommon for there to be 20 people sharing a 56kb connection in internet cafes in Asia, with everyone sitting there bored looking at Hotmail take an age to load a page. Things got infinitely better for travellers over the next ten years due to the availability of WiFi and fast mobile connections.

Working whilst travelling still presents many challenges. I have been living in South America since the Summer of 2011 though in September 2012 me and my girlfriend set off to travel all around South America. During this time I updated my blog regularly and finished a book that is 580 pages in print form. Just goes to show that you can still be productive whilst seeing the world.

Let’s look at how you can keep up your writing schedule whilst on the road :)

1. Plan Your Schedule

One of the greatest things about travelling is that you do not know how things will plan out. What you imagined would be a quiet night indoors can quickly turn into a night out with 15 other people. I usually try and plan out how long I will be in the one place but it rarely works out that way. If I am not enjoying a place, I will leave early. Likewise, if I am having a great time somewhere, I usually stay a little longer.

Despite plans being broken frequently, I always try and plan ahead as best as I can. One way I do this is by staying one extra day to ensure I have time to get a lot of work done. For example, if I plan on staying somewhere for three days, I would plan a schedule such as this:

Day 1: Work for 2 hours in the morning, out all day sightseeing and then 1 or 2 hours work at night.
Day 2: Out all day on a day trip and then a couple of hours work at night (if not too tired from the day trip).
Day 3: Work all day long and perhaps out for dinner and a few beers at night.

Where possible, I try and do a full day of work on the last day somewhere as that night, or the following day, will probably be spent sitting on a bus. This was common for me throughout South America. Most places we visited were between 12 and 24 hours apart by bus (though I stay productive on buses too – see point 2!). We did a lot of journeys overnight but I rarely got a great sleep on overnight buses, therefore I usually did not get a lot of work completed the following day. So I got into the habit of working hard the day before so that I was not behind, ensuring that my blog was updated in advance.

id="attachment_1825" style="width: 760px" class="wp-caption aligncenter">class=" wp-image-1825 border" alt="Hard at Work in Bolivia" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/hard-at-work.jpg" width="750" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/hard-at-work.jpg 600w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/hard-at-work-300x225.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />class="wp-caption-text">Hard at work in Bolivia. Good wifi connections makes it easy to sit back and relax with a tablet and do research.

If you want to enjoy yourself whilst travelling, I think it is important to be flexible with your schedule. You should still try and plan out a work schedule where possible and if something fun you had planned is cancelled, try and make the most of your time and do some work instead.

2. Take Notes Where You Can

I was initially hesitant in taking both an iPad and a laptop whilst travelling. It seemed like overkill at the time, but I was wrong. In addition to using my iPad for games, movies, books, music and podcasts; it also helped me be productive on long bus or plane journeys. On most twelve hour journeys I usually did about two to three hours of work.

I found this to be essential to how I work. It is all good and well scheduling two hours in the morning to work but if you sit down at your computer and your mind is blank, you’ve effectively lost that time. So I normally download a few books from Amazon for long journeys. The books were normally related to the articles I had scheduled to write later. I would start the bus journey off by sitting back, relaxing and reading a book. This would start giving me lots of ideas for my own work so I would switch to the iOS WordPress app and start writing the article or taking notes to write the article later. On some journeys I wrote a few thousand words…which is quite impressive when you consider I was typing on glass :)

When I finally sat down with an internet connection to publish my articles, I was in a position where 60-90% of my articles were complete. I strongly encourage you to get into the title="Writing Habits" href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/blog/web-copy-writing/the-five-habits-of-highly-effective-copywriters/">same writing habit when you are on long journeys. It is tempting to just sit and watch movies for your full journey but a few hours of work on the bus will effectively give you free hours when you arrive at your destination to do something else.

id="attachment_1826" style="width: 760px" class="wp-caption aligncenter">class=" wp-image-1826 border" alt="Rio de Janeiro" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Rio-de-Janeiro.jpg" width="750" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Rio-de-Janeiro.jpg 600w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Rio-de-Janeiro-300x225.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />class="wp-caption-text">Enjoying the view of Rio de Janeiro. Tucked away in my front pocket is a notepad and pen. I never want to lose an idea!

Another thing I recommend carrying is a notepad. I prefer one that is small enough to fit into the front pocket of my jeans so that I can pull it out at any time and write down an idea when it comes to me. A friend gave me a pen that had a light attached to it and it proved to be one of the handiest things I had. If my iPad was zipped away in my bag in front of me or if the battery was dead, I would simply bring out my notepad in the middle of the night and write down ideas with my light-powered pen.

You never know when you will get an idea so always take a notepad and pen with you at all times. Ideas can leave you as soon as they come to you, so write them down as soon as you can.

3. Work Effectively

I think it is vital to develop a good work ethic if you are to work effectively on the road. You need to be honest with yourself about this aspect of it. It is kind of pointless squeezing in an hour or two of work before going out for the day if you do not get real work done. In order for this kind of work routine to work, you need to not only work, but work effectively.

This means working without distractions. If you plan on writing for two hours, remove all distractions. That means staying away from from Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and any other website that will drain your time. You should only be reading websites for researching the article or book you are writing.

id="attachment_1827" style="width: 760px" class="wp-caption aligncenter">class=" wp-image-1827 border" alt="Uruguay" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/uruguay-walking.jpg" width="750" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/uruguay-walking.jpg 600w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/uruguay-walking-300x253.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />class="wp-caption-text">Searching for a place to stay in Punta Del Este, Uruguay.

You do not have to save up all your money for two weeks vacation every year. If you can work effectively whilst travelling, you can travel the world and see and do things you always wanted to.

What’s stopping you?

Kevin

Page 18 – Web Hosting Secret Revealed

10 Web and Marketing Trends that Dominated Jan’14 (and are Likely to Stay Around)

alt="10 Web and Marketing Trends that Dominated Jan’14 (and are Likely to Stay Around)" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/2014-dubai-fireworks-500x333_c.jpg" />

style="line-height: 1.5em;">As a new year begins, everyone in the web verse was anticipating what 2014 will bring for the online marketing realm. For those who didn’t have their ears and eyes pointed to the ground, there haven’t been many surprises. The trends, though have remained same, but have noticed bit more urgency, and a slight shift in the dependence on certain aspects of social media – swinging upwards.

Let’s take a look at what January 2014 was about, and what it brought for the digital marketing aficionados.

class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-8691" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/2014-dubai-fireworks.jpg" alt="2014 dubai fireworks" width="750" height="500" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/2014-dubai-fireworks.jpg 750w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/2014-dubai-fireworks-300x200.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" />

1. Social Media Continues to March Ahead at a Ballistic Speed

What did you expect anyways! For the souls who found themselves lost in the world of digital marketing, and who had little or no knowledge of SEO, social media has come as a savior. Rather, it does more than just saving the day. Social media has let even the novices of digital marketing perch their websites on the top of their potential reader’s mind through some simplest of techniques to promote their content. That is not say that social media marketing can be mastered by anyone and everyone, but even the lack of experience can deliver incredible results. The Facebook groups have opened new avenues where you can post a link and can be assured that it will be seen by a multiple number of visitors – relevant visitors on top of that.

2. Quality Content Isn’t making an Exit, Not Yet

And why would it! It is not just your visitors who love to stumble upon a piece of content that in full of insight and intrigues them, href="http://searchengineland.com/google-changes-ranking-advice-says-build-quality-sites-not-links-163931">Google has its own biases (for good). The fresh and unique content has been the buzzword for quite a while and I wager the focus is only going to get deeper. More and more business owners are understanding how content can totally transfigure their marketing stratagem and bring more results to it.

3. Guest Posting Continues to Breed (despite the unsettling buzz)

An amazing way to attain authority juice for your website content is through posting articles on established third parties. You manage to grab more eyeballs when a piece of content, accompanied by the URLs that link back to your website, gets published on websites that receive heavy traffic.

4. Guest Posting Will Get More Fraught with Risks

That said, the practice of href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/blog/blogging-tips/how-to-run-a-better-guest-blogging-campaign-5-things-to-do-5-things-not-to-do/">guest posting may very well turn out to be a nasty burn for you if you don’t play to the rules Google has set. Writing a guest post for an arbitrary website that is full of spam, has zero page rank and accepts anything and everything can really make you crawl into a mud pit. Google punishes websites that have their links posted on low ranked and spammy websites.

5. Sponsored Posts Will be Given More Attention

While guest posting in its more elementary sense (and in the context of the way they are referred to ), means writing a post on some topic that relates to your business and including a link or two at the bottom in the author bio. Sponsored post is however direct marketing, where you contact a high PR website and ask them if they can accept a post that talks specifically about your company and its line of products. This is an entirely promotional post which needs you to pay a considerable amount.

6. Mobile apps are Even More Welcomed

It’s not an age anymore where fancy gadgets and phones were meant for teenagers. Today, you would find those in the hands of anyone between 10 and 60, and beyond that. And that’s where the need to market your products through mobile app emanates, and flourishes – as we are seeing of-late.

7. Content Seeding Remains Haywire

Not every business that has concentrated its resources on content seeding has benefitted from content seeding. While you may post comments with links on popular blogs and forums, one is never sure if they will remain there. Even if the forum and blog admins don’t delete them, the conversion rate is under a serious clout of doubt.

8. Video Marketing Keeps Getting Bigger

We had a Doordarshan age where a handful of advertisements made their way to television. Then we had the cable TV and the Digital TV era where there is a plethora of brands creating far more interesting advertisements for their TV audience. And then, there is Youtube and the likes of it where brand ads play before specific videos. As and when the concept is great, the videos turn viral and spring times are in store for the brands.

9. More Investment in Paid Online Advertisement

This is a derivative of video and social media marketing. Marketers will keep investing more and more on pad advertisement son platforms like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, (through those banner ads). Posting banner ads on websites that sync with their brand will also continue to head north, despite the high charges associated with it.

10. Responsiveness of Websites Will Be Sought-After

For the fact that a large chunk of your audience accesses your website on their mobile devices, you need to href="http://dannybrown.me/2013/11/11/5-reasons-why-you-need-to-be-mobile-ready-for-2014/">make your sites mobile ready. When the website you have been constructing and pushing upwards for months does not harmonize well with the tiny devices that are getting popular by the day, you are doing a great disservice to your business. Slow loading times because of fancy features or a layout that isn’t designed to play out well on diversified operating systems will only increase the bounce rate on the site.

Web marketing is a concoction of far too many ingredients. It hardly serves a purpose for the tunnel-visioned folks, but those with a clever acumen, know how to use it to give their business a velvet touch.

Page 15 – Web Hosting Secret Revealed