Until recently, I understood the job of promotion should be left up to the curators or galleries that had my work. However, in the past few years, I've had to learn how to go ahead and push my own work thru the best possible source for interconnectedness we've had access to in human history - the web. Every morning, I make some coffee and start my day by connecting to my different social media outlets. I post and link, update, Twitter, share and (most importantly) communicate. Because we now have access to millions of people, all around the world at our finger tips I push myself and spend 7-8 hours a day planted in my chair (not my fav), obsessively posting away and I'm really proud to say that in under two months my traffic has gone thru the roof - that's 7-8 hours a day for 2 months working and working at something I didn't know how to do before but that's (hopefully) going to bring me closer to reaching my goals and the people who can make them happen....hopefully. Finger crossed.
The excessive time I've spent online obsessing over my sites was born out of necessity - it initially started because I was watching people who were supposed to be in charge of my shows do nothing to sell us to the public. In two cases I respectfully waited months for curators to get their acts together and promote OUR shows. However, once it became perfectly clear that I had two choices: take charge of the situation or play audience to my own failure I decided to jump online and say to the world "hey - I am HERE!". I absolutely. flat out refuse to fail my work or my goals.
But I didn't do it by myself however. I was lucky enough to have a friend step in and teach me some of what she knew about online promotion. Once she did, then another friend stepped in and then another....as it turns out, there are people out there who like helping the underdog fly.
All that said, promotion is NOT easy - it's embarrassing, it's time consuming, it can be extremely humiliating, it's a pain in my big, fat behind to do but it's also incredibly gratifying, in the end, to see what I've built and the people who have found me because of the work I've done. Add:I'm not a rocket scientist, I'm not a social media maven - I'm just learning to do this but I'm exercising my lessons everyday in an effort to get closer to reaching my goals. I will not allow myself to participate in my own failure -
if I go down, I will go down
SWINGING
.....like a frog in a blender.
Or in the words of singer Ben Sollee: "DIY" http://youtu.be/imTokozwsZo
Two videos on my Youtube channel, Studio 120, that cover my efforts at promotion include:
Studio 120: If I can do promotion, you can three:
- Studio 120: DIY promotion, determination and stats:
And then, another video, when things seem bleak beyond bleak:
- Studio 120: Bumpy roads - how listening to an audio recording of the book "The Alchemist" is helping me to keep focus, and how friends helped me learn to promote myself and combat failure in some unnecessary and devastating situations. http://youtu.be/RDZ-BxZUSHY
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| "Blah, blah, blah!!! TAKE ME FOR A WALK before I pee pee on the rug!!!" |
Join, follow mix and mingle on some of my favorite social sites:
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/becklane42/
Tumblr: http://becklane.tumblr.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BeckLane1
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/BeckatReBar?ref=stream
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/La102438
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