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Sculpting an Online presence
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Stuart Edmondson, ‘Untitled no.28 Battery Park’.
How much do you consider the blogs you keep as a marketing tool for your own practice?’ Each blog could be a form of advertising or a form of networking for a certain goal.’ As one post can take the form of a diary entry, this is equally as valid as another post that provides succinct information on other projects and individual pieces of work.
How about if each post then becomes a separate blog on Degrees unedited? You could provide a blog for each separate piece of work, or for each medium that you explore, or for each module that you work on. Or perhaps you consider yourself as much a curator as an artist? Why not keep a blog on your curatorial interests and happenings as well as for your artistic output?
Writing more than one blog means that you get to cover multiple topics that define you as a marketable professional, and this is something that needs considering more as you reach the end of your course. Keeping more than one blog will not only let you organise your ideas more efficiently, but it will increase your popularity in search engines as well as your chances in getting feed back and comments or even reviews.
Keeping more than one blog lets you be more topical in your writing. This is important, if you want your name to appear at the top of the list as someone types it into the search bar, maintaining as many separate searchable possibilities as possible will help in search engine optimisation. This is a useful and free tool that is used within the professional world and is important for any serious artist and practitioner.
Do you have a website? How about maintaining a blog that provides information about updates in the development of your online portfolio? Each post can be a link to another piece of work that you have produced and uploaded to your own site. It is increasingly important, if you have any material about yourself on the Internet, to provide as many links as possible that route back to the source. This increases traffic to your own name, and it is imperative to consider how your name will soon be your business, it is important that people know it!
Does the region that you live in maintain an online source of information that allows fellow professionals to communicate about recent shows, projects and publications? For example LVAF (Leeds Visual Arts Forum) or Sheffield Contemporary Art Forum. Both of these sites provide the tool that allows you, as an arts professional, to post information about yourself, look out for what is in your area. Why not post your blog on here? Why not post your website on here? It is a free and completely valid form of self-promotion, creating more momentum and traffic around the representation of your practice.
These points are to be provisions in preparing for the beginning of after you finish your course. It is increasingly necessary for you to create an online presence. There are multiple forms of fingertip exercising and keyboard tapping activities that can help in building this online presence. Do little bits, but do the little bits often, whenever you have a little moment or fancy a break from making. It is surprisingly easy!
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First published: a-n.co.uk March 2009
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