In this epic article:
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"I spend so much time coming up with ideas for social media posts/blogs that I don't have time to create art anymore!"
"Marketing is too hard. It takes up too much time and energy and I hate doing it."
There's no way around it - marketing can take up a significant amount of time - but when you are spending all that time and seeing nothing happen, you'll want to throw in the towel.
There are two main problems with the content you create that ultimately makes you want to hurl your computer across the room:
- 1It doesn't have a purpose. You are just grasping at straws trying to think of something to post because you're supposed to be growing your social media/getting website traffic/putting yourself out there in general.
- 2You put in all that time (even if it's only an hour a day), post your creation once, cross your fingers it will somehow put money in your pocket (which it doesn't), then start the process over.
So how can you make something that is worth the time you spend on it? Let's start by getting smart and strategic. The content you create from here on out should...
All content marketing for artists is not created equally.
First, decide what product you are trying to promote. Of course the answer is your art, but what art? Is it your new green series? Is it commissions of pugs? Most artists hate feeling nailed down to one thing - but to promote it well you'll have to focus on one product at a time.
Brainstorm a list of article ideas that are somehow related to your product. A good place to start is thinking about questions that someone would ask you about your product or how you create your product.
Once you have your ideas, try to break those broad ideas down so that they become detailed and specific. This will not only give you more ideas to write about in the future, but more importantly, will help draw attention to your content.
Reuse content across multiple platforms multiple times.
Repurpose your content as much as possible. There is more than one way to do this, but until you figure out your own formula, you can use mine.
Post your article as blog content.
That way when people want to read it, they'll have to go to your site. Once they're there... maybe they'll start clicking around. It never hurts to add a few links to products to buy if you can find a way to tie them in naturally.
Bonus! Once you get the hang of creating smart content, you can start learning to edit your articles to get website traffic from google searches. That's a lot to take on right this second, but it is a great idea for the future. Google is my second largest giver of website traffic (behind Pinterest) so just keep that in mind.
Email it out
Use your article as something to send out to your mailing list so a) they know you haven't forgotten about them and b) they get something interesting to read while they learn more about you and your work.
Pin it
Use the schedule I gave you last week to create two images with two descriptions. This gives you 8ish weeks of posts to send out on Pinterest.
Instagram/Facebook/Snapchat
Create one or more mini-posts that feature your full article. This can be on any social media you are using regularly.
Make each post unique by choosing different excerpts, creating different text/image combos or making videos so people aren't seeing the exact same thing. You really could do this 3-5 times per article on each platform if change them up quite a bit and space them out between other posts.
Now that you know how to create smart content, you'll be able to waste less time on content marketing and more time working on your art.
Hopefully this sparked some ideas for you! Post a link to your first article below so I can see what you come up with.
Pick one idea to work with and recycle it to create 5 different pieces of content.
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Do the work & create your luck,
