Making the connection online

robin fay, contributor

So, you are a painter, a photographer, an illustrator, perhaps, even a potter, but do you use the web to promote your artwork or does it seem like too many choices and not enough time? Do you have a personal Myspace account, but never considered using it to promote your artwork? Does it just all seem confusing?

There are a lot of choices, which makes it hard to decide where to start. I'll go through some of more popular ones and also some new ones, too. So, regardless of your experience level, hopefully you will find something of interest. They are all VERY easy to use (point + click + typing in your info) and free.

Diversify, Diversify, Diversify
Regardless if you have your own domain (or not) or have a website (or not) or even have a blog (or not), you do need to be examining other opportunities to promote your artwork. Even if you have an agent or a gallery, using some of the social networking tools available online, will allow you to interact directly with people -- just think of it as another marketing opportunity. Basically, these days, centralized access is moving into decentralized access. People get to info and products in a variety of ways (for more on the why, read the long tail theory.).
So, while having your domain/website is important, a scattershot approach will create a greater web presence and provide multiple means of access to your artwork.

Networking online
Now that we've established the importance of having a diversified web presence, we'll look at just one aspect of having a web presence: networking. Social networking in the general sense is a website where a user (you!) can easily create content: blogging, posting announcements/news, sharing images and video and connecting with like minded people or groups of people.

For visual artists, social networking sites fall into 3 general categories:

• All purpose websites which offer some services to artists. Examples of these kinds of sites include Myspace, Facebook,and Ning, among many others.
• Networking websites for artists. These sites offer a variety of services tailored specifically to artists. Examples include deviantarts, artistsearch, myartstudio, among others.
• Specialized websites for artists. These sites offer specific services such as selling (Etsy, ArtAgent), portfolios (AbsoluteArts). Many of these sites have a pay component in some way.

General social networking sites
While Myspace doesn't offer specific services for visual artists (although they do for musicians), they do offer space to blog, post annoucements, and upload images and video. There are many visual arts groups in Myspace, such as the Visual Arts Guild at Myspace. The advantage to being on myspace is that there are alot of people there. How many? Well, the numbers vary, but according to Business Week in 2006, Myspace at that time, was adding about 150,000 users a day. Subtracting out the people who never return and the spammers, that is still a whole lot of people.

Facebook is a newer social networking site that started out at Harvard, with a little more of a collegiate feel. However, it has opened up to the general public, and it has many of the same features as Myspace, with the advantage of being a llittle bit more professional in appearance. Ning offers users the ability to actually create their own social network. Check out southerncreativity's new network here.

Social networking sites for artists
One of the first social networking sites designed just for artists, is deviantarts. While deviantarts still has a free service, they are also now offering a premium service (no ads, more services, etc.). For the artist, they offer blogging, announcement/news, calls for entries, as well as an image gallery. However, do not expect to have a customized site at deviantart; for the most part they are very generic.

Artistsearch was created by thepauper.com aka the starving artist website, and is receiving some good reviews. It allows a user to create a webspace with a blog, gallery, network/friends, and accept donations. You can see my site here. This one looks the most professional of the ones I'm reviewing.

Wetcanvas seems to be affiliated with Dick Blick and is listed as a sponsor. However, Wetcanvas seems to be VERY tied to Dick Blick, which isn't a bad thing as I happen to like Dick Blick. Services at wetcanvas include forums, a library/reference material, discounts on Dick Blick stuff (!), a gallery, and a virtual palette. Some very neat tools! You can see my site here.

MyStudioSpot.com was started as a site for Alabama artists. However, it is open to all artists and it is really really new. It feels very experimental but if you want to get involve in something from the ground up, might be worth a look. Features include a blog, gallery, friends/groups, and other things. You can see my site here. I think this site is a little limited in terms of what it offers at the moment (I didn't see a way to remove 'best friends' from my page, for example).

MyArtPlot is another newcomer to the social networking for artists field. Users can create a blog, gallery, network, sell, and do a bunch of other things. You can see my site here. Although no customization in terms of design, a very nice clean design.

Specialized Services for Visual Artists
While these services do not necessarily fall under social networking in that they offer multiple services, they do offer very specialized services. I'm just going to hit some of the more common and/or interesting ones.

Art-Agent.com is an independent, commission-free, broker of fine art. They only deal in original pieces and are affiliated with WetCanvas. See my site here.

Etsy is an online store focusing on handmade wares. There are some fine artists who sell there and lots of crafters. Here is an example of an etsy account (not me).

talent database is sort of a hodgepodge. It encompasses all arts and allows users to create portfolios, bookmarks, and a few other things. It's only been around for a few weeks at the moment.

digital consciousness is a public database of contemporary fine artists which has been around for a while. Users can create a brief portfolio. You can see my portfolio (eeks - I need to put up a better image!) here.

absolute arts is a portfolio site that has been around since 1995. It offers some free services and a premium (pay service).

Of course, there is always artistportfolio.net, which looks like the best of the lot in terms of free portfolios.

ClaimID is a way to help control your identity on the web.

If you want to blog, may I suggest blogger or wordpress.com? Both are free and very easy to setup. If you want to see how they stack up against each other, may I suggest this review?

..and of course, for image gallery, flickr.

Well, there you have it -- lots of choices and lots of neat things to do. I'll continue to explore new technologies, and in the next issue, we'll look more indepth at blogging choices and take a look at artists blogging.
To check out the social networking tools and see what new sites are posted, check out our del.icio.us page of links on social networking.

robin fay is an artist, web designer, web junkie and serves as the editor of moonshine.

An archive of robin's articles is located here.

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