Why Social Media Is the New Gallery For Artists



If you are an artist, whether you're a professional who's been doing this for years or an amateur who's just starting out, it's important to understand where the new art scene is at: Facebook photo galleries.


You may not think that the smaller size of Facebook photos does your work justice; you may believe that the only way to see your work is at full size, in person, preferably, but a high definition photograph will do in the meantime.

Unfortunately, that's not where the world is at right now. In the past, there were artists who stole the scene and became the center of attention the world over, who would be worshiped and admired by the art crowd at large and their work was truly appreciated to its fullest. Times have changed.

Instant Gratification



A number of factors including the internet and reality television have led to an interesting statistic: One in four young girls think that they're going to grow up to be famous. This is merely a sign of the times. Anybody can go on the internet and post a video of them singing, of a comedy sketch they did with their friends. They can post the comics they've been drawing or their short stories, and here's the thing: Everybody is so wrapped up in their own quest for fame and success that there's not that much of a captive audience left. 

Everybody who you show your work to, especially if you fraternize online with other artist types, is going to be so busy with their own work that they're not always going to have time to visit some gallery show you're doing, even if it's in driving distance. They won't have time to visit your website and look at every single piece you've done in rich, HD detail.



The Golden Rule of The Internet: Everybody is Busy


The way to appeal to a crowd that is always busy is to never waste their time. Waste their time and they'll unfriend you, unfollow you and cut your website off of their RSS feed. Here is an interesting article about 10 tips on how to boost your local network

One way to appeal to people through social media is to offer a version of your new painting or comic or drawing that they can click on and see right in Facebook or load up from Twitter and then link to a high definition version that they can look at if they have the time.

You Have To Compromise


The bottom line, though, is that you're going to have to compromise. People barely have enough time as it is for their own problems, let alone taking time out of their day to look over all of your work and tell you what they think. You need to make it easy on them, and making it easy on them sometimes means making hard decisions such as scaling a gorgeous landscape painting down.

On the upside, while the internet may be a noisy and confusing place at times, everybody has a chance to talk. If you find the right social circles on Facebook you can get your work in front of people who can get you a wider audience, other artists who can turn their people on to you, agents and gallery curators and so on.

The thing that you need to understand in order to make the most of social media as an art gallery is that it's not really an art show anymore, it's a conversation. There's a back and forth now. In the past, a person would say of a great artist "(S)he really speaks to me," but today, a great artist doesn't speak to their audience, (s)he speaks with them.


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How To Add Pinterest Button to Blogger Blog



Pinterest is virtual pinboard and allows you to store your favorite stuff online into a single organized page. 

It's just recently that I find it more interesting to pin some interesting stuff online. On my Wordpress blog, the Pinterest button is already embedded to a sharing plugin already and when I searched for installations tips for blogger blogs, there are only a few who had made a post out of it. Well, I manage to find one tutorial and I admit that it works. Thanks to Kelsey of Kelsey Creates for having this working tutorial.

pinterest

Here is the simplified version of Kelsey's tutorial. Be sure to back up everything.

First, go to Design and select on Edit HTML, make sure to tick Expand Widget Templates and look for this code and place the code below right before it.

<script type='text/javascript'>
function pinit() {
    var e= document.createElement(&#39;script&#39;);
    e.setAttribute(&#39;type&#39;,&#39;text/javascript&#39;);
    e.setAttribute(&#39;charset&#39;,&#39;UTF-8&#39;);
    e.setAttribute(&#39;src&#39;,&#39;http://assets.pinterest.com/js/pinmarklet.js?r=&#39;+Math.random()*99999999);
    document.body.appendChild(e);
};
</script>

Next is the button placement where you want the Pinterest button to be placed,

if you want to add the button below the post title and above the content, you can place the code below right after the post-header code.

Tip: Hit Ctrl+F then search for post-header


<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;item&quot;'>
<a class='goog-inline-block share-button pin_it_button' expr:onclick='&quot;pinit(); return false;&quot;' target='_blank'/>
</b:if>


if you want the button to be place right after your post, you can add the above code right after the code data:post.body


Tip: Hit Ctrl+F then search for data:post.body


or if you want the button to be in the footer of your post, you can simple search for this code, post-footer-line and place the above code right after the code.


Lastly, to make everything looks great, add it to blog's CSS. Simply search for these terms  /* Footer or /* Content and after that add the code below.



.pin_it_button {
    overflow: visible;
    width: 51px;
    height: 26px;
    margin-right: 1px;
    font: normal normal normal 11px/normal Arial, sans-serif;
    background-color: transparent !important;
    background-image: url("http://assets.pinterest.com/images/pinitbutton_sprite.png") !important;
    color: #CD1F1F !important;
    background-position: 0px 0px !important;
    background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat !important;
    cursor: pointer;
}

It will now look like this;

/* Footer
----------------------------------------------- */
.pin_it_button {
    overflow: visible;
    width: 51px;
    height: 26px;
    margin-right: 1px;
    font: normal normal normal 11px/normal Arial, sans-serif;
    background-color: transparent !important;
    background-image: url("http://assets.pinterest.com/images/pinitbutton_sprite.png") !important;
    color: #CD1F1F !important;
    background-position: 0px 0px !important;
    background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat !important;
    cursor: pointer;
}

Save everything and your Pinterest button is now ready to use. If you have further questions and inquiry, feel free to leave them at the comment section. 

Good luck and Enjoy




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