Blog

A blog can be a powerful marketing asset.  However, building a blog, the right way, takes a big commitment.  A commitment to produce well-written, engaging, and compelling content on a somewhat regular basis, and a commitment to engage with your audience.   In short, it's a commitment to hard work.  And, that kind of hard work is what it takes to build an audience, a readership and a cadre of fans for your blog.  As technologist Benedict Evans wrote, "Blogging has never been easier but getting read has never been harder."  Sure, you can throw a non-compelling post out into the ether every now and then if you simply want to say you "have a blog."  But such blogs aren't really a big marketing asset.  Hugh MacLeod discusses this phenomenon in Why Most Artist Blogs Fail.  

In an ideal world, every artist's marketing plan would include building an interesting and highly-followed blog.  And in this fantasy world, every artist would have the time and inclination to do the hard work it takes.  But we live in reality.  And the reality is that many artists don't have time or the interest that building a successful blog audience takes.  

In fact, for many artists, the idea of blogging actually causes stress.   And if you're one of those artists, then relax, if you don't have anything to say, then don't.  You don't have to have a blog.  The world has changed and, if you're one of those artists who gets stressed out every time you hear that "you need a blog", then I have good news.  The modern world has other ways for you to reap many of the benefits that blogging provides without having to become a professional writer at the same time you're trying to become a professional artist.  

The standard advice these days seems to be that "artists should have a blog."  I used to feel that way too.  But blogging has been mainstream for over a decade now and technology moves fast, both in how we create online content, and in how we consume it. In 2007, I thought it was important for artists to have a blog.  But what about in 2017?

I've partially changed my position.  For artists who are stressed out about doing the hard work of blog building described above, then I no longer think the benefits of blogging outweighs the costs.

If you are the type of artist that is stressed out about the idea of writing and publishing in depth articles online about topics other than your art, then don't publish a blog.  If you don't have any thoughts regarding what to publish to your blog, other than images of new art, then don't publish a blog.   If you only feel like you "need a blog" because every else says so, then relax and don't publish a blog.  If this paragraph describes you, then your career will benefit more from the additional time at the easel anyway.  

So, to understand why I've (partially) changed my postion, let's look back at the rise of blogs, the types of content we published, what excited us about blogging so much, and, finally, what I think has changed.

The Rise of Blogs

When the web first went mainstream, we, the techies, published lots of static websites.  They were time-consuming to update and only tech people could really easily publish a website.  Some readers will remember having to call their "webmaster" to update their website for them. But, over time, people came up with clever ways for non-technical people to "log" their life activities and put those logs on the web.  They were known as "web logs".  And, the "web log" eventually became known as a "blog."  Suddenly, there were blogging platforms that let anyone and everyone publish their thoughts online.  That was revolutionary and exciting!  What's more, most blogging platforms included a commenting system, so suddenly, websites were no longer  static, but they enabled social experiences where bloggers could interact with each other and their fans.

What We Blogged

One, we realized that anyone could publish online, via a blog.  We started discovering that blogs provided a perfect place to share certain types of content.  The were a perfect place to:

1.  Share your artwork images online

2.  Share your off-the-cuff thoughts, inspirational quotes & mid-length content online

3.  Share long form, deep articles and thoughts online

4.  Provided a platform for artists to evangelize causes and topics of importance to them

5.  Provided a place to interact with your collectors, friends and fans

6.  Provide a place that you own and control.

Why We Loved Blogs

We all quickly realized that the ability to publish your images and thoughts online easily, and the ability to interact with your fans were huge game changers.  Those experiences are tailor made for visual artists to share their thoughts, to share their inspiration, and to build a following of fans.  And building a following of fans is at the heart of marketing art.

The other benefit blogs provided was that Google loves fresh content.  So blogging regularly had the nice side-effect of, depending on the type and amount of content you create, of increasing search traffic to a website or blog.

As I wrote in What is Everyone Else Ignoring, the entire industry was so excited about blogging that the New York Times actually wrote a feature story about daily painter, Duane Keiser, who essentially, simply had a daily painting blog.  But, importantly, he had the first daily painting blog.  And that thought was empowering and exciting.

To understand much of the original excitement surrounding blogging, you also have to remember that the rise of blogs coincided with the rise of another new technology called "RSS", which stands for Really Simple Syndication.  Blogs all publish an "RSS Feed" and blog fans can subscribe to these feeds and find out about and read new content in an email like "inbox" without having to visit each blog's website one-at-a-time.  RSS was even touted as an email "spam killer", because unlike email, people can't simply force RSS content into your inbox.  You have to subscribe first.  At the time, web browsers all integrated RSS readers and subscription buttons right into the software (those features have since been removed from all the major browsers).  And, at the time, it appeared that RSS was going to become the main news feed that people utilized online, which positioned blogs as the main source of content in users' news feeds.  [1]

So, when you consider that blogs provided a newly-found power to publish, a way to interact with fans, an easy way to feed Google, a way to get your content into the coming  RSS revolution, and a way to perhaps be noticed by the mainstream press, it's easy to understand why all of us art marketers started blogging, and soon thereafter started recommending that "artists need to blog."

What Has Changed

I still think the types of blogging content listed above are super-important for artists to do.  And I still think interacting with your fans and building your audience is important.  So you may be wondering, if those things are still important, then don't artists still need a blog?  

I don't think so, for a few reasons: 

1.  RSS didn't become mainstream and certainly didn't become peoples main "news" feed.
2.  The primary "news" feeds for most people are email, facebook, and other social media platforms.
3.  There is no longer any excitement in simply having a blog, I know people who's cat has a blog.
4.  The SEO benefit of blogs is vastly overstated unless you have the time and interest to write a large collection of long-form articles.
5.  Blogs are now "old" and boring tech.  Mainstream press covers what's first and new.  
    You're unlikely to be featured in the New York Times like Duane Kaiser was.
6.  Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest have provided easier ways to share artwork images online.
7.  Twitter and Facebook have provided easier ways to share inspirational quotes & mid-length content.
8.  The major social media platforms have provided easier ways to interact with your friends, fans and collectors.
9.  The rise of mobile devices has reduced attention spans and made interacting with people via apps and push notifications more important.

Taking all of these factors into consideration has led me to conclude that most of the traditional blogging activities and benefits have been supplanted by the rise of social media. [2]

If we think about the original definition of "blog", which was a "web" "log" of your life activities, then you are already doing it...on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest.  

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest, in the original definition of the word, are all blogging platforms.  

Which leads me to the bottom line:  While every artist needs to blog, not every artist needs to have a blog.  

Sincerely,

Clint Watson

FASO Founder, Software Craftsman, Art Fanatic

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Footnotes:

[1] Most of you reading this don't know what "RSS" is, which shows that those of us who thought it was going to be huge, were wrong.  There are a number of reasons RSS didn't become mainstream, the economics and revenue models of the big five tech companies being a major one.  Why would Facebook want you to read content for free in an "RSS Reader" when they can control the experience and show you ads?

[2] The rise of social media has been so complete, that even if you do build your own blog, you can't ignore promoting it.  The lack of adoption for RSS and blogging as mainstream methods means, that for your well-written blog posts to be seen, you must get them into the social media feeds of your audience.  That's why you have to "double post" by posting links to your blog posts on the social media platform(s) that your audience uses.