Blogging, Social Media and Email Marketing – What is the Difference and Which Ones Should You Use?

I have touched on the importance of having a website, incorporating search engine optimization so people can find you, using email marketing, and adding yourself and your work to other art websites and directories. That is a great start to being found online and engaging with people, but there are other things such as blogging and social media that can also be used to attract people to what you’re doing.

With so many social networks and avenues available you may wonder what you should be utilizing. The short answer is to do as much as you can. It’s about making it easy for people to find you and what you have to offer. The good news is that with all of the ways to share information and reach people online it has allowed people to spread the word and market themselves for free without having to use the more costly traditional print advertising, direct mail, etc.

I feel that email marketing is very important and a key essential to marketing because it provides you with people’s contact information and you can send emails directly to them anytime. But as you know, millions of people use Facebook and Twitter and studies show that they are spending more time on those websites than looking at their email every day.

You may be wondering what the difference is between all of them and how you can use them to grow your collector base and sell artwork. Each have their advantages and disadvantages and will appeal to different people. As this topic is so expansive, I will outline the main differences here and get into more detail in future posts.

Facebook
Easily share information, images, videos and communicate with people (any length of message). A lot of people are on it for personal use to communicate with family and friends, but more and more use it for business to share what they are doing with others and communicate with their customers/collectors.

Twitter
With Twitter you can share short bits of information (140 characters or less for each tweet) to give others a quick update, to send a short notice about an event, or a notice to check out something that you posted on your website, blog, Facebook, etc.

Blog
Similar to Facebook in that you can share information, photos and videos with others and they can comment, forward or share it with others, etc. The main differences are that you have more control – you can have it on your own domain/website, you can control the look/feel and how the information is posted, and it creates more content and tags that are searchable through search engines, thus increasing the chance of people finding you.

Benefits of all platforms:

• If you offer interesting and useful information people can easily share it with others, which can spread the word quickly.
• People become engaged in what you are doing because they can comment or reply and it creates interaction.
• People don’t have to be logged in to get updates – they can use an RSS reader and get notification through email or on their phone immediately. It’s not like if you update your website and you wonder if and when people will look at it (if you use these methods you can tell them to check out anything new on your website).
• Anyone can look at and follow what you are doing (if you allow it) and the content is searchable which means you can attract people online who use those websites or who search for content related to what you are doing.

The ideal situation is to use as many platforms as you can and work them together so you have a network of different ways people can find you. You may feel overwhelmed at the time involved or how many different things there are to learn. The key is to get started. You may want to try one thing at a time so that when you feel comfortable with one you can move onto the next.

Here are a few links with more information:

• Blog post that talks more about the differences between Facebook and Twitter
• Facebook Business Basics (Getting Started and Beginning Steps)
• Great site for info about email marketing, SEO, blogging and social media

For an example of an artist on Facebook check out Jerry’s Facebook page. His Facebook page is quite new but it will give you a few ideas of what you can do with it.

Tags: blogging, Facebook, Twitter, using social media