Any Tips On How To Get People To Notice Your Work?

Keep reading the forums. There are tons of marketing tips by those who really know something. I personally like your amphibians and reptiles. You might consider joining my group "Amphibians & Reptiles".

Social media, person to person marketing, join FAA groups and contests, etc. You have excellent work Derek and should have no trouble selling once you get yourself out there. Good luck!

First I would change your avatar. It makes it look like you specialize in herps. While you have GREAT herp shots they are not big sellers.

You have some outstanding work that does have good sales potential.

You might want to expand your bio, or change it completely. I don't think many buyers care about post processing, but they might like to know a little bit about you :)

Vincent, do you have a link for him?

(For the record, I love your reptiles and amphibians as well, I just don't think it is representative of your work as a whole to use as an avatar and they aren't great sellers.)

Marketing 101 by Mike Savad
Why Your Work May Not Be Selling - By Mike Savad
Evaluating Your Own Work To Sell – By Mike Savad
How To Critique And Edit Your Own Work For Better Sales

follow these guides. as said, change the avatar


use a face, or even change it to this. ... your description is boring. tell us where you shot this, something about the location. describe it as if you had to do so to a mostly blind person. add more keywords. while it does mention the location, there isn't that much there, it doesn't mention sunset or water.

your picture quality looks good, always start people in galleries.

your bio should talk about your work not how you process it. if you were a cook you would be telling us about the #2 spatula and the imported cheese that you only cut on tuesday's. tell us about the work and what you specialize in.

mostly you have to advertise, and really increase your keyword count.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

Actually, I was just messing around with the avatar, eventually I will use a self shot. Playing with bio too. I still have a buttload of photos to upload.

I am fine with the critiques, maybe I should have asked this question after I was done with everything. I do find it hard to believe that my bio or avatar have anything to do with people noticing me.

Sharon, when you say social media I take it you are speaking of Facebook, or the like. I have 74 friends on Facebook, not to good. I guess I could get my daughter to help me out there. I did just recently get a Photography Facebook Page and of my 74 friends only 15 likes so far, also not good. Person to Person marketing may fare better for me, even though I do not have much contact with people other than my family. FAA Groups and Contest, can you explain how this would help? I have never been much on any art-type contest, even if I were on the winning end! I will look in to the group thing. Thanks for the help.

visually, your avatar is invisible. you have seconds to catch attention. the bio is a set of keywords google understands. it only has camera info on it, and it won't attract attention. the lack of keywords won't help you either.

your bio and description is the salesman of your page.

facebook is ok, but really only good if you plan on coddling people. twitter and such is better because you can attract people with mere hashtags. likes won't get you sales. they are like nods of the real world.

groups and contests are for google and the occasional person looking from work or what have you. i've often sold things a week or two later. you want people looking at your work. you need to generate interest. google grabs groups and contests because there are new keywords it can associate with. winning the contest is not at all important. just being there is enough,provided its on topic.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

Mike, no doubt that my descriptions are boring, something that I definitely have to work on. Increase keywords, that I can do!
Thanks!

Mike are you a painter or a photographer? Some of your work looks like photos or manipulated photos and other stuff looks like paintings or maybe some kind of photoshop paint filters?

http://fineartamerica.com/groups/amphibian-and-reptile-art.html?tab=overview

Thanks JC.

depends which images. some are colorizations, some are hdr, some are straight photos with my own creative overlays, some are digitally painted with a program. but for the most part its all photography with hand shading. its designed to look like a painting. to help separate it from the crowd.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

Any Tips On How To Get People To Notice Your Work?

If I told you that, then I'd have to kill you. (^_^)

As I've said before, if people willingly give away their "tips" (secrets) about how to get noticed, then how does ANYBODY then get noticed, if EVERYBODY is using the SAME TIPS ?

"Tips" become standard procedures for the masses, and nobody gets noticed more than anybody else anymore.

But I guess I'll let you live, because I have no doubt that countless others will come in here to give you some good tips and bash me for my point of view on this.

as has been said change it so that people arrive at your galleries page.
If they land on images the chances that they will only look at a few pages and move on.
With galleries it is easier for them to find what they are looking for

" I do find it hard to believe that my bio or avatar have anything to do with people noticing me."

The avatar and bio will likely not help that much getting you an initial view but they are very potent force multipliers. ie. Someone finds your work and sees your avatar but then assumes the rest of your work is reptiles and doesn't click further. Seeing the one you have now they might go, hey let's go see what else he has. At the very least you don't want to push people away and many people get completely freaked out by the creepy crawlies.

The bio works like this, interesting bio = interest and possible sales/invitations. Oh wow, artist XYZ is a vet, let's invite him to submit his art to the VA hospital project we are working on. Oh, look artist ZYX is from here and is fascinating let's invite him to the art gallery we are opening. Not to mention that many buyers are actually buying the artist as much as they are the art and want to know about you. They don't know or care what white balance is or that you prefer filters to HDR or even know what HDR or a grad filter is.

Tags

You have the scientific name for your snakes and that is good but with only a few words you are missing some. Well, you are missing a lot. Serious snake fans will search crotalus horridus BUT someone just wanting a rattlesnake might just search that word. After they do this they will see all sorts of "rattlesnake" art and see all sorts of appropriately tagged images of rattlesnake like the Bee Gees, (Which started as the Rattlesnakes) and grass and canyons and rivers etc etc. So then they will add the word reptile or snake or animal or nature. They might want location specific snakes like southern rattlesnakes or perhaps they want Carolina reptiles, or North Carolina snakes. Perhaps they know your name and know you shoot snake images. If they do a keyword search for your name and rattlesnake nothing will come up. (always add your name to the tags. You can be found by just your name in the search if you don't but your name and anything else in the search will only return results if you have your name and the rest of the search in your tags.) BTW, rattlesnake is in fact one word but will your potential customer know that? Rattle snake, rattler, and such are good tags for that.

While I used the rattlesnake as an example that same mentality should be applied to landscapes as well. What river is it? Where is it? Do the rapids have a name etc etc etc.

@robert - just because you know how the trick is done, doesn't mean you can now do the trick. simply stating use twitter isn't really that revealing. it depends on who you choose, how you do it, and so on. its also the art you choose to make, knowing it may not help the other person.

its sort of like telling people that burger king is bad for you and list everything bad, but people still eat there. and despite all the negatives smoking has, and all the commercials and tips for life, people still smoke anyway. knowing isn't always something.



anyway, every little things matters. if people saw you only by avatar alone, you have a split second to grab their attention. once gotten, i don't think it would be a turn off if you had a bad one or not, unless its hitler or something like that. you want a good bio for the keywords alone. if you had to describe your work to someone - how would you describe it? now if you can't think of anything to say, then you may want to work on the images themselves. while the photos look nice, if they don't have a theme or something to keep their attention (if they all seem random, or you don't specialize), people may not remember your work at all.

the work itself may be very good, but at the same time, might look like everyone else's, or may not fit any theme in a house. so choosing images on that basis is sometimes important.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

@robert - just because you know how the trick is done, doesn't mean you can now do the trick. simply stating use twitter isn't really that revealing. it depends on who you choose, how you do it, and so on. its also the art you choose to make, knowing it may not help the other person.

its sort of like telling people that burger king is bad for you and list everything bad, but people still eat there. and despite all the negatives smoking has, and all the commercials and tips for life, people still smoke anyway. knowing isn't always something.


Yes, I suppose it depends on the level of detail provided. Making a general suggestion is NOT the same as giving a precise formula. But still you are creating a lot of competitors in the same general sphere of activity, even with a general suggestion. Following tips for getting noticed also is a little different than following tips to improve your diet. I think people are more inclined to follow the getting-noticed tips than they are the dietary tips.

Here's a getting-noticed tip that probably will get the same reaction as a dietary tip: Don't use any social media at all, but instead connect with people in person in the physical world.

"What ?!, you don't use social media?! - All artists use social media." ..., and, thus, you will stand out and get noticed, because YOU don't. You're out there in the physical world getting noticed in person instead. Enjoy your double Whopper now.

there is a physical world?


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

My philosophy is a rising tide floats all boats. If I can help others be successful then the site will be successful and I will be successful. What hurts is people going away frustrated and writing bad reviews. What helps is when people post links outside here that raise the overall ranking in the search. Sure we are all in competition for wall space but we are also sharing a store and the success of the store matters too. Besides most of you are not really in competition with me. I do have some secrets I do not share. For the reasons Robert gve I just can't tell you how to get a high Google ranking fast, or how to get seen in the searches. Little by little I have buried my most important secrets in the threads for those that pay attention. Here are some tips for success in selling prints. This should keep you busy for a while.
http://fineartamerica.com/showmessages.php?messageid=2567813

(^_^) ... there is a physical world?

I can't really prove it, ... you just have to take my word for it.

There are still books too ... made of PAPER, ... where you have to perform broad sweeping, arcing motions in front of your body to turn thin rectangular slabs of crushed/pressed wood covered in ink to read them. How UTTERLY primitive !

Bradford M.,

My secret of being at the top of the page in a Google search for "Robert Kernodle artist" has been not to care whether I was at the top or not, ... just plugging away doing what I do on the internet. The search engines find ME. I do not try to influence THEM.

Okay, that's all the secrets I have for today. Tune in next week, when I tell you the secret of how to stay young forever, and how to make big bucks selling gimmicky art on the internet, and how to lower your risk of heart disease with just a tablespoon a day of THIS everyday oil that you can learn about on page 27 of my new pamphlet, HOW TO GET THIN EATING FAT.