Keep Calm and Cyber On

For many years now I have had a Social Media account of some sort, adding and morphing the accounts, but one of the biggest thing lacking in my Social Media Adventure has been CONTENT. If in Real Estate the three most important things are LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION, I would say in a similar manner, in Social Media publishing it is CONTENT, CONTENT, CONTENT. And while on a Facebook feed or Twitter feed, it is easy to simply recycle, retweet and share content created by others, for a Blog engine to work properly, you need a steady stream of unique, interesting and newly generated content (or repacked interesting content), but content non the less.
So, I am venturing out again into the Cyber-sphere with content generated from a new source: a new gallery in Longwood, FL, near Orlando called Kaleidoscope Venue For The Arts. I have been working recently creating the Social Media platform foundation: Pages, Twitter Account, YouTube Channel, Pinterest, Blogs and connecting all together to share and shape content.
Here is the Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/venueforthearts.com

5 BIG REASONS To START SMALL - For Artists Who Want Big Results!

The above painting is only 4 inches wide and 4 inches tall.
When I first started out, I started small. Primarily because I was starting from scratch and couldn't afford much in the way of supplies. But there was another reason: REACTION.

Here are 5 BIG REASONS TO START SMALL
1) VALIDATION : Back in the day on Ebay, you could get very quick validation for the direction you were going in. Instead of spending a week working on a piece, and then have no reaction, small paintings gave you a great litmus test.
Quick and easy paintings on different styles and subjects gave a road map to ideas of what will work and not work.
2) CASH FLOW : You can sell small paintings for not much money, so people are more willing to 'impulse' buy them. Selling something feels good. Having money feels good too. Even if you're not getting rich, counting on a certain amount of sales every week gives you the motivation to keep going and get bolder.
3) COST OF MATERIALS : Starting small is also inexpensive, so you don't have to invest a lot in materials. This also gives you the chance to 'sample' various mediums in the smaller sizes and see what works, what you like to work with and what products you like the most. Storing your materials and finished works is easy with small paintings, too!
4) SHIPPING : Shipping is very inexpensive for a small item. If you are offering FREE Shipping, this is a plus. It gives you more shipping options as well and makes the whole shipping experience much easier and more convenient. So much easier to pop a few stamps on an item than have to drag it through the FED EX Ground counter (shipping supplies for small items are cheap, too)
5) FAN BASE : Small paintings allow you to build a fan base easier. You can get through collectible series' faster, and painting small gives you the ability to present many ideas and looks to the public to give you more chances to catch their eye. Sure, someone discovered you when you did that quick series of small cat paintings, because they collect cats, but after contact with you and taking a serious look at what else you were offering, they might just end up with that higher priced larger painting hanging behind their couch, above the tiny cat portraits on the side table!

The Art Of Zyll: Trying New Site Called BONANZA

Discovered this site today. Don't know if it will increase sales, but the really wonderful thing about it is

NO Listing Fees, (only pay if it sells) LOTS of Traffic, up there in the amount of traffic Ebay sees, but don't know yet if it's a good site for selling artwork.
AND - you can IMPORT your listings from EBay, with just a few clicks, giving your artwork TWO platforms to sell from, with pretty much the same listing efforts.
(a few tweaks when you import, but not much)
You can also bring your FEEDBACK from Ebay, so you're not starting from Zero all over again.
They also have an instant chat feature for buyers to talk to you and a feature where people can make offers. Good Stuff.

BLOGGING -Don't Pay For It

First off, let me say, for now - DON'T PAY FOR BLOGS!
Right now I am tasked with doing some promoting for someone who has a new book coming out. They need a blog and all the other social media goodies to go along with it. However, some of the best content I could have used was a blog they did as a daily 'on the road' diary. When they set it up, they were ill advised to put it on a site you had to be a member of to see the blog, and that blog site later became a 'pay to play' website, so the content may be lost forever if they didn't convert it.
Don't pay for blogs, people.
Blogger.com (where you are right now) is plenty of blog to start with, and really all you will probably ever need. It's searchable, you can add widgets to do just about anything, point to anything, sell anything, etc.
I really don't have any idea what more a pay to play site could offer, other than a pain in the you know what - that you just don't need. Promoting is still the same, no matter where you park yourself. Instant traffic doesn't exist. You either get it through sweat equity (which eventually you run out of hours in the day to get any bigger) or you pay for it. There's never any easy way to get there. You have to do the work.
Although some people just aren't happy unless they are spending money for services and gadgets to do their work. But there are businesses out there that know that and take advantage of it.
Do a gut check and ask yourself - can I accomplish what I need to do on this FREE site? If the answer is yes--save your money for the ads you'll eventually need to run!

This Widget and Website will Help You Get Requests To Book A Date In Their City...

I first saw this widget on the website of geek turned musician, Jonathan Coulton. His site was set up on a wordpress, but it had EVERYTHING from a download store for music, to a regular store for merchandise and this nifty widget to help cultivate fans and tour dates. Now he's on his own blog style website. Check him out at : http://www.jonathancoulton.com


Get the widget and sign up to promote and track the stats the widget collects at :
http://www.eventful.com

Different Subjects Bring More Searches!

Having different subjects or phases of your artwork, or writing about different subjects in your blog brings more TAG opportunities and more SEARCH opportunies.

These are skeletons, a subject I started with, before I went in to painting abstracts....

The Art Of Zyll: Skeletons!: "I will be gearing up shortly to offer my skeleton ornaments for Halloween and The Holidays...Here's a little slide show of some Skeletons Past..."

Google Plus - I'm In!

I was just able to start a profile on Google Plus! More Later....