The internet is one of the most promising tools for glass artists to promote their work and gain new business. For glass artists, the best way to take advantage of the internet and the new world of social networking is to take photos of your newly created work and promote it via Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn (or whichever social networking tools you use).
However one of the things that is hard to manage is that it takes so much time to get around all these social networking tools and post and track updates. Meantime you're thinking: gosh I really should be making more glass art, not fiddling around on the computer!
Here is where some tools can help:
Hootsuite is a great tool for managing your tweets but it also provides two invaluable built-in functions:
- RSS management - it allows you to automatically connect your blog or website RSS feed to Twitter so whenever you post something on your blog or website, it automatically updates Twitter for you.
- Statistics tracking - Hootsuite uses a link shortening tool called Ow.ly. When you use Ow.ly Hootsuite will automatically track total clicks, your most popular tweets and which regions of the world clicked the most.
One of the top tips for LinkedIn is to add the Blog Link application to your profile. This will show your latest blog posts on your LinkedIn profile for your connections and their network to see.
- To add it, open LinkedIn and login.
- Then on the left hand side you'll see a menu item called 'Applications' - click on this link.
- You will then see a list of applications - select the one called Blog Link and follow the instructions to add it to your profile.
And remember: whenever you post anything to a social networking tool, your headline should capture the attention of your readers as this is the first thing (and if they don't like the sound of it: the last thing) people will look at to determine whether they should read on.
