GETTING OUT THE WORD

Getting Out The Word

Once you have a website or a blog as your central contact point, you should then expand your reach so that you get as much exposure as possible.

But the real key is to reach people who are genuinely interested in your work or your approach. And this is where many people fail. If you go after raw numbers, most of these people won't appreciate what you are doing and some, who don't understand, may even be critical.

Here is an example.
I write an academic blog about the human experience of time. While my blog can be read by anyone, I aim my content at people who are interested in the human condition, the history of humanity and culture.
DeconstructingTime
https://deconstructingtime.blogspot.com/

I expand my reach in the following way.
On all my emails I have set up a 'signature' at the bottom of each email that lists this blog and also explains a bit about the purpose of the blog. These emails only go to people who know me already, so I am letting them hear about my work.

I have found that I can copy my blog post and create an individual PDF file. I do this in Open Office or Microsoft Word. Then I upload the blog-posts which are now separate PDF documents to several different academic sites. So again I confine my approach to an academic audience.
The two websites I use for this are academia.edu and figshare.com
https://unc.academia.edu/RickDoble
https://figshare.com/authors/Rick_Doble/629522

Over the last years my academic blog has registered 89,000 pageviews at Blogger and the academic sites Academia and Figshare have registered 10k and 20k pageviews respectively along with more than 12k downloads. In addition, I can see that my work has been viewed by people in just about every country in the world plus I have over 300 followers on Academia.edu. So I could not ask for much more -- since I am an independent researcher who is simply putting my thoughts online.

Next, I am a great believer in business cards. The cards should have your blog and your email address, plus another other web addresses you think are important such as WriteSpike, plus your phone number and physical address. You can control who gets your business card, so I would give a complete listing of contact information if you are trying to build a network.

Over time you will get some attention. You will have a mention here and be quoted in an article there. When this happens, keep a list of the links and also save a copy of the website page where you are mentioned. Web pages have a way of disappearing very quickly and once they are gone you won't be able to show that you were listed.

I like to save the URLs and text from such websites in a program I have used for years called TreePad. It works with just about any version of Windows and a PC computer but you should be able to find similar ones for your cell phone or Mac.
https://treepad-lite.en.lo4d.com/windows

With TreePad and other note-taking programs that allow you to enter info at random and then rearrange it, you can just paste in your URL with some text and later organize your mentions.

Another way to reach like-minded people is to join groups that are interested in the same things you are interested in. However, many of these groups take a dim view of self-promotion. One way to avoid this is to make intelligent comments and then conclude with a signature that lists your website or blog,

The key to publicity is to reach an audience through a variety of channels. When a person hears your name more than once and from two different sources, the odds of contacting you go up considerably.

You should also be aware of what is known as SEO or Search Engine Optimization. This means that you write and layout your blogs, for example, with SEO in mind. SEO is actually quite simple and common sense. Put the most important words in your headline and then sprinkle related words throughout your blog post or article. Use synonyms BUT avoid using the same word more than three times (even less) as that is seen as spam.

If you have a blog, for example, you can define your own address to that post (known as a permalink) with the most important words, for example.

If you put your SEO together properly, your blog or website will come up near the top when the particular words you have put together are entered into a search. If you use specific words that accurately describe who you are and your approach, then you will be reaching your target audience.

Most artists just want to create their art and not think about publicity or marketing. Yet all walks of life make demands that come with the territory but are difficult. What can I say? Get over it! If you want people to see your work, they will not beat a path to your door. You will have to actively go out and get their attention.

So if you get a chance to do a podcast, for example, do it and make sure you are not rushed or tired as you will make a bad impression.

I have one rule when I have been contacted by the media who often have called out of the blue at an inconvenient time.

When the media says jump, I jump. I basically put everything else aside and make that my first priority. As a result I have been interviewed on NPR (National Public Radio), my work was shown at important conferences in Milan, Italy, Aix-en-Provence, France, and Bucharest, Romania and my work was reviewed in a large newsstand print magazine.

Yet even with those wonderful events, my work is not well known. Many famous artists made publicity a major part of their effort -- which is how they became famous.