Free Internet Marketing Techniques for Artists

There are a wealth of opportunities to market your artwork online for free, and today, you have more tools than ever to grow your creative portfolio and career. With marketing tools such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, and Basic SEO, you have a prime opportunity to get your work in front of potential art patrons, gallery owners, online magazines, and design firms. Internet marketing also lets you blend your creativity with advertising techniques so you can create your own compelling marketing strategies. To get started on free digital marketing right away, apply these tricks that every artist should know.

Social media is the most powerful tool in your marketing toolbox. After completing a new painting, illustration, or sculpture, snap a photo of it with your smartphone and post it on Instagram for immediate online exposure. Instagram is an image-based social media network, so consistently posting compelling visual content with descriptive hashtags will help attract more followers and inspire digital engagement. It can even be synced with your Facebook and Twitter accounts to reach more art enthusiasts. You can also use Instagram to give people an inside look into your unique creative process and document your art show experiences as well.

Like Instagram, Pinterest is another image-based social network that’s popular with Etsy sellers, fashion designers, and visual artists. Since its debut, Pinterest has proven itself to be a powerful marketing tool for small businesses. Many people use Pinterest to window shop, giving visual artists another free opportunity to get in front of potential customers. In fact, consumer studies show that active Pinterest users, on average, have higher purchasing power and are thus more likely to interact with brands directly through Pinterest.

Signing up for Pinterest is quick and easy, and you can start pinning and connecting with your potential audience in just minutes. Create boards to organize your pins and help tell your story to visitors. You can create multiple Pinterest boards for printmaking, collages, jewelry, or illustration for example. To expand your networking opportunities even more, join community boards that will let you pin your artwork to hundreds or even thousands of other community members. All these marketing opportunities are available for free. However, you can also enhance your Pinterest strategy by investing in the “Buyable Pins” program which allows users to buy products directly from the popular social network.

Tumblr has been a haven for online artists for nearly a decade. Over time, this simple blogging community has become a powerful marketing vehicle for creative minds. Many of today’s viral GIF animators, writers, and illustrators were discovered on Tumblr, and the site continues to attract more emerging artists to showcase their work. There are countless communities and online magazines on Tumblr to help you connect with others, post your work, and stay updated on the current online art scene. Plus, you can even add multiple targeted hashtags to your Tumblr posts to gain more traction in the site’s organic search.

Tumblr is free to use as well, and the creative social media network intends to stay that way, despite its firm stance on not using third-party advertising to drive revenue. Unlike Facebook or Twitter, you won’t find sidebar ads or promoted posts on Tumblr. Not only does the site shun online ads, Tumblr also doesn’t allow its members to incorporate advertising programs like Adsense into their Tumblr blogs either. Tumblr is all about the content, and you can choose from a high-quality selection of free, functional, and attractive blog themes that aren’t cluttered with distracting ads.

Knowing basic search engine optimization (SEO), can help increase your visibility in Google and other major search engines. SEO isn’t as complicated as it may seem. It involves the research and incorporation of specific search terms into your website and online marketing campaigns. But hold off before hiring an expensive SEO marketing firm to do the work for you. Fortunately, you can do basic keyword research and SEO implementation yourself, and for free.

There are a many paid keyword research tools on the market, but you can do your own SEO keyword research with Google’s tools. To start, think about the types of keywords your target audience might use to find your style of artwork. Once you start typing your ideas into Google’s search bar, keyword suggestions will automatically appear in the bar’s drop-down menu. Record these keyword findings and continue to generate more suggestions by simply changing the main keyword in the search bar.

To find more keyword suggestions in less time, you can use Google’s Keyword Planner to generate pages of suggestions. You will need to register for an AdWords account, which also is free, and you need not pay for an AdWords campaign to take advantage of the Keyword Planner. Not only can you generate more keyword suggestions with this tool, but you can also view monthly search volume data for each keyword you generate. After creating a list of relevant keywords to use, incorporate them into your blog, social media posts, and homepage content to increase your visibility in search engines.

Internet marketing doesn’t have to be out of reach. Marketing is itself creative, giving you an exciting opportunity as an artist to get your work noticed online. You also don’t need an MBA or an expensive firm to get the job done either. With the help of research and free online tools, you can become your own art marketer and create effective and clever strategies. Social media and basic SEO research is just the start of your online marketing potential. Try these beginner methods today to boost your art career!