A big thank you to all those artists who have given me their time to appear on ArtShow. It's my hope that as this channel grows, all the artists who have participated will continue to benefit from new viewers.
Questions, suggestions or comments: cstover@picturemaker.com
Artist Recommendations:
Should you have artists that you'd like to recommend to be on ArtShow, please scroll to the bottom of this page for the submission form.
Promotion:
Although I push out every video on all my social media accounts, linkedin, nextdoor, arts groups, email blasts and where ever I can promote it, the best audiences for your video come directly from the people who know you. This audience is most likely to like, share and subscribe from your video. Below are all the different ways we can promote the show together.
You can right click and save the ArtShow graphic above to use to help promote the show. You can post it on your website along with a direct link to your interview as well as social media and printed materials.
YouTube
First and foremost, if you have not done so already, it’s very important that you go to your video (once it goes live) on the ArtShow channel, like it, leave a comment and subscribe to the channel right from your video. Subscribing is always free. The algorithm that runs YouTube likes to see these things happen. The more comments, shares, likes and subscriptions your video gets means that the youtube algorithm will share it with more people. On my end, I make sure to reply to every comment that gets made on your videos as that too is counted by the algorithm.
Three things you should do to maximize getting youtube to share to a bigger audience:
- Watch all the way through (even if you just have it in the background). Youtube will put it out to more people by doing this. It will tag your video as having high retention.
- Leave a specific comment. Not just "Great!". If you mention something that was said in the video, youtube will tag your video as high engagement.
- As soon as your video starts playing, like it immediately. Youtube will see your video as worthy of high momentum.
Sharing: The button right below your video labeled share allows you to directly share your video on several platforms instantly. It also allows you to copy the address of the video so you can paste it into emails or other documents. This is one of the most useful and effective features that I use to promote the videos. I recommend that if you are sharing your video to your audiences, it's a good idea to encourage them to like, share and subscribe as well (sounds strange but adding this reminder actually does help).
Embed: One of the best features that youtube has is allows you to put your video directly onto your website. Right underneath your video there is a SHARE button. If you click that, one of the choices is for Embed. This is a little piece of code that allows you to put your video directly onto your website.
Clips: If you looking at your video, at the bottom right of the video you'll see the three dots button. Clicking on that gives a small menu where an option is "Clips". This allows you to make a small clip of your interview (up to 60 seconds) that you can then share on various platforms. If you've said something particularly witty or profound, this is a great way you can send people a clip of it rather than making them watch the entire video. This clip feature works very well with facebook, reddit and email.
Doing these sort of things on youtube can sometimes double or even triple the number of viewers it gets.
Make sure to like me on Facebook and I'll do the same if we're not already friends. Doing so means that when I post links to your interview, I'll be able to tag you so you'll know what I've done. There are actually 2 pages that you can friend.
- My personal page is here: https://www.facebook.com/craig.stover/
- There is also a page just for ArtShow: https://www.facebook.com/artistsstudios/
Facebook is one of the top ways in which traffic is sent to your videos. It plays well with Youtube and allows you to share direct links and thumbnails directly into your posts.
Aside from your own facebook posts, you might consider joining some of the thousands of art groups that are on the platform. There are groups for just about everything including local arts and specialty crafts. Some of these groups have thousands of members so they are very effective in getting the word out. I belong to a number of these groups and on average post to about 40 groups for every new interview I publish.
Make sure to follow me on Instagram and I'll do the same if we're not already following each other. Doing so means that when I post clips of your interview interview, I'll be able to tag you and invite you to be a collaborator. When you agree to a collaboration on Instagram, it means that the clip that I post will also be automatically be posted on your page as well. There are actually 2 profiles that you can follow.
- My personal page is here: https://www.instagram.com/stover_studio/
- There is also a page just for ArtShow: https://www.instagram.com/artshow_interviews/
Instagram is a very popular platform for artists. Unfortunately, it doesn’t play very well with youtube. It does not allow links within posts but you can put your direct link into your profile. That’s a bit helpful but any posting you do will need to tell people “link in bio”. Additionally, because Instagram is a square format, it makes it a bit difficult to create reels from your video since is would shrink the video down to where it becomes difficult to see.
After your interview goes live, I will make a short clip of the interview (about 60 sec.) and will post it to my instagram page that is specifically made for promoting ArtShow: https://www.instagram.com/artshow_interviews/
Once I post the clip, I'll both tag you and send you a confirmation to collaborate on the clip so that it shows up in the ArtShow feed as well as yours.
This platform has been changing over the past few years. Aside from being able to post to the feeds of those who you’re connected to, there are now many new LinkedIn groups you can join just like Facebook. I post to about 15 groups for each new interview. It’s not as robust and effective as Facebook but it still can count for upwards of 15-20% of external traffic to the channel.
Nextdoor
The Nextdoor (app) has been a positive surprise for me. If you don’t have an account, you can set one up as a neighbor or as a business (or both). I post to it for every new interview which gets about 500 views and a small stream of viewers (about 10%) who watch the interviews. The majority of posts on there are about neighborhood issues like porch pirates, car accidents and dog poop but I've found success by highlighting that these interviews are by local artists. Once people got used to the idea of seeing my posts about local artist interviews, people started to like the posts and some made the jump to youtube and subscribed.
Patch
I used to post to patch (it’s a local news aggregate but you can also post news evens as a neighbor. You can also post articles to it but you have to apply. I’ve been posting and writing articles about ArtShow on it but the number of people who then switch over to youtube is probably not worth the effort.
If you keep an email list for your studio announcements and such, please make sure to add me to it: cstover@picturemaker.com
If you keep an email list of people who are interested in you and your work (buyers, advisors, curators, etc.), this can be the most effective way of getting eyeballs on your video since it’s people who already are interested in you. If you are able to send people on your list a link to the video, we’d like to encourage you to tell them to both like and subscribe to the channel to help support it’s growth.
I have an email list of about 2K people in the arts in the Philadelphia region. Anyone who goes to my website can add themselves to this list from the homepage. I don't send out emails for every interview as it would be too much but rather I send out a sort of newsletter that usually highlights the last 4 or 5 interviews I've done. Unfortunately, you usually can't send out the video directly in your emails but you can post an image that is linked to your video.
Postcards
A simple ArtShow postcard has been produced (black/white) that has a QR code and room for a mailing address and a note. Should anyone want a bunch of them to distribute, just let me know and I can send you a packet of them. I’ve been looking to distribute these anywhere I can.
Studio Visits - Photos
If you invite me to visit your studio, I will take photos during my visit and post them on my socials with links to your interview. This is extremely effective and can really boost the number of people who watch your interview. I will also tag you when I post them so make sure to friend/like me on facebook and instagram. Just email me to set up an appointment.
Artist Recommendations
PLEASE USE THE FORM BELOW.
Artists who have appeared on ArtShow are asked to make recommendations for other artists they think would be good to have on the show. This is an optional. Please note that although I welcome your suggestions, I still need to vet the artists to make sure they fit the program. Also please note that not all artists that I reach outt to end up appearing on the show. A good number of artists decline or are unable to participate. Please do not contact any of your recommendations beforehand as I will not make a commitment to any artist without researching them first. Thank you very much for your recommendations. Make sure to subscribe to ArtShow so that if your recommendations do work out, you'll get notice of them.