Yesterday, I acquired a new painting (pictured above) by artist Brian Blood and shared the news with the world via the following Tweet (on Twitter and Facebook):

Part of my motivation for tweeting about my new painting was selfish, of course.  There is definitely a narcissistic element to Twitter.  We're all shouting "look at me, look what I've done!"  (But isn't that partly why we create art as well?).

However, I had a more practical motivation too:  Brian is now an artist that I collect.  I have joined his Collector Clan.  That means that I want all sorts of things to happen now.  I want Brian to be successful.  I want other people to collect his works.  I want him to go on and be one of the most famous artists of our time and, someday, not only will I have a painting that I love, but all my friends will say, "wow dude, is that an original Brian Blood?"  And, I'll be able to hold my head high because I was so smart to acquire a Brian Blood back when I did....and all the ladies will want me, and all the guys will want to be me.....(OK maybe I'm exaggerating now, but you get the general idea).

So, what happened after I sent out the tweet?  Of course, several people clicked the link, enjoyed the image of the painting, and responded to me with messages such as:

The point is, that all these people following me viewed Brian Blood's artwork, probably many more than actually took the time to send me a response.  He got some exposure, got some web traffic,  Twitter and Facebook (where I posted the message) jumped well above Google as referring sites to his website for the day the Tweet appeared, and perhaps Brian picked up a newsletter subscriber or two.  Really, even if Brian got one serious prospect, it could make a huge difference in the long run.

Now the really important point here is this:  I was able to link directly to the artwork that I wanted to show. 

Do not underestimate that ability - I've already illustrated what people do with links:  We share them with each other.  We live in a "link economy."

Just so you'll understand how important this is, here's an example of what NOT to do:  There is a great painting by George Hallmark in the upcoming Night of Artists show in San Antonio.  Here, I'll provide a link to it.....oops....I can't provide a link for you. Sorry.  The Night of Artists website won't let me link directly to the painting I want to show you, so here's what you need to do (notice as you do the following that the address of the website in your browser never changes):


As you can see - that is far too complicated.  And far too much information to share on Twitter or Facebook.  The Night of Artists is leaving link juice on the table, big time. 

Fortunately, George hosts his website with our sister service, FASO, so here's a direct link to a similar painting, just in case you don't really want to deal with the six steps listed above:  http://georgehallmark.com/works/152897   

(By the way, The Night of Artists is a show that I enjoy attending, I hope they don't mind that I picked on them a little.  I chose them because they are a one-night type event and sell mostly in-person on that night, so the lack of linkable URLs likely doesn't affect them as much as most artists/organizations....plus they made a perfect illustration of my point....and remember they did get an incoming link from this blog post :-))

So, my long-suffering reader, my point is that we want to link to your artwork and share it with the world.....please let me link to your artwork, please?

Now, go change the world.

Sincerely,

Clint Watson
Software Craftsman and Art Fanatic

PS - Sharing services like blogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc are exploding.  The future of the online link-economy is rapidly gaining this new way of sharing/finding information.  Don't let your artworks be "invisible" - please make sure we can all link to them.  If you want an easy way to set up a site that allows such links, we encourage to give FASO a free try.

[* The actual tweet had a shortened bit.ly URL, but since this is a blog post I want Brian to get full Google link-juice for the link and I expanded it to the original URL]