How to Turn Your Art into a Movement | Master Self Promotion in 10 Minutes

How to promote your art business. If you're an artist, you're trying to get out there, you're trying to get known, you want people to buy your stuff, you've got to get out there and promote yourself. But how do you do it? Because most artists do a really bad job of promoting themselves. This came— a question that came in from one of my readers, Alison. She's an artist, and to summarize, she wrote this huge long email, but to summarize, she's feeling the pain. She's tried a lot of things, everything she can think of. She doesn't have a backup plan. This has to work for her. There's no Plan B. She doesn't have an idea for a software app or something else to make. This business has to work, and there doesn't seem to be a plan in place from anybody out there who can give her guidance on what to do. So Alison, I'm gonna give it my best shot. I've got a soft spot in my heart for artists because I love the work that you create. I've invested in a salsa dance school here in Toronto that's become one of the biggest in the world over a few years, and that's been exciting. And I wanna see artists flourish. The first part is understanding you've gotta do this yourself. And Alison is on board. She knows she's gotta do this herself. But for you, other artists, this is on you. It's not just you sitting in a studio creating work. You've gotta get out there and talk about what you're doing. And the good news is it's never been more fun and more easy to do it than today. And more fun, you might think, Evan, you're crazy. Fun. It's not fun, that's work. I don't want to do that, I just want to create. But the thing is, I want you to build a movement. Okay, I want people to associate your name with a word, with a feeling, something powerful. And when people are connecting with you, they're writing in to share how your work inspired them to do something. When people write to you and say how much you've changed their lives or opened their perspective, That makes you feel good. That makes you want to keep going. It makes you— it gives you strength to know that you're not alone. This is what saved me when I started making these videos. I was just talking to myself. Nobody was watching, and I got discouraged. But what kept me going, what keeps me going, is you guys. You guys watch these videos, you keep me going because you leave comments, you tell me you like it, you tell me I help inspire you. That gets me excited to keep going with my business. So as an artist, You need to start getting out there promoting your stuff so people know about it and can talk about you and tell you how much they love your work and keep you inspired. Now, how do you do that? Okay, step 1, the first thing you need to figure out is what do you stand for? Come up with, with something. This comes out with your art. As an artist, this should be easier for you than most people because your art— Allison here is a painter— your art makes people feel something. Every business should make a customer feel something. You have a leg up as an artist because your art, that's what it's all about. If your art is not making people feel something, then you're not doing a good job. You have to make people feel through your art. So I know you understand this. What are you trying to make people feel? Is it you make them feel calm? You make them feel angry? Make them feel depressed? You make them feel happy? You make them feel encouraged, inspired? What is it? What comes across through your art? Help explain that and then stand for that. So what I want you to do is think about your social media channels. Okay, I want you to open up a Twitter account, a Facebook account, and a blog. And I want you to share what this one word is that encapsulates what you do. What is it? What do you stand for? What do you want people to feel when they look at your art? It's not just looking at something beautiful. They should feel something. That's real art, right? That's what gets people excited and inspired. They look at art and they feel something. So what do you want people to feel about your art? And start sharing that. So be known as the artist who stands for this, who's creating a movement around this feeling. What is that? Nobody does this. This is your chance to stand out. Alongside sharing your art, your paintings, because that takes a long time, I want you to explain your art. Tell me why you created this. Tell me what inspired you to create this painting. What made you want to do this? Explain it in detail because a lot of people can't understand art. So break it down for me. Then I want you to also share things that are not related to your actual art but that still inspire you. So if you're all about calm, for example, okay, you're all about calm. I want you to share your pictures, your paintings that are about calm. I want you to share how you've made that calm painting, all the thought that went behind it. And then I want you to share other things, quotes, pictures, passages, books that are related to calm that inspire you. Because what I want you to do is be at the head of this calm movement that you're creating. Let's take another one. Say you're doing Empowerment, okay? I've never seen your paintings, so I don't know what they're all about, but say it's empowerment, okay? You want people to look at your paintings and feel empowered. So empowerment's your word. Everything that you spread on social media is gonna be about empowerment. It's gonna be your paintings, it's gonna be how you did it, it's gonna be quotes that inspire you, it's gonna be books that inspire you, it's gonna be other people who paint or who talk about empowerment that you're gonna put up. Why not put one of your paintings with a quote by Nelson Mandela on the front? And share that. You want people to share that. And when people will spread the message for you and they'll see that powerful quote and they'll look at the painting and say, "Who made that painting?" And partner up with people who believe in the same thing. If your paintings were all about belief, partner with me 'cause I'm all about belief. I love sharing stuff that's about belief. I would share your art. If your painting was about belief and you came to me, I would share it because we're automatically on the same page. So whatever you stand for, connect with those people who believe the same thing and they'll help you share it. Here's an example, okay? I recently commissioned an artist to do some artwork for me. I've created a new series of guides and one of the guides is on thinking big. I want entrepreneurs to think bigger, to not just settle for these little deals but go after bigger deals and believe in themselves. So I wanted an artist to create a beautiful painting that would go across the top of the page with digital art that encapsulated the thought process, the feeling of thinking big. And I had a heck of a time finding an artist to do it. Imagine, so I'm typing in like thinking big artist, you're searching for this stuff, nothing comes up. This is your chance, people are looking for this stuff. People who want to commission an artist for a certain feeling that they're trying to get— why do I— why am I commissioning an artist? Because I want a feeling. That's why people are going to hire you. They want a feeling to come across. If you're doing it for a boardroom, if you're doing it for some software program, if you're doing it for somebody's home, they want a feeling. What's that feeling? People are searching for this. They're looking for you. I was looking for an artist that would help me create something around thinking big. Maybe that's you, but artists do not do a good job of promoting themselves. So that could be you. And you rely on— there's— it's hard, okay, because you're creating this stuff, you're creating all this great content around this movement you're building, but at the start nothing happens, right? At the start of Believe, for me, nothing happened. It was just me. It was only me. I was talking to myself. But slowly people picked up on it because it was powerful. And because you can feel the passion that comes across in everything I'm sharing. And you can do videos or not, it doesn't matter, but what you're putting out is passionate around that keyword that you believe in. So what is it? Share it with me. Because people are searching for that. And they will contact you and say, "I love everything you're doing. I would love for you to create a painting for me around this theme." Here's my vision, and they'll hire you. And it may seem not concrete enough for you. It may seem like I've tried that and it's not working. Social media doesn't work. I've landed a ton of great business from social media, but only once I started to narrow my focus, once I started talking about belief. If you look at my channel, I have videos about believe, I have pictures about believe, I have my own quotes about believe, I have other famous entrepreneur quotes about believe, I have inspiring memes that are going out about believe. Everything is about believe. If you love believe, if you believe in believe, you'll love my channel. If you don't, then you won't. But I stopped trying to be everything to everybody and started sharing my own stuff and other people's stuff that I found inspiring around believe. You gotta do the same thing for yourself. Create that calendar where you're sharing your own art, your own quotes, your own thought process, but also bringing in other people. And you're building a movement here, something that people will attract and share. They're not just gonna share your painting in isolation. I hope that makes sense. You know, if you wanna create this channel and post a few things on it, let me know what you're standing for. Send it to me and I'll review it because it's so important, and it'll make you feel good. I'll make you feel like you're doing something beyond yourself. You're not just painting for yourself anymore. You have an audience, a community, something powerful you're trying to impact in the world. That'll drive you. Believe. For those of you watching, like the video, please give it a thumbs up below. It always makes me want to do more, and I'd love to hear from you if you have a question, you want me to go in more detail here about this topic, let me know below. You want something else for your business, leave it in the comments, I'll make a video response. Thank you so much and I'll see you soon.