twitter for artists

Tina Mammoser is a London artist I know through Twitter. She just posted an insightful rumination on the usefulness of Twitter to her as an artist, and how this and other new media might alter how artists live, work, and communicate.

The bulk of the post is a copy of an email she sent to Alyson Stanfield, an artist business coach who I also follow through her blog. Alyson has just written a very interesting book called I’d Rather Be In The Studio: An Artist’s No-Excuse Guide to Self-Promotion (yes, I have a copy if you’d like to borrow it).

Check out the conversation Alyson started with her readers last week when she asked what they thought about Artist Blogs…

So Tina wanted to explain to Alyson what she sees in Twitter. Here’s a bit of what she said:

The benefits of Twitter for me have been indirect I suppose. I’ve gotten very interested in social media projects through it, by following a few interesting people, including Beth Dunn who blogs about social media for small businesses and non-profits. I’ve found several people whose blogs I now follow (Seth Godin and Chris Brogan) through Twitter.

I think with all the Web 2.0 sites there is a growth curve, it’s about nurturing relationships rather than directly measurable marketing–>benefit results. So it takes time. But as Katherine Tyrrell once told me (she runs MakingaMark.blogspot.com) it took a couple years for her blog to hit a sort of critical mass and suddenly be popular and a place artists responded as well as read.

I admit that I mix personal and business on Twitter, but I’m very comfortable with that. That’s what interested me about your topic today. The online world, in my life, has been almost as important as “real” life. At various points in my life there has been little separation. I realise the rest of the world is still getting used to this idea, hence the question about blogging.

She goes on to say:

Finding the right people to follow is tricky, but I started but a couple people and looked at their followers and kept ones that were interesting. I, like many others, do also share personal notes but that’s a bit inevitable with the chatty instant format of Twitter. So if you want to see my links to blog entries with business advice for artists you might also have to hear that I dyed my hair purple one evening. Why the mix? Because it’s a human interface. On Twitter we’re not just businesses and marketers but actual people too.

If you don’t already follow Tina on Twitter, she’s tina_m. Here’s a link to her profile.

And her blog, by the way, is an excellent example of an artist’s blog. She posts thoughts on all sorts of things, not just her art, but she also links to her Twitter updates (so you can get to know her better), her Flickr account (so you can see more of her art), and her Etsy shop (so you can buy her art).

What do you think?