In my opinion, the easiest and quickest way to attract art blog readers and to develop an audience for an art blog is through the use of Social Media. Through the continuous and proper use of social networking, an artist can create a following that will not only help drive traffic to their art website but over time, will also help the artist to establish, develop and maintain their brand.

If targeted properly, social networks such as Facebook, Google+, Linkedin, Twitter, StumbleUpon, and Pinterest can provide the art blogger with the exposure to help increase the chance and the opportunity to attract new viewers to their art blog.

Here are 5 ways an artist can attract readers to their art blog through the use of social media;

1. Create a blog through WordPress.org: Create and develop an art blog by using the WordPress.org platform. Why is this? WordPress allows the blog writer to optimize their posts for search engines (SEO). Without this ability for SEO, there is little chance of having any blog posts found and read by anyone.

SEO is achieved through the descriptive use of titles, meta tags, permalinks, and keywords when creating posts with art industry keywords. These are keywords which interested people use when searching the internet in order to find art related information. Also, did I mention that WordPress is free? With WordPress, the only other thing that will be needed is a company to host the blog. To a non-technical person this may seem intimidating, but with WordPress, there are help sections and help forums which provide you with instructions on setup, installation, maintenance and troubleshooting a WordPress blog.

2. Create a Facebook and Google+ Pages for your Art Blog: Both social networks make it very easy now to set up and create business or fan pages through and as a part of your personal social network page. Create the most attractive, complete and personalized blog page that you can. Any blog articles, art activity or art events that the artist is associated with can be posted on these pages. In addition, the artist can also share this content back through the personal page of this social media to their connections, friends, and networks too.

3. Link Your Blog, Website and All Social Media Networks Together: The art blogger now has the ability to connect the various social networks together when posting their updates and posts. While posting an article on Facebook, the post can be automatically shared with Twitter, which in turn then shares it with Linkedin and so on.

Feeds can be created to and from other blogs and websites which the artist owns and operates, along with any other social media sites, whereby any blog article is automatically updated as well. The ability to interconnect websites and social networks makes it very easy to distribute content and to create an immediate “buzz” with any of your art blog activity.

4. Have a Share Feature for Each Post and Page: The ability to share any post or page that is created in your art blog is absolutely necessary for success in finding new readers. If someone reads and likes your post, they can immediately share this with their networks and connections, thus expanding the reach and exposure of that article. WordPress provides free plugins that make installing this “share” feature very easy. The same holds true of having “Like”, “+Share” or “inShare” buttons on your posts and pages as well. Make it easy for readers to share your content with their networks by having these share features and buttons on each post and page.

5. Create a Triberr Group to Maximize the Power of Sharing: Triberr is a social media platform that allows groups of people and professionals, who have related interests and goals the ability to share their content to a large group. The idea and goal of the group are to have the members share each member’s article posts and content with their own social networks. A group of 10 art bloggers could easily have 50,000+ followers (collectively) on Twitter and by sharing the group’s blog content, a Triberr Group Member has a reach far beyond what they could ever hope to achieve on their own. Besides sharing on Twitter, Triberr also provides for Facebook Likes, StumbleUpon Submits, Google+ Share and Linkedin Sharing.

Today, an artist has the ability to share their art content, art articles, art activity and art events across social networks and between related websites. If properly set up, this ability to share can be an automatic event, which will not take away from an artist’s time to create and market their art. To me, this is the quickest and easiest way for an art blog to be exposed to a broad group of interested readers, who in turn will also be introduced to the artist’s website and their art.