myglassart.org Social network for glass artists and fans

Do you want to get your glass art noticed? If you do you’ll have to learn that the way people get their news today has greatly changed from just a few years ago. Did you know that 67% of people today get their news on the web?! You must get your message to them somehow, but how?
Nourot Glass Studio, based in Benicia since 1974, has a blog and a website and has been making art glass for over 34 years. They use the website as a (flash animation) web business card only because the culture of the Craft Gallery Community in the United States does not favor individual artists doing their own marketing. The blog is for communication with everyone: collectors, industry people, buyers, and the news media. It is a great tool for mixing it up publicity wise.

The aim of "Benician Glass" on BlogSpot.com is to get people talking about the actual glass arts. It has news that is relevant to Nourot’s blown glass studio and info about visiting the actual Nourot Glass Gallery in Benicia, California as well. Press releases for Nourot’s hand blown art glass are largely a thing of the past. Ones mailed by snail mail (USPO) never get covered and this article will tell you why.

Composite news sites and Frabel’s myglassart.com are two kinds of the best ways to tell the story of your glass studio and your glass art.
The print media is dying. Reporters are bored today. They get in one day what you get in a month in your in box! What they get are self-published releases, reports and blogs, powerpoint presentations, and audio and video cds. Every day 30 times what you get. Most of them do not find the time to read even a fraction of them. At Nourot Gallery it is a chore to get through the daily emails we get to find the customer communications and the orders, requests for tours and custom commissions. In other words, the important stuff. If there was 30 times as much, it would overwhelm the staff for sure.

Your release has to scream its message to them. “Make your titles controversial almost to the point of being weird, or rude”, says Michael Hart, speaker at PRnewswire.com. He warns, “Did you realize your releases when received at every news room, news service, and trade publication are put into the bins in the hallway, just like you have for your kid's toys?” Just like that. Seldom will a reporter bother to go through the bin to locate a story. Reporters want to discover you on their own and will find other easier ways. They may be picked up by the guy who works the news service on the weekend but they disappear and are never heard of again. Even if they get read the reporter then has to sell the bit to his or her editor.

Composite sites like Boxxet and myglassart.com are examples of “Orphan Media” (not owned by a large entity). “This is where your audience is. This is where you need to be,” says Michael Hart. You need to put your information in as many places as you can. Use You Tube, MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, and the new composite sites.

“PR” stands for page rank! Not press release. When you get on a news site on the web on one of these composite sites, your own site’s page rank is 100 times more important than when it is just in your blog! Google has a service called Google alerts. These are inventoried news stories based on the keywords you enter for your Google alert. Nourot Glass has had an “art glass” alert for months and there are too few stories which are relevant to the term because there is hardly any material for the crawler to pick up. Often the word glass comes up under this alert when in reference to a skyscraper! This is absurd considering the amount of interest in the glass arts these days and the vast number of glass making artists out there. Nourot Glass invites you to begin adding to the inventory of stories on the web about us: the glass artists of the 21st Century. Go to www.benicianglassbynourot.blogspot.com to see what we have done so far. "Benician Glass" is our new moniker because, guess what? Even after 34 years almost nobody knows our name (apologies to our many collectors here).

When you make a release about your glass art, use the keywords that appear on your site that you use to describe you and your work. Keyword rich releases will get picked up more often by the “crawlers” Google uses to create the content for the alert. Go to blogger.com and do an easy blog that has daily posts that are relevant to your glass art. It is so easy and has a great interface with Picasa so you can easily share your images. If you are able, go to You Tube, MySpace and the like and set up accounts.

Remember when adding content about you that Google alerts are one favorite way for reporters to find news they will write about. The other way reporters like to find stories today is by using “inventoried news”. This means all news services share a group of stories with their sister publications! Once one Trade Publication or a service uses your content is likely that a sister service will pick it up. People do what is easiest and the news reporting business is no different than any other.

So when you get a chance to write a story about you,think of spreading it in the social media, the orphan media and your own blog. Do Google Alerts for your keywords and your art work’s titles. Keep at it until the world sits up and takes notice.

Thanks for reading.
Ann Corcoran
Nourot Glass Studio
675 East H Street
Benicia, California USA
Blog: Benician Glass on BlogSpot www.benician glassbynourot.blogspot.com
Site: www.nourot.com
Facebook: Ann C. Nourot (friend me!)
Cell 707-718-3603