Oops! From RIPizzo on Flickr

With all the mainstream media’s attention on social media, there are a lot of eager people jumping into the game without knowing what they are doing.  While that is one way to learn, and don’t get me wrong, I am a huge advocate of learning through experimentation, it is also useful to learn from other people’s mistakes.  Here are some common mistakes that I see every day:

1. Assuming Content Will Build an Audience

Building an audience has three basic steps: (1) The initial hook, (2) Drawing in with engaging content, and (3) Bringing them back with the promise of more.

This takes lots of time and lots of work.  No one just publishes a book and instantly becomes famous (except maybe JK Rowling), and content on the web is not different.  People aren’t going to look at your work just because online content is easier to access.

True, good content is by far the most important thing to have when trying to build an audience, but it by no means will build you an audience.

Just three days after filling the house at Boston’s Symphony Hall, where averaged priced seats run at $100 a pop, world renowned violinist Joshua Bell performed 6 classical pieces for 43 minutes at the L’Enfant Plaza metro stop in Washington, DC as part of an experiment organized by The Washington Post.  Out of the 1,097 people that walked by, only one person stopped to listen to his music.

What does this tell you?  You won’t find success with talent alone.

2. Sacrificing Usability for Design

Artists generally want a unique looking web presence.  We don’t like templates, we don’t like anything mainstream and we don’t like being forced to look like something.  That is why I love artists, because we reject the status quo and innovate instead.  But what we have to be careful of is pushing the envelope too far.  If you are going to go with something unconventional, make sure you still have the 6 Elements of a Killer Website.

3. Not Using Analytics

What do you want out of being in social media?  Blog subscribers?  Traffic?  More sales?  Don’t just blindly trust that your practices are actually helping you reach your goals.  Whatever you decide your metrics to be, make sure you are tracking them.  Google Analytics is a great tool for tracking progress (and it has easy integration with WordPress).

4. Inconsistent Branding on Multiple Platforms

Artists want to be as prolific as possible, which means being present on all the various social media platforms.  These various profiles should not be managed as separate entities, but rather as a comprehensive representation of you as an artist.  While different platforms have different purposes, a viewer should have a similar experience and be able to access similar content on all of your social media profiles.

Last week, I showed you some artists that have great homes on the web. As an artist, it’s important to have a web presence because it is often the most effective way to connect with potential clients and fans.

No one cares how good you are if they don’t know who you are. For this post, I collaborated with my colleague and friend (oh, and brother), Teague Hopkins, MBA student at Babson’s Graduate School of Business to show creative-minded people how to get their own website.

Plot of Land

Just like you need a plot of land to build a house on, the physical space where you store the files that make up your website is your web host. Some domain registrars also offer web hosting, and while the integration may be appealing, it can make it more difficult to switch if you should have problems with either in the future. Web hosts come in a variety of flavors, but most small sites just getting started will choose shared hosting. Shared hosting simply means the web host is using one server to host multiple sites. This makes it less expensive.

By Olof on Flickr

A couple of businesses that offer shared hosting are BlueHost and DreamHost. Shared hosting for either of these runs about $6/month, and may require a one- or two-year contract. While both of these companies offer unlimited bandwidth and storage space, you should check these two numbers if you choose to find a different host. Storage or hosting space is the equivalent of our square footage, and simply governs the amount of stuff that you can put on your web host.

Bandwidth doesn’t have a direct analog in our physical building analogy, but in talking about web hosts it is a measure of the amount of data transferred to and from your web host in a given month. A large number of people downloading large files from your website will use a lot of bandwidth.

Once you have both a host and a domain name, you can log into your registrar’s control panel to point your domain to your new host.

Merchandise

Once your building (CMS) is up and running, the last step is to move in. Add content to your site through your CMS and check out your new website! Tell all your friends. Add links to your website to your profiles on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

There are limitless possibilites for what to do next, but this is the extent of this primer. If you have questions about anything you read here, please leave a comment and we’ll try to answer it or point you to some more comprehensive resources. I hope you found this introduction helpful and send me an email once you’re moved in!