If you are trying to connect, then your art depends on someone else. Here’s the issue with that: You can’t control others’ reactions. All you can control is what you create, and deploy, and how. Then it will be up to two things:
- The strength of your work.
- The reach of your network.
Your work has to be good. It has to be compelling. If it depends on others, then it has to be remarkable enough to share. Ask yourself as objectively as you can, “would I share this?” People share things because of what it says about themselves, more so than your art itself.
There is no marketing engine strong enough to propagate your work as far as you want it to reach. If you want connection, you need other people to carry your ideas. There are two things about your content that are required:
- It’s compelling enough to share. Your content helps a user say something about themselves that they couldn’t do as well on their own. The Greeting Card effect. The Mix Tape effect.
- It’s easy to share. The digital world changed this completely. Printed books, vinyl LPs—any physical product—GOT IN THE WAY of the propagation of ideas. The Hegemony of the Copy.* If I own this book, you don’t. You have to purchase it yourself, or borrow mine. Digital is different, obviously.
Consider your users. How do you make this EASY for them to share? What kinds of things do they share? How do they talk to one another, and when? What tools do they use? Where do they congregate?
Give them short, shareable pieces of content. Content about your content, or meta content. Teasers or trailers, if you will. Things that make it easy for others to tell your story for you. People won’t trust you to tell your own story, but they will trust others to tell your story. There’s no reason that you can’t help them with that.
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*The Hegemony of the Copy: I love this phrase, which I think is attributed to Kevin Kelly, Out of Control.
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