All about my Zazzle and Society6 journey, including graphics design hints and tips, effective promotional tools and showcasing some great products from me and other storekeepers.
Sunny Meadow Fun Park. Edition of 50, 590 x 590mm.
Skhayascraper. Edition of 20, 590 x 840mm.
Langa Longer Shopping Mall. Edition of 50, 590 x 630mm.
Bridge Below Starry Skies. Editions of 50, 590 x 490mm.
Gugulethu Gables. Edition of 50, 590 x 590mm.
Glory to Gold. Edition of 10, 940 x 770mm.
Diepsloot dignity tower. Edition of 50, 590 x 590mm.
Con/struct is the latest body of work from Cape Town-based artist, designer, and photographer Justin Plunkett who uses his own original photography to digitally construct fictional landscapes and structures. He shares via an artist statement:
Con/Struct is an exploration into the themes of empowerment and imagination. Plunkett, using his own photography, has created new juxtaposed environments that encourage questioning and exploration: inviting the debate around how marketing- induced aspiration and perceived value can empower but can also corrupt, how it can be both perverse and create beauty. At the same time, at the core of his work, he honours and applauds ingenuity and the creative spirit.
The new works were recently on view at the Cabinet, and you can see more on his website. (via Designboom)
There are plenty of things you can do to keep your post current on social media, ensuring it is optimised for SEO, how to repurpose it for different channels, how to keep readers on your blog once your post is published, and how to extend your ideas for the future. It was a week packed with information, and plenty of takeaways for you at home. Let’s have a look at what we covered, and we’d love to hear your feedback on the ones you think you might like to try (or ones you feel as though didn’t quite work in your situation).
Darren wrote extensively about where you can post your posts on social media to be in the right information stream for your readers. He broke down the choice of social media to what kind of time you have to spend, where the majority of your readers are, what suits your content best, and where your competitors might be. He explained how a rhythm to sharing is important, and outlined how to do this for maximum return. He gave great tips for sharing on Twitter and G+, and the kinds of resharing he does after the initial push. Which tip resonated with you?
Rand Fishkin reminded us all that content can stay current after its inital social media push by optimizing it for search. He explained how fast your post can die if not supported in the first instance with good SEO, by paying attention to keyword research, the best way to go about finding a title and what kind of information to include in body content, and the best ways of reaching out to your network to get your content seen by the right people. I loved the presentation he included called “How To Earn Traffic Without Selling Your Soul” – something to think about if you feel as though optimising and keywords take away from the beauty of writing from the heart to connect with your readers. Did it have an impact on your thoughts about it?
Repurposing content isn’t just re-promoting your posts on social media, as Darren explains. It’s about changing up your content for different media streams, and for the different interests for your readers. It heightens your search result rankings, and readers can also connect with your work more deeply. Of course, there are risks present, and Darren outlines those, and he also gives his best advice for how to repurpose your content for the best results. There are some solid tips and concrete examples – which ones do you think you’ll try?
Day four was all about keeping readers excited and wanting to engage after you’ve optimised your post for SEO, published it to all the right channels, and even repurposed it for different reader needs. I broke it down into site design, reader comments and how to interact with them for the best results, and what you can do off your blog to drive traffic back to your posts. Everything from responding to as many of your readers as you can, being useful, sparking conversations between readers, to having a clear design, making commenting a breeze, and returning the favour of a comment on someone else’s blog. I’m sure at least one of those tips would be successful if you used them today – which one will it be?
Extend Your Ideas With Future Blog Posts:
Darren explains the problem he is seeing with current sites focusing on curated content, and how sensationalist headlines will only get you so far. He outlines the best tips to make you stand out from the crowd – how to go deeper with information, and how to provide genuine, interesting, useful content. He tells us how to find future post ideas in the post you’re currently writing, and how to extend previous posts you’ve written for a new readership. What is something you can adopt in your daily writing practise to help your information go further?
We’d love to hear your thoughts!
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
Theme Week Roundup: Which Tip Will You Put into Practise?
Technological mandala 30. Electronic components, copper wire, paper, 122 cm x 122 cm, 2013.
Technological mandala 30, detail
Technological mandala 27. Electronic components, copper wire, paper, 150cm x 150 cm, 2013.
Technological mandala 15. Electronic components, copper wire, paper, wood frame, 80 cm x 80 cm, 2014.
Technological mandala 34. Electronic components, copper wire, paper, wood frame, 76 cm x 76 cm x 7 cm, 2014.
Multimedia artist Leonard Ulian (previously here and here) has a number of new mandalas and wrapped books created using a variety of soldered radio and computer components. The mandala is traditionally known as a spiritual and ritual symbol in both Hinduism and Buddhism meant to represent the universe, but through his deep interest in how systems can be applied to the process of art making, Ulian has adopted mandala patterns to create symmetrical networks. The artist most recently had work on view at The Flat, and you can see much more on Ulian’s website. (via Beautiful Decay)
