Americans for the Arts

After spending 15 years in corporate marketing, Shayda Windle started her own creative services business, SW Creative Services, offering content creation, copywriting, and marketing campaign planning and execution to small business owners all over the country. Passionate about helping other entrepreneurs achieve their dreams of doing what they love—creating—Windle also is a freelance writer and has had articles featured in Plein Air Magazine, the Fairfax County Times, Loudoun County Magazine, and several online media outlets including Modern Marketing Today and Government Technology Insider. 

At your core, your organization and its mission haven’t changed. You want to make your patrons happy and continue to share your love of the arts with them. Reframing your image is a simple way to refresh your understanding of who your patrons are so you can better respond to their needs and ensure you’ll remain a vibrant part of their arts community.

If, as arts administrators, we cover our eyes and believe that we just need to hold fast to all that we’ve known about our organizations, our communities, and our audiences until the fog lifts, we risk missing opportunities to engage audiences old and new even as our communities are changed in this period of pandemic and civic unrest.

Social media, without a doubt, is an essential tool in marketing—especially when it comes to selling artwork. It can be overwhelming to determine how to use it to build your brand as an artist, but it doesn't have to be.

As we ring in 2020, it’s the perfect time for a little hindsight (get it?)—so let’s get the year started with a look back at the most-viewed ARTSblog posts from our last trip around the sun. I know what you’re thinking: “It’s 2020 … you still have a blog?” We do, dear reader! Competition for online attention is fierce, and most virtual conversations (civil or not) seem to be happening in the comments of social media posts—and yet, ARTSblog clearly is still a valued place for our field to share experience and expertise as we navigate the varied complexities of what it means to work in the arts. There is no better place to learn from your peers, whether you’re an artist, administrator, educator, city planner, arts marketer, or countless other careers that intersect with the arts—and we’re grateful for all of the writers and readers who continue to make ARTSblog both a vibrant and practical space.

The 2019 National Arts Marketing Project Conference in Miami, FL was my first arts administration conference and I had a wonderful time! As an individual artist cultivating diverse audiences as well as an entrepreneur serving clients across the arts ecosystem, #NAMPC was the most ideal professional development for both my artistic and administrative growth.