Is Content Really King in the Blogosphere?

It's been an unusual day with Tampa's Gasparilla Festival craziness, and photo issues with my Google Plus accounts. After the parade, spent several hours researching and troubleshooting; deleted one of my two Plus accounts, still can't see photos on Plus or Gmail. Blog posts are okay, but my profile picture is that hideous blue lady silhouette in some image search results.

Reading Word Press Blogs to get new perspective on art blogging topics for fun, excellence, and for some bloggers, profits. Not seeing much about unpleasant surprises technically, but a lot about social networking impacts on blogging. I found a very worthwhile short post on highly rated Copyblogger about the myth of content being king - Jonathan Morrow's phrase- and why we don't get the links we expect relative to the effort we put into our posts. "If you want links now, you need to be more than great. You need to be connected." No Links to Your Great Content Blogs  

The blogosphere is changing at warp speed as Facebook and Google Plus battle for our booty, Mates. SEO may not be as relative as it once was when we're totally integrated through Google, or Facebook, or the next biggest, greatest wunderkinds to seize control of the web. Hence, my concern about my Plus photo problem resolution--I depend on images for my rankings. I'm not in the top bloggers, and not focused on  generating ad income. My Google dedication and dependence, coupled with Facebook and Twitter, works very well for my objective--promoting my art, not myself. It's professional, not a dating site.

Arrrgh, Ye Olde Lady Pirate

No content king post material about this photo, but it's interesting anyway. Gasparilla, mostly myth himself, has been celebrated by Tampa's parade for over a hundred years. Jose Gaspar, Pirate The "invasion" of the pirates, complete with canon fire from the floats, and beads being hurled through the air by picture-perfect pirates was a great success.A good time was had by all today.

Just look at the beads these gals are packing. Note they're not tossing their beads the way all-male Krewes do. Hold on to that bling, girls!






Art blogging is an art in itself and takes time and effort. Of course content matters, or we're like the graffiti artist scribbling on trains that pass through fields and country roads. No one see's those artistic words. We must get our images seen, or they won't sell, and we're left with nothing but plastic beads.

Please share your social networking problems, resolutions, and any pleasant experiences and benefits of changes.
 
Comments are always encouraged. If you're following interesting blogs, feel free to comment or post those links here, too. 


All the best,

Gail Kent
Gail Kent Studio

Find me or my work at the following addresses:
Gail-Kent.artistwebsites.com 
 Twitter -  Twitter.com/@Gail_Kent,  and Facebook -  www.facebook.com/GailKentStudio
www.etsy.com/people/gailkentstudio
https://sites.google.com/site/gailkentstudios

How's Your Google+ Experience Working Out?

Do we really need another Social Network account?

Today, I joined the Google+ club by creating my page.  Gail Kent Google+ Page
I resisted until I began having exchanges with other artists who are using Google+ and expect me to return a plus if they plus me. We're already Facebook-trained with "favorite or like me and I'll return the favor and like you, too." Not that I have anything against Google, my source for everything. My hesitancy had to do with time.

Does this sound like your online presence? 

In addition to all the general reading, e-mailing, shopping that I do online, I have the five websites I use daily: Google Sites art website, an FAA hosted art website, Facebook Artist page, Twitter for news feeds, and this blog on Google's Blogger.

Then there's my new domain gallery site under construction using Word Press on my domain host iPage, and an Etsy store account. And, I have Digg and Flickr accounts for art posts, all my financial accounts that I post to and comment on, and several e-mail accounts to separate all the personal, artist, and commentary stuff.  YouTube is in the future for tutorials, as well.

Picnic Island, Tampa

I'm a painter. I'm not in any technical field and I don't have any staff or consultants to help me with these things. I'm guessing most artists managing their own web profile are also one-man shows trying to make the best decisions to show and sell their art. It's sink or swim time in the Google+ stream in South Tampa.




The Google+ stream is easy to use, growing a circle is easy, but somehow they re-named my page and then I could no longer manage the site. I setup my page as Gail Kent Art Studio with my photo, 17 pictures - looked good. Then after a few searches, I returned to find my page was re-named Gail Kent and all the photos were no longer visible and an album of 47 of my blog photos was listed but not accessible. Re-loading the profile photo wasn't allowed. Trying to upload any picture is now a problem in this blog - they don't show on the upload screen. Headache!  I sent a feedback to Google about the plus issue, which stated they don't answer feedbacks, but try to implement any general changes for the benefit of all users. Huh?

I'm not sure where this is going and hoping Google will fix all the problems that I've experienced in creating my page. I believe I used a pseudonym (business name) which shouldn't have caused a problem. Google+ Pseudonyms. I'll hold off installing +1 buttons for now.

Port Tampa

If all glitches can't get worked out, BIG problem
having Gail Kent Art Studio as Gail Kent on Google+:

I don't do personal as public on-line, just business goes on-line, which brings up another new issue. This link 'splains a lot: Google Policies. Everything is now so integrated that I'm getting a little nervous about all the +1 buttons I'm pressing building some sort of Google generated profile that isn't at all me. When online, unlike corporations,  I am not a person! I am a professional website. Decisions, decisions.


Please post your Google+ experience comments, good and not so good, will be helpful to everyone facing this decision.
Comments are always encouraged. If you're following interesting blogs, feel free to comment or post your links here, too.

All the best,

Gail Kent
Gail Kent Studio

Find me or my work at the following addresses:
Gail-Kent.artistwebsites.com 
 Twitter -  Twitter.com/@Gail_Kent,  and Facebook -  www.facebook.com/GailKentStudio
www.etsy.com/people/gailkentstudio
https://sites.google.com/site/gailkentstudios