Why do artists suck so much at marketing themselves? More importantly, why do arts-related non-profits suck at marketing themselves, too? I’m asking because I’ve had enough. While researching ideas for my 101 in 1001 list, I ended up browsing the web for various arts organizations that I might want to volunteer with or work with in the future. Instead of finding well organized and updated websites, I found sites that made me want to yell out loud and throw my computer against the wall. It’s painful. Visiting artist or arts-related websites is a fucking nightmare.
Broken links, contact forms that don’t work, spelling and grammatical mistakes, outdated events, outdated articles, articles without any dates at all (so you don’t know if the news is from yesterday or ten years ago), random navigation errors across the site and no presence anywhere else other than on that crappy website.
I give you the best example I’ve seen so far of a lost opportunity: Artists Without Frontiers.
The home page has the following text:
“As artists we gather under one roof, whatever field we are in, whatever culture we come from. We may not all be exposed to poverty or censorship, but many are. If we come together to share our vision, our passion and our problems we can change things, for the better.
If our aims speak to you, join us.”
YES!!!
I believe in the power of art. Look at Picasso’s painting “Guernica” and how it still impacts us today. So when I read this, I practically got goosebumps because I thought “Finally!!”. After having discovered the Human Rights Arts festival, I was giddy but this was like hitting the jackpot. This was THE organization that I’ve been looking for my entire life.
I didn’t see anything about volunteering so I clicked on “Events”. And that’s where the troubles began. What looks like a SQL error was produced. Alright, back button then. At that point, I just figured it was a bug that no one had noticed so I found their email address and sent off an email. A few seconds later, I get a message saying that the email can’t be sent because the recipient’s mailbox is full. Lovely. So then I thought “Ok, I’ll let that go and just sign up for membership to see what that’s all about”. At that point, a message appears saying:
“Due to the overwhelming number of membership applications we receive on daily basis and to maintain the site’s highest content quality and in order to be able to process the current backlog of membership applications, AWF has temporarily stopped accepting new membership applications.”
Ok. Now, I’m sad. So I click on Contact Us…. and whoah, it’s a new background colour. And the navigation at the left has changed. So has the bottom. Am I still on the same site? Looks like a redesign fail. Ok, so how do I get in touch with these guys to volunteer my time to redo the site, help with the backlog and start a Facebook and Twitter profile for them? Hmmm… Oh, there’s a message from the founder. Alright, his name is “Sirus Malakooty”. No contact info there… so I googled him and found his personal website. So I clicked “Contact” and nothing happened. In fact, most of the links on his site don’t work at all.
So now I’m left with one giant possibility that is floating away from me, staring at me, abandoned. But I’m here! I can help! I can do something fabulous with what’s already there!!! Don’t go!
Sigh.
What’s really sad is that this is such a common theme with arts websites that I’m no longer surprised. I expect it. I am shocked when an arts organization or non-profit actually has an updated site that doesn’t break.
For me, all of this is more than simply an annoyance. I think that it’s a great loss for what could be, especially in terms of organizing artistic movements, whether for charity work or as a way to ensure that artists can keep their voice and can share it outside of their local communities. For individual artists, I think it’s an issue of having to be honest with yourself and knowing when to either do your research and learn business and marketing on your own or hire someone to do it for you. In the age of reproduction and commercialization, we’re in need of unique perspectives and voices that aren’t paid for by corporations or governments. We need to use technology to establish ways for us to find each other to collaborate, learn and teach each other. To the existing non-profits out there, there’s just no excuse anymore. Do you want to fulfill your mandate or not? It’s time to take this stuff seriously and ask for help. Really, what’s the reason behind the neglect? Not enough volunteers or have you structured your organization in a way that doesn’t make it easy for people to contact you and to perhaps even find you in the first place?
The old models might seem to work but if the goal is to open your doors to worldwide participation, then open those doors with the new tools available to you. And if you don’t know how, again, ask for help. You can’t change the world with only an intention, you have to know how to apply it and assemble the right team to make it happen.
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5 Comments
so true, and frustrating!
Glad I’m not the only one who’s frustrated by this! Got any other examples of sites that you’ve found to be a disaster?
none off the top of my head unfortunately.
i think that i must just click them away and then try and forget about them. which does not bode well for any website.
Julie,
Thanks, your critique is dead center. The next question you might want to investigate, from my perspective, is to ask why so many talented orgs and NGOs are unable to channel their talent toward better marketing and web presence. Do you think it really has to do with orgs that are unaware of the problem?
Since my org would probably be on your “love to hate list” I would inform you that very little public funding can be channeled towards these important issues but must be destined to beneficiaries and programming. So who pays for these important services? and who puts in the hours to keep it up to date?
Curiously if you were to look at some really very interesting sites you might be shocked to find that there level of utility for society and the number of actual beneficiaries is very low.
Orlando,
Thanks for commenting on this! From the experiences that I’ve heard from friends/family who have worked with some NGOs, quite a few of them are run by people from the ‘pen and paper’ generation. A lot of them haven’t personally adopted technology and haven’t put any efforts towards adopting it for their NGO. It’s been very frustrating for some of my pals working in communications or marketing who can’t get the approval to put time or energy towards more efficient campaigns that would incorporate social media or a larger online presence. In one case, there was a local non-profit organization who offered a very important program but it wasn’t advertised anywhere online – simply, they knew that if they advertised it, they’d run out of money because more people would make use of the program. So in some cases, yes, it’s a matter of funding or of the leadership not really being in touch with modern methods of communication.
I would say that if public funding isn’t available then what about enlisting volunteers to do the work? I would jump on the opportunity to help an NGO that I’m passionate about. There are so many people like me out there who work full-time jobs during the day, jobs that don’t serve much of a “real” purpose in society, jobs that aren’t completely fulfilling. So what’s left to do? How can we add meaning? We find another way and sometimes that way is to volunteer our time towards the things that we really believe in. I think that for every NGO out there, there is a group of people wanting to find them and willing to work for them for free. In most major cities in Canada, there are central volunteer websites that provide listings for volunteer opportunities. So for an organization that doesn’t have a website yet, that would be a way for them to find volunteers to work on it. (On a side note, I have to find a volunteer position for a web tester and believe me when I say that there are some NGO websites out there that are full of flaws and bugs and are in need of testing and fixing!)
Lastly, let’s keep in mind that a lot of non profits don’t require a fancy website. They just a few basic items (like an about page, events link, contact us, etc) in order to have an efficient web presence (for information purposes). Once the framework is done, it would only take a few minutes for someone to keep the site updated. I think it really comes down to proper planning.