On June 1, 2014, a week from today, I posted the notice that our June 2014 issue of “Carolina Arts” was up and ready to be downloaded from our website at (www.carolinaarts.com). Right away we started getting a bunch of “shares” of that post. It looked like we were heading to a new Facebook record (for us), but I didn’t want to say anything, as the last time I mentioned we were getting a lot of shares of a post – it died instantly. So mum was the word and I proceeded as we always do to share the post on my Facebook page every day for the next five days and leave the one up on the Carolina Arts’s Facebok page up. But by day three the existing record set by a cover by Jane Filer from the Chapel Hill, NC, area was broken – big time – by a cover by Wan Marsh of Charlotte, NC.
Don’t be sad South Carolina artists – our most popular cover ever is one by Mary Whyte of Charleston, SC – one that no one will ever catch up to – I think. For almost two years after we launched that cover it would get thousands of downloads – every month. I mean like 10,000 downloads a year after it was first launched – month after month.
It finally faded to not much this year.
Wan Marsh’s cover reached 6,440 people on Facebook. The “Carolina Arts” Facebook page only had about 2,290 likes at the time. So a lot of folks were seeing this cover from the 114 shares that post got. Through that reach the post got 451 likes and 85 comments – most I couldn’t see as they were on other people’s Facebook pages.
“Ancient Power” by Wan Marsh
I won’t know till the end of the month how many downloads the June issue will get, but it already looks like a down month – due to the beginning of Summer, so I don’t think the June issue will ever come close to the Mary Whyte launch month – not to mention all the downloads it got month after month – for a couple of years.
But Wan Marsh’s cover makes her our new Facebook Cover Queen.
Big single images seem to be the key, both Mary Whyte’s and Wan Marsh’s were single images where Jane Filer’s was three. And guys – were looking for that image that will give us a Facebook King.
Now here’s the trick. Some of our covers are dedicated to certain events, and we try to tie in a cover with an event – exhibition, festival, or something, but we occasionally just see a work and want it on our cover. Unfortunately there have been a few times when artists could not supply us with a large enough high res file of their work. A couple just couldn’t get it to us in time and we had to quickly find a substitute. So it takes an artist who is prepared when the call comes.
Plus it takes the right timing. We try to be fair to all areas of the two states we cover and at times I see something that would make a great cover, but it’s from an artist who is from the same city the last month’s cover came from. Drat!
A couple of month’s ago we had a popular cover from an artist who just happened to notice a call for cover images I put in one of the little spacers I add to fill pages when articles fall short of filling the page. It pays to read the whole paper.
And, we receive some images by artists who feel they are ready for a cover, but we don’t agree – at least not with what they sent us. And a few of those had no clue of what a high res image was. Any image we put in the paper needs to be at least 300dpi at the size we need it. A single image on our cover can be up to 10″ wide by 14″ tall – at 300dpi, that can call for a 30-40 megabyte file. Some people don’t understand you can’t just type in 300 where 72 dpi was.
So, I’m not saying I want artists to start sending me images left and right. I”M NOT SAYING THAT. I’m saying that some artists might just be able to fit the bill of matching location, timing, and having something that when put on our cover knocks viewer’s socks off – you might want to send us a look at what you have – in a small file. Otherwise we keep an eye out for possible images that we get in press releases, Facebook post, or exhibits we see. I first saw Wan Marsh’s image at the 2014 ArtFields competition. It didn’t win an award in Lake City, SC, but it made her Queen of Facebook Posts for “Carolina Arts” – for now.
And, in compliance to a future Federal law we give equal opportunity to all fine art mediums – including installations, as long as you can supply a decent image of them. I’m waiting for the first image we get where the artist also has a video of its creation. Now that would be something.
Maybe that would stop people from asking if we have a print version of the paper available. You couldn’t have an interactive cover image in a printed paper.
You can see more of Wan Marsh’s work at this link (http://wanmarshstudio.com/#home).