Keeping your art gallery’s blog up to date may not be a top priority at the start of each week, but don’t overlook the value of regularly updating this section of your website. By keeping your blog fresh and optimised for search, you can engage your existing audience, reach and attract a new audience, and it’s a key part of your inbound marketing.

Blogging also allows your audience to get to know you and provides more opportunities for readers to engage with your gallery online. The blogs you create can also be repurposed for social media, and used in any outbound marketing, such as via email.

If we’ve made the case for blogging, we also know that it can be challenging to consistently think up new content ideas to keep your audience coming back for more. If we’ve caught you in a moment when inspiration is lacking, these content ideas may get your creative juices flowing.

1. What’s trending in the art world? 

Identify trending topics and brainstorm ideas with your gallery team. Whether it’s AI’s encroachment on the art world or the rise of online galleries and virtual event spaces, trends change quickly and there will always be something new to tap into.

Also keep one eye on the arts industry news cycle. Is there a topical news story you’d like to add your voice to in a way that demonstrates your gallery’s ethos and values and helps engage your audience? Where relevant, you can also link your personal experiences to trends and topical stories to create unique, original commentary.

2. What’s happening behind the scenes?  

Many of the bigger, national galleries host a ‘behind the scenes’ series when they are preparing for a new exhibition or to provide insight into the conservation process, how artworks are hung and arranged, or to showcase the work of curators and other gallery staff. The possibilities are endless.

This can be done in a smaller way. If you’re attending an event or exhibition elsewhere or arranging a staff trip, try to document it through video and/or photographs and write the accompanying text later. This type of material will work just as well on your blog as it will on social channels like Instagram.

3. What exhibitions or events are coming up? 

If your gallery is hosting or connected to an event, write about it and promote it before it takes place to inspire interest. You can always create a follow-up blog that documents the occasion and tells your audience what the outcome was. This content can also be used across social, email and any other platforms you use for marketing new exhibitions and events.

4. Put the spotlight on your artists and collectors

Reach out to the artists on your roster to ask if they’d be happy being featured on your blog. You could write a profile, focus on a particular artwork they have produced to get the story behind its creation, or even pen a Q&A-style feature. Alternatively, an ‘in the studio’ feature or conversation between the two of you about the artist’s work could be hosted on the blog and turned into a podcast or video. The same approach can be used for your collectors or trade professionals your gallery works with, such as framers.

5. Arts education 101  

At Cubist Cloud, we work with many galleries and know how knowledgeable gallery owners are about the broader industry and about specific art periods, movements and techniques they may specialise in. Perhaps there is a moment in art history that you’re especially fascinated by? Could this fascination be turned into a series of blogs? Your blog is the perfect place to share your knowledge or passions with your audience. By doing so, you may find you win new, dedicated blog followers.

Don’t forget to ask your audience and community

If you find yourself regularly running out of ideas for your blog, reach out to your audience, whether they be artists, collectors, gallery staff and the broader community of people connected with your gallery and ask them what they’d like to read about.

You can collect these ideas in person, via email or across your social channels. Collate these ideas every month and place them in a content ideas file that you can dip into whenever inspiration is lacking.