Week 6- Promotional Strategy
Today’s class is all about promoting yourself and your portfolio. It is about developing a strategy and connecting with people online in preparation for placement.
We learnt about the three pronged approach:
- Portfolio Site
- Social Profiles such as Instagram and Twitter etc
- Inspiration and priming the brain such as using Pinterest and Tumblr etc.
Social storytelling = £££
Money is to be made by building up relationships.
It all starts with a story, we are all storytellers and it is our job to tell our story and share our work.
I want my story to stick with people and remember me and my work. A good way to tell your story is through building relationships and sharing on social media.
To build relationships with other designers and potential clients/ employers you should follow, like, comment and share their posts. The more you do this you will become recognised and remembered by them.
People will buy into the process of your work, it isn’t all about the final outcome of the product but how you got from A to B to the final product. Audiences will want to see this, they are interested in your work.
Stephen Johnston is a successful artist from Northern Ireland, he is a fine art painter and a contemporary visual artist. On Instagram he posts not only his final paintings but the process of it along the way. His followers buy into the process, as this is entertaining and exciting seeing how he gets to his final paintings.
Using social media effectively
- sell yourself
- adding value
- building audiences
- positioning
- Networking
As creatives we don’t have to put one label on ourselves, we can position ourselves as many different things such as a graphic designer, web designer, photographer, fine artist etc. But its what you position yourself as is what is most effective and what you’re best at.
Dan Rubin was originally a web designer but then turned to photography as well. He has worked for companies such as Instagram and Kodak, he positions himself as both a photographer and a web designer.
Paddy Donnelly was originally a web designer, he then worked as a content designer with social media, then did his bit for app design now he illustrates children’s books. Being a creative can mean you swoop in and out of different sectors which may lead you to a type of work you never once imagined being part of.
Reach
Word of mouth is good way to be discovered by new people, this is an effective way as it means that one person has told another about your work, this means that they are interested enough to bring your name up in conversation with another.
Find people who are interested in your work, follow these people and interact with them as they will tend to do the same back, build up a relationship with that person.
Twitter and Instagram are good social media platforms that allows discovery and for you to find new people and accounts. The discovery engine on these platforms are an excellent way for people to discover you and your work, they are usually targeted to specific people who are interested in the sector you work for or they have searched for a similar product or account.
Hashtags that are used on both Twitter and Instagram groups posts together which allows people to see your posts similar to ones they are looking up. You can search for #webdesign and it will bring up all the posts where that person has linked the hashtag to their post.
When posting on social media it is a good idea to think about timing, why post something when no one is awake to see it, instead why not post when people are the most active on these platforms, that allows instantly more views, likes, shares and followers to help grow your brand.
Below is a list of the best times to post on Instagram on each day of the week according to ‘Stratusbrew’. :https://statusbrew.com/insights/best-time-to-post-on-instagram/
To get the most out of my Instagram and Twitter profile I should link my portfolio in my bio on both Instagram and Twitter, in my bio I should also mention that I am looking for a placement for the year 2022. For Twitter it is effective if you have your header image match your portfolio, this keeps it looking nice and consistent.
To effectively become successful you must over3 different things, social aspect, gathering aspect as well as having a good story to tell.
- Social
- Gathering
- Story
