Notes and thoughts from listening to Ben Tallon’s 'Arrest All Mimics’ podcast with Nick Leech from Heart Internet.
https://soundcloud.com/arrestallmimics/ep43
It is important not to overlook traditional efforts to get work like face to face networking and physical promotional material, but understand that from that point onwards the next step someone will take is probably to search you online. Think about what they are looking for and how I can match my personal presence to my online presence and make it clear what I am about. If they are searching me with a certain thing in mind, how do I make it clear that I would be suitable?
Use a platform that loads easily, you will be demoted on a search engine if your site takes a long time to render, especially on mobile devices which is what a lot of people use nowadays.
Social media used for entirely personal reasons is very much a showcase of how amazing your life is, whether this is actually true or not. Professionally it can be used as more of a CV as it can show your work as well as your personal interests. If you use social media as a conduit for other content that interest you and reflects you then in effect you are aligning yourself with other people and that gives an impression of who you are personally.
It is important to strike a balance. Some personal things are okay to show on a professional social media account as someone’s personality is often reflected in their work anyway so the two go hand in hand. However, a constant stream of your daily life as it might put people off giving your page as much attention if they are really only interested in your work.
Is it better to promote an anonymous brand or to promote me?
In answer to this question I think, for me, an anonymous brand would not get me very far. My long term aim is to work as a freelancer so I think it is important that people who see my social media accounts can see what I look like, my interests, places I like to go and the occasional picture of my very cute dog. I don’t really see the harm in that if i’m honest but I think it is very important to have a functioning website alongside this that is purely professional.
4:1 Ratio - change things up on your social media account, for every four things you post on one theme, post something else that’s different. This could be four sketchbook progress posts and then one of a gallery I visited for example, it maintains people’s interest and also follows a vague rhythm.
Analysis of my current Instagram account which is the primary social media platform that I use…
212 posts, over 150 of these are direct images of my work.
The remainder is mainly photos of places I have been exploring, a few events and a handful of photos of my social life and dog (of course). At this stage in my creative career I don’t think this is too bad as the focus is still heavily on my practice and the more personal photos aren’t incriminating in any way, they just give a little glimpse of my life.
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