Subscribe for weekly inspirations

Most Popular

Using Social Media to Build Your Brand

Marketing Skills for Designers When you are building a business, it’s important to connect with others to help deliver your brand message and connect with those interested in what you are offering. Social media marketing is vital to any businesses success today and you need to jump in and get social if you want to be successful. Graphic designers use different social media platforms to promote their work. It’s a great way to connect with other artists, find gigs, gain a following and show the world how talented you are. Not all social media platforms are created equal. By this we mean that not all social media platforms will work for every person. For example their might be millions of people on twitter, but that does not mean that you have to be. Find what works and focus on that. You want to use social media effectively so that it is not only productive, but so that you are communicating your brand and your work in the best possible light. With so many options, if you are just starting out, you should pick two to three social media platforms and start connecting.

Establish Who You Are

Answer a few questions first to get started so that you can decide what your goals are. You need to know who you are, what value you bring to the table and why your content is relevant to the audience you want to connect with. Maybe you want to inspire people or motivate them to take an interest in something. Do you want to “shock and awe” your audience? Build your social media pages around what you are passionate about and what you want to express. That will make it authentic.

Create your Social Media Pages

Once you figure out who you are, you need to start setting up your pages. Make sure you that provide a consistent way for people to connect with you by setting up a brand email address. Use the same email for all of your social media. You also want to make sure that the names of your pages are all alike. You want “facebook.com/JimmyJones and Twitter.com/JimmyJones. This will make it easy for people to find you. Use a cover for pages like Facebook and Google+ and a great background for Twitter. It can be a great example of your work or a photo of you working on a design for instance. Always have a professional looking picture of yourself for your profile. Make sure the picture is clear and you can see your face. People want to connect with a real person so this is an important step.

Start Connecting and Communicating

Once you are set up you need to connect and communicate with people. This will be an ongoing process but an important one. You need to maintain, update and post on your pages. Online business marketing can be tough so expect or things to start slowly at first. You can use a social media management program like Hootsuite to post, but remember to connect with people in a “live” manner too. Don’t under estimate the human presence page. Answer questions, send thank you’s to those that like your new posts and welcome new people who join and comment. You want to build relationships, make connections and build your presence. Know that takes time for anyone building a brand from scratch. You can’t expect and should not try to get hundreds of followers just to say you have hundred’s of followers. It’s better to cultivate your connections organically and let your work and who you are speak the rest.