Blog post – Keeping up with the updates

How to approach updating the business image you project to the world

As many of you may know, I meet twice a week online with a group of women from around the world. I met them when I was taking an online marketing course four years ago with Alexis Fedor https://alexisfedor.com/

That’s right! Four amazing years. The friendships have grown such that we can be completely honest with each other without getting upset but, more importantly, we know each other so well that we can criticise, support, advise and guide each other through our collective journey towards getting our art and art businesses seen, promoting what we do and delighting in each other’s wins. It sounds incredible and it truly is. Having been through the online marketing course together we have also separately taken a variety of other courses, one of which is an Instagram course with the wonderful Kat Coroy. https://www.katcoroy.com/ She’s wonderful because she really breaks things down into manageable, doable segments.

She explains exactly what you need to do to be seen in the best light on Instagram, including getting your photos produced well, your social media pages all saying the same thing but most of all getting you thinking about what you are doing, why you are doing it and, as a result, preparing you for how you speak both online and in person to your clients.

The course is a lifetime course, by the way so excellent value for money. Every Thursday evening (UK time, as she’s British), Kat holds a meeting on Facebook where you can ask her questions, or you can ask in the group throughout the week. The support is amazing.

So, as we have each separately taken this course, we figured re-taking it together would be even better as we all know each other’s business so well and can really help each other dive deeper into what we each need to do to improve our online presence. Having restarted the course in our weekly  meeting, the first thing we were all reminded of is the need to update our information on a regular basis.

What do I mean? Well, if you visit my website you will see on the homepage the following:

I don’t like boring beige!

But I do love colour! Even more I love putting colours together to see how they play with each other.
Every piece of work I make is a journey into what different colours do to each other. It is the most
magical way to live and I get to live it every day.

This is still true, but it is not the whole story. For many years now I have incorporated circles into my art. In fact, in one way or another pretty much all my work has a circle somewhere. The other element is lines. Sometimes straight, sometimes curved and often of varying thicknesses. These circles and lines have meaning for me, which is obviously why I use them, but to date I haven’t found a way to voice them in a succinct manner such that you the reader will immediately understand what I am saying. So, I have left this bit out and concentrated on telling you about my love of colour.

For those who want to know what these shapes mean to me, the circles represent hugs and the circles of life. These circles are not perfect, since we are not perfect, but as the lines of the circles travel, they become imperfect reflections of life circles and hugs. Even hugs are not perfect and as people get older, they receive fewer hugs and so the imperfection associated becomes fragmented, hence broken circles. The lines are the journey between the circles. They can be straight, wavey, thick or thin but for me they represent the stops and starts of life and living. The travelling between and the connections to the circles. Then there is the colour. For me, life without colour would be a living hell. As a printmaker, I do enjoy making monochrome prints using the paper for white and varying degrees of black to make greys but, for me, colour is more interesting.

OK, that was a rather long sidetrack there but hopefully it explains why trying to incorporate that message in a couple of sentences is hugely difficult. No doubt, my editor will come up with an answer for me.

[What was the question? Ed]

Trying to come up with answers to problems like this on your own is virtually impossible. Even asking within Kat Coroy’s group would be difficult as it’s too much to consider and no doubt others will swipe by and answer the easy problems posed in the group.

So, if you are struggling to come up with answers about yourself and your artwork and really cannot see a way through, it might be a good idea to join a group like Kat’s and see if you can make connections within it and form a little side group so that you can work through these kinds of problems together.

Kat’s group has many different businesses represented, from hair salons to children’s book authors, gluten free chefs to interpreters, organic face product sellers to fashion designers and my friend’s daughter, who joined last year to help her promote her greetings card business. There are thousands of different people and businesses represented there which is useful because different people will think differently to you and see your business differently to you, too. If you can find a couple of likeminded people to work through the logistics of how best to represent yourself on social media platforms, then you will discover the best way forward far more quickly.

Using a group like this to determine what your artistic message is, and how best to communicate it using social media, is priceless. Having achieved that, you do need to remind yourself periodically of what you are trying to say and, if necessary, update it so that the world really understands who you are.

NB Just for the record, I do not get paid to endorse any of the brands I have mentioned above. These are all products that I use and genuinely believe in.

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