Successful Art Business, Planning and Marketing Tools and Techniques You Can Use

As a photographer specializing in business and personal brands am I finding that more and more of my images are appearing on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin as well as small niche sites built using programs such as Ning. These sites are a great way to build your brand and expand your network for either business or personal purposes – if done right!

When I work on a personal brand I like to get to know my clients. It helps me paint a better story and really hone in on what their brand is all about – kind of like the marketing audits I used to do with companies only now for people. Here are some things you need to think about before you embark on your social media efforts. If you have already started you may want to think about areas you need to improve on or fine tune. Read more

There is an old saying – nothing make you crazy faster than hanging out with crazy people.  The same could be said for being successful – nothing makes you more successful faster than hanging around with other successful people.  One common thread with successful people is that they say that they had the help of the people they surrounded themselves with – few say they did it alone.  Make it a point to associate with interesting and successful people.

Here are a few ideas on the types of people you should get to know: Read more

Recently while participating on Twitter I ran across a reference to a blog post by Seth Godin about how your profile picture on sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn affect your brand. I have been writing articles on Your Brand Image on just this very subject and I thought I would check out what the author of the best selling book “Tribes” had to say on the subject. If you have read my previous articles you would have seen that I recommend having a great profile picture that supports your brand, a picture that is authentic and honest.

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I recently watched a very interesting program on PBS Frontline entitled Digital Nation that has some major implications for your business or personal brand. We are spending more time on our computers, notebooks, netbooks, PDAs, Smart phones iPhones, and soon the iPad – increasingly we are using more than one of these devices at the same time. Read more

The creative economy: define success to achieve it

Nine questions to help you get there 

In working with creative individuals I have found that it is hard for many of them to define what success means. “I want to be a successful artist working in my studio” seems to be about as far as many of them can go in defining their success.

When you ask other entrepreneurs what success means they will describe their success in terms of being a market leader, capturing market share, developing new and innovative products, their distribution chain, market capitalization and the financial rewards. Thinking in these terms is not so easy for many creative types.

Success for many creatives is simply being able to pursue their passion – not a bad measure of success for any business. In some respects many businesses have to work hard to instill and keep passion thriving with their owners and employees. Passion for one’s work will get you a long way but it is not a guarantee of success. Read more

Brand is usually associated with the marketing world. For some the definition of brand means your logo or logo type. Today brand has come to encompass much more than marketing to include your product or service, the quality you provide, how you treat your customers and the total experience provided by your company. It goes across all business functions and is determined by your employees, customers, suppliers and stakeholders. Read more