Tuesday, 30 December 2014

Networking

Task 1 

So I don't know about you, but, I really have had enough talking about the internet. So what do ya say we take a look at some stuff in the real world for a while? What else can you do in order to advertise and promote yourself?

Networking assists you in marketing and advertising yourself. In the real word as opposed to online will play a part in every industry, but it is very important as a makeup artist after all a key part of being a makeup artist is your personality. It's not the same as a designer who does their work through a computer, a Makeup artist is amongst people and it's important for clients to see that you have desirable personal attributes as well as makeup skills.

If you build up a rapport with other makeup artists when they are fully booked they are more likely to refer the client to you, this is a great opportunity to gain more customers outside of perhaps your normal reach. It also good to network with other creative's such as models who may request you as their makeup artist on shoots and photographers as they may offer you jobs.There are also contacts outside of creative professionals that would be beneficial to you networking with

local businesses that can open doors to you.


Event planners and Wedding Planners are always worth networking with as finding a hair and makeup artist can be essential to completing their plans. Bridal businesses such as local Bridal Shops, Accessory Shops, Photo Studios and even Bakeries that make wedding cakes can be of great benefit as a free way of advertising yourself,  they pass out your information to their customers and in exchange, you give their information to your clients.

Beauty Salons and Beauty Supply Stores are a brilliant contact, ask them f they could refer clients to you and pass on your business card. Or display in the front of the salon or till area Beauty supply stores may be interested in hiring a freelance makeup artist to perform in store demos.

Makeup artists often think to contact beauty salons but often but a not so obvious connection to make is to contact Department Stores can also open a door as some companies send freelance makeup artists to the store and also hold events such as in-store fashion shows. Contact the human resources department or store manager.

Other ways of networking rather than just contacting a business would include:

Work for local fashion events or Contact local charities out if they are holding any fashion  fundraisers and offer to do the models make to gain exposure and in return for being able to hand out business cards or flyers

Wedding Fayres are a great place to go to find clients, handing out flyers and business cards, or having a stall yourself to demonstrate your bridal makeup also attendees may also receive 'goodie bags' from the event which you can add your card too

Weddings if you are doing a brides makeup, it is a great opportunity for you to network. you can talk to the bridesmaids and  the rest of the female wedding party offering your services to them for the wedding or handing out business cards for use at future events. You may even be recommended to other bride to bes.

similarly Parties of friends and acquaintances can also be a chance to network and gain job opportunities. talk to people about your profession and offer out business cards.

attending events and trade shows,  I will talk about these more later.

Whenever you are networking or taking part in any of these events it is important to have some form of business card or flyer on you at all times, as this is how you will be contacted after the events. 

It is also important to remember, when networking taking part in events or working on clients, that word of mouth is the most powerful advertiser it can make you or break you as a freelance makeup artist. If your clients are pleased with your skills, your level of professionalism, how you conduct yourself and your personality they will be sure to tell others and it will spread giving you more exposure and essentially more job opportunities. On the other hand if they are not pleased they are likely to spread this too and you will have a bad reputation.





The actual brief


Just thought it be a good idea to post a copy of the brief onto here, just in case I should lose my physical copy, at least I will still be able to read the tasks.



Your own website

Task 1 
If you type create your own website into Google it will churn out 828,000,000 results Obviously I do not have the time to try them all out or research them all So I will give you TheTop 10 sites,  'top 10 website builders' and of course my advantages and disadvantages of creating your own website. If I get more time I will come back to this and update it with more information later. 
  1.  Wix  
  2. Weebly
  3.  Sqaure space
  4. Website builder
  5.  Go Daddy
  6. Web.com
  7. bOnline
  8. Homestead
  9. 1&1
  10. Webs




 Advantages of building a website.

Nowadays any serious freelancer or business is expected to have a dedicated website.
Establishing an online presence means that when your potential customers search for people amongst your industry they will find you business.
A website is open 24/7.
reduce the cost for printing and distributing hand-outs, brochures, newsletter as the information will be available on your website
A well designed website will make your business appear more professional and more trustworthy.

Disadvantages of building a website

Your website must be well designed and maintained constantly. bad design could turn your customers away.
It may look unprofessional or very similar to other websites using the same templates
Learning the skills required to build a proper website is time consuming
If you don't have those skills, then to have a well designed, serious and unique website you will have to pay for a web developer.


LinkedIn

Task 1 

I ummed and ahhed about where to add the information of LinkedIn, I mean it is essentially a social networking site but really it's designed for professional networking. It allows you to find jobs and connect with potential business clients/partners. So I felt that this unique "social" networking site deserved its own post.

Co founded in May 2003,LinkedIn now boasts more than 300 million users  Making it one of the fastest growing professional networks and therefore a great platform to advertise yourself.

Once you have registered you create a profile page that focuses on employment and education history.  After filling out basic information you will add entries for employment history including job title, employer, industry, dates and a short description of what the job entailed. You will also need to create separate education entries that will include the school's name, degree earned, years attended. this information can be used by linked in to discover former and current colleagues and classmates.
Having completed your profile, you can begin finding contacts through colleague and classmate searches, name searches or uploading your email contact.  Once you have those contacts you gain access to your connections' connections and so your network begins to grow.


To add to your profile you can:

  • Post a write a profile picture
  • Add a "summary", a description of your skills and experience.
  • Link your other websites
  • add a list of interests


Advantages of using LinkedIn

  • LinkedIn gives you exposure if someone googles your name google will direct them to your  LinkedIn page
  • You can link your twitter accounts and other social networks to LinkedIn. so that when you update you social network your LinkedIn can post the same information for your contacts to see.
  • Creates networking opportunities  with colleagues, contacts and peers related to your industry.


Disadvantages of using LinkedIn

  • LinkedIn advertising is not highly targeted.
  • Difficult to prevent spam
  • LinkedIn has many components and is not very simple it can be overwhelming.






Monday, 29 December 2014

Portfolio hosting

Task 1 
I think we've talked about all the main players in the social media game. So what else does the internet have to offer in ways to promote  yourself ?

Portfolio hosting

An online portfolio is a great tool for all kinds creative professional,There are a lot of websites that offer this service to advertise yourself for free. I will talk briefly about a couple, but there are too many to list them separately. So I will go on to talk about portfolio hosting more generally.

CarbonMade,  has over 500,000 portfolios on-line now,  and is the right choice for creative people looking for a host that requires very little web-design knowledge.

Carbon made is free to use but has a limit of images you are allowed to post however you can pay a monthly fee to increase this

The down fall to Carbon Made is that the options to customize your portfolio are quite limited and they all tend to look similar. So if you are looking for something very unique this is not the service for you.

Behance is a free portfolio host with a mix of social networking. It focuses on networking and building relationships and allows you to distribute work to other artists, potential clients and online galleries. It is also fully integrated with Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks.

As with carbon made the customization options are highly limited resulting in a portfolio that is not very sleek and resembles a Facebook profile


There are also a few more specific site to be used by models/ photographers and makeup artists such as:

The benefits of having an online portfolio,


  • it is easier to maintain and change than a physical portfolio
  • you can give multiple employer a link rather than have to duplicate a physical portfolio
  • It easier to share and distribute than a physical portfolio
  • Gives your portfolio a wider audience

The disadvantages of a Digital portfolio


  • Some employees will still require a physical portfolio. 
  • A digital portfolio can also be difficult to use in an interview if you do not have access to a computer.
  • If your work is physical (ie not on the computer) it will need to be scanned to add to your portfolio.



Pinterest

Task 1 
Pinterest is a website that allows you to create a inspiration board for projects and interest. Pins are a essentially a visual bookmark and by "pinning" things your  account saves the pins to a virtual bulletin board so that you can access this inspiration again and again. Like YouTube it is not necessarily seen as a socail media platform but it does include standard social networking features. With Pinterest you are able to follow friends, "repin" their pins like a visual "retweet" and also send messages and pins to your followers.

Pinterest is one of the fastest growing websites in history, In its first 10 months Pinterest gained 23million users  And it’s already being used by more than 100 brands top promote their company.

Advantages of using Pinterest
 

Pinterest is primarily a photo-sharing business. Images are the most direct way of communicating the visual work of a make-up artist.

As well as exposure Pinterest gives you a platform in which you can do market research and check out competition

You can use hashtags in order to make your posts searchable. 
Pinterest is a viral marketing machine users actively promote your company for you by repining from your boards.

 Disadvantages of using Pinterest


The biggest disadvantage is that Pinterest is still relatively new in the uk, so perhaps there are fewer  people that are  familiar with it. 



Here is my pinterest account, currently I am only using my account for finding inspiration rather than promoting my work as a make-up artist.



However a great example of a well organized pinterest come from...Ellie (uni lecturer/make up wizz) yay!!


Each of Ellie's boards have a cover photo of her work with more photos within them along with pins has collected relevant to that theme, It makes it easy to see where her inspiration has come from and identify which images are her own work. 

Sunday, 28 December 2014

YouTube

Task 1 
 Moving on to something a little bit different. YouTube, though it is a social media network, it is very different to things such as facebook and twitter in the way you add your content and engage with people, but with 6 billion hoursof videos watched monthly on and access to more young adults than any tv network, it really is a platform worth considering in a social media marketing plan.

The first step to appropriately promoting yourself on YouTube is to set up your personal profile. if you have a Google+ account you can use this and they will be linked. Once you have created a page fill out your profile. we have talked in previous posts about the importance of selecting a username, your channel name will appear in the search, in channel suggestions, and in channel browse. One of the most important things to complete a description of your channel, introduce yourself,  your name, What do you do and what kind of videos you will be posting try using keyword in your description as this is how who search on certain topics will be able to access your channel

If you regularly publish videos, people will be more likely to subscribe to your channel. As a make-up artist you can use YouTube to publish videos of all sorts of things to help get your name out there, such as tutorials, beauty tips, product reviews and backstage videos of shoots etc. It can really help to create a following for yourself as a professional make-up artist.
Consider the following in order to have a successful YouTube channel… During tutorial it is essential to have good lighting so that your work is shown in the best possible way.  Speak clearly and try to make steps in tutorials as clear as possible. Invest in an actual video camera rather than a webcam, this will dramatically improve the quality of your videos making it easier on the viewers and again showing your work at its best. 


Advantages of using YouTube 

  • Making and uploading videos to YouTube is completely free to do.
  • The vast audience, your video has the potential to be seen around the world. you can also target your videos for local searches if you have a small business.
  • If your videos become very popular YouTube may make you a partner on YouTube which means you will be paid when you make videos.  
  • If your videos are popular enough they could potentially go viral which means thousands of other people will be sharing your video with their people. also Anybody can then embed YouTube videos on their websites, blogs etc. which opens up your videos to even more viewers.
  • It allows you to demonstrate Your Expertise and lets you show your personality more than just written text and uploading photos

Disadvantages of using YouTube

  • YouTube run advertisements on your videos which can hurt your brand.
  • With YouTube you can't upload your company's logo on your video.
  • YouTube can shut down your account at any time, for any reason or remove your video.




What kind of successs could youtube actually bring you.


It is clear from the success of some youtubers that it is a great platform to use for exapmple Zoe Sugg or 'Zoella' as she is known is youtuber blogger/vlogger. Click the picture to see her youtube channel.
She has has more subscribers than Beyonce (6,856,610 subscribers) and is now living off the money she earns from her YouTube account and has recently (through her YouTube fame, Her channel was the 4th most popular channel in the UK in 2014) released her book 'Online girl' which became the fastest selling debut novel.
she has also won award such as
2011 Cosmopolitan Blog Award in the "Best Established Beauty Blog"          
2012 Cosmopolitan Blog Award "Best Beauty Vlogger"
2013 Radio 1 Teen Awards "Best British Vlogger"
2014 Radio 1 Teen Awards "Best British Vlogger"
2014 Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award for "UK Favourite Vlogger"
2014 Teen Choice Award for "Choice Web Star: Fashion/Beauty"

Saturday, 27 December 2014

Twitter

Task 1 
There really is no rest for the wicked...or the distinction level student. 

So back to the brief and we've looked at Facebook, let's look at Twitter another social media platform that you can use to promote your business 

Through creating an account and profile with twitter you can communicate to your 'followers' by sending out 'tweets' which are short messages (limited to 140 characters). In the words of twitter itself "A Tweet is an expression of a moment or idea" You can include links to web content in theses short messages to things such as websites, blog posts. you can also add photos and videos to your tweet.  

Once you have an account you can  find and follow twitter accounts of friends, family news outlets, organizations or just generally what interests you, these people will be notified you have followed them and are more likely to follow you back. Your twitter homepage or 'timeline' will then instantlyreceive the tweets from those you have followed as will your Tweets show up in your followers' timelines.

Twitter gives you options to interact with peoples tweets such as 'REPLY' which allows you to comment on a Tweet and join the conversation.  'RETWEET' which can be used to share a Tweet  by another user with your followers. And 'HASHTAGS' which assigns a topic to a tweet for example #Makeupartist would add your tweet to a timeline of tweets that all include #Makeupartist As a new user  others are more likely to find your messages if they are Retweets or replies.

Some important things to remember when creating an twitter account you intend to use to promote your business are... 

Chose an appropriate username name, usually your actual name or business name it will appear next to all of your tweets and is how people will identify you and find your account.

It is always good for your twitter profile to match the rest of your business branding as this will make you easier to identify and appears more professional  and  You can do this through uploading a profile picture, and a profile header. you can also customize the background.

it is also important not to leave gaps in the profile, complete the account properly, each feature gives more detail about your business and makes you more discoverable. 

The advantages of twitter are... 

It is a good platform for exposure with 645,750,000 members and a further 135,000 signing up every day 

It easy to connect all forms of your social marketing by linking to your Blog, Facebook, Tumblr and Pinterest.

Ability to interact with your target audience by getting involved discussions an exchanging information you get more exposure for your business 
The disadvantages are...
You are limited to 140 characters.
Twitter is not ideal for sharing lots of photos as it is mostly text based. 
due to the volume of tweets a day, if you only tweet occasionally your tweets will be buried in your followers’ feeds and it won't be very effective.



This is my Twitter. As you can see I do not use it often at all. Perhaps I should add this to my New Years resolution for Facebook and set it up properly and use it more. 

Thursday, 25 December 2014

It's Christmas Day

It's Christmas... I've been given an iPad mini what's the first thing I've done, why I've gone and got the blogger app of course :) mot sure if Martyn (uni lecturer /heavy metal guitarist/ violinist) would be happy about that or if he'd tell me to stop and go and enjoy Christmas 

Update. Judging by this tweet it would be the first option https://twitter.com/martynjoyce/status/548606862711869440 great minds think alike. 

Tuesday, 9 December 2014

Social Media.


Task 1

Social Media is probably the most popular and fastest growing way to advertise yourself no matter what your profession or service. there are so many platforms available Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest and YouTube are the most popular and are all free and very easy to use. Connecting with people all over the world making it easier to spread your name and work.

I am going to start the subject of social media by looking deeper into Facebook. So what is it? Facebook is a social media network that allows users to create a profile this allows you to post photos, statuses, videos, share links even play games. Adding other users as "friends" allows you to connect with their profile and you will receive updates from them through a "news feed" it also allows you to comment on their posts and message each other. With around 757 million daily users internationally its easy to see why Facebook has rapidly become a great platform for business.

Facebook has many advantages.


Your Facebook page will have its own web address making you more discoverable.
It keeps you and your customers connected. Allowing you to message one to one or addressing them all through statuses and sharing posts with them.
Displaying your portfolio through uploading pictures.
You have the option to pay for an advert for your page, create the advert, choose specifics for target audience, select a budget and the duration of the advert.
the "Insights" option allows you to have a better understanding of your customers and your marketing activities. firstly there is an overview of Page Likes, post reach, and overall engagement. It will also show you the growth and loss of likes both organic and gained through paid adverts, and the number of people your Page is reaching every day

So Facebook is sounding like a brilliant option but as with everything else it does have its disadvantages.


Although your page has a specific address that you can give out personally to people to find you, there is an endless list if you just type make-up artist into the Facebook search. This makes it hard for people to find you if they have never been in contact with you before.

Advertising costs money.

The internet is full of negativity some people may use your Facebook page as a venue to write offensive comments or post spam. Even Mark Zuckerberg the creator of Facebook is not immune to internet trolls.

It is time consuming, although easy to access and can be done on the go through use of apps, utilizing a Facebook page to its maximum can take a while. It is hard to always keep up with posts and to properly manage a Facebook page.

Although I have a facebook set up I don't use it as often as I would like! My new years resolution is try to keep my facebook up to date!





Monday, 1 December 2014

Intro to the brief

Okay then so we've had an introduction to me, now let's have an introduction to the project . It's not essential but I have a certain way of doing things and that involves introductions and check-lists, It's the way I pick apart a brief and understand what I'm actually meant to of learnt and what I'm supposed to have at the end. I like things organised. 

I don't have OCD but seeing as this post is just for my benefit for organising maybe I will share with you some of my OCD tendencies.


The aim of this project is to gain and understanding of professional practice within the creative industry.
This covers things such as learning how to promote myself through marketing strategies, websites, portfolios, CV& cover letters. Branding myself by producing  a logo and business cards. This is to build a positive reputation for myself and maximise employment opportunities.

I do not like old fabric, I don't like scraps and I cannot touch most items in a charity shop. It really makes me feel ill.


This unit will also provide me with the knowledge adhere to employment law and health and safety law. I will learn how to: produce invoices, income and expenditure forms I will create a risk assessment and apply for appropriate insurance through researching current health and safety regulations. I will also research  the support  and benefits of joining relevant unions and bodies.
All of this is to allow me to understand the demands on this industry and how to function within it.

My diary is sorted using small coloured sticky dots there are 4 different colours I use to represent different things such as work or Uni.


Check-list

o   Market research on where to advertise (Events, Magazines ,exhibitions, Social media,  radio, television etc.)
o   Investigate the practises and the demands of the industry
o   Design and create a CV
o   Produce a database of clients, agents and professional contacts.
o   Explain the support offered by trade unions and bodies
o   Find 3 job advertisements for Media Make-up jobs from different sources
o   Create a cover letter to theoretically apply for one of those jobs.
o   Create 3 logo's/letter heads
o   Carry out a risk assessment for a school fete
o   Collect 3 insurance quotes
o   Research 3-4 companies that specialise in advertisement gather quotes
o   Produce an invoice including working out tax
o   Produce a database to record income and expenditures
o   Research the difference between salaried and self employed
o   Analyse and evaluate throughout

Quit possibly my worst OCD behaviour is that if there is a mirror in my room (not one attached  to a wall)I have to place it face down before I go to bed.