On March 23rd and 24th, the Chicago Cultural Center hosted the 9th annual Creative Chicago Expo. This event featured workshops, vendor information and resources for creatives in all disciplines. I attended the workshops “Build a Strong Online Presence” given by Jennifer Rapp Peterson of Indiemade and “Maximizing the Potential of Your Website in Cyberspace” given by Brad Lichtenstein of Creative Capital.
Ms. Peterson’s advice begins with the need to define your goals. Why do you want to be online and what do you want to communicate? She urged everyone to not only discover yourself, the who, what, where, how and why of your personality and the personality of your art, but to also identify your audience and speak to them directly by searching for what they want.
Both workshops stressed the importance of participation in social media. It is important to listen to the social conversation as well as sharing and engaging on social platforms. Mr. Lichtenstein proposed creating a special page on Facebook to follow the stages of a unique project.
Both workshops also emphasized the importance of having a professional website as it is your online home. Ms. Peterson identified well-designed navigation and page layouts, a site map and a blog as website must-haves. Mr. Lichtenstein suggested posting process pictures of you making your art as this inside knowledge creates a stronger connection between the art buyer and the art. Additionally he recommended including images of your art in client’s homes.
He also advised that we think about things and events narratively resulting in a story telling way of disseminating information about ourselves and our art. He contends that people not only enjoy stories but remember them better, adding that this is the ideal way to design your “elevator speech”.
Indiemade and Creative Capital both have pages on Facebook.
Jennifer Rapp Peterson has included her notes from this workshop on the Indiemade site.
http://www.fusedchicago.org/general/build-a-strong-online-presence/
Photograph: Doug Boehm http://chicagovisitor.net/
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