My Social Media Presence

A large part of networking is now done online. I want to develop a strategic journey to get myself noticed, meet others and find opportunities to get involved with my passions.

To do this, I will use mainly Instagram, LinkedIn, and my blog. For each of these websites, I am going to plan a strategic way of using them.

A screenshot of the front page of my Instagram account. Along with posting both final models and making images, I also post regular Stories and save them under Highlights so that they can also be viewed later.

I took a gap from social media for a year, which is evident on my Instagram dashboard. I will slowly fill this gap with regular posts about work I have made during my year away, along with current models.

I already had a modelmaking Instagram account set up, but I have not used it since the start of the pandemic, which means I had a lot of work that I could advertise myself through. To organise my come-back, I used my Google calendar to schedule posts and stories. I chose to post at least once a week on a Monday/Tuesday, and to add stories throughout the week, at least once on a Thursday/Friday. I will post roughly around 6.30pm as that is when people interact with my account most. This should be frequent enough to keep a stream of visitors to my account and interactions with my posts.

Moreover, I also planned out what work I will post first. I decided to do a mix of chronological posts and current live projects. This means that I started my come-back with the last model made before the pandemic – my Wraptor pun model. On the day of the come-back, I also planned to post a close-up of the model on my story, titling it as a ‘teaser’ of my official post later in the day. This was to draw up a little bit more attention to my account so that my come-back post could reach more people.

‘Teaser’ story of my first post after being absent from Instagram for a year.

Lastly, for my profile photo I chose a picture of me in the process of making a model. I also wrote my profile summary to reflect my personal brand of curiosity in making and highlighted that I am looking to work with people by ending with the phrase ‘DM for a chat!’. I want my Instagram to reflect the light-hearted side of my professional brand.

My Instagram ‘About’ section.

On the other hand, I would like to utilise LinkedIn to reflect my professional brand in a more formal manner. I have decided to sign up for the course Social Tree Global which guides you in establishing an online brand for yourself. Along with this, I have started to fill out my LinkedIn profile. I am planning to link it to my blog – I will be able to highlight articles I have written on my blog on my LinkedIn page. This will give people more of an idea of what I am passionate about as a maker. I have also made sure to start setting up my LinkedIn profile in Polish as well (my native language) to reach a wider audience, and to make my profile more accessible.

I have chosen to use my Wraptor as a headline photo, and my profile photo will be more formal than my Instagram picture. The Wraptor will highlight my interests as a maker, while the profile photo will highlight myself as a professional.

The top of my LinkedIn profile in English. My ‘About’ section is more formal than my Instagram profile description in order to reflect my passions and career aspirations.

The top of my LinkedIn profile in Polish. The ‘About’ section is a translation of the English version, and expresses the same professional identity.

Finally, I will also continue to use my blog after graduation to explain certain parts of my projects and passions. The format of a blog means I have more space to write – Instagram emphasises pictures while LinkedIn is essentially a detailed CV. I will also add a section to my blog for my portfolio images.

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Building My Professional Brand

As a graduating modelmaker, I am finishing my course with a wide range of transferable skills and knowledge. I have come to understand myself as a versatile maker, curious to explore all kinds of art and craft activities, that I would like to continue to develop as part of my professional brand.

At the same time, I do not want to make and create for commercial purposes – I want to work closely with people, and use my passion for art to help them. Therefore, I would like to start gaining more experience in clinical settings, using my knowledge of visual arts as a helping tool. To do this, I need to define a personal professional brand that I can use to explain myself to potential future employers quickly and effectively.

To help figure this out, I started out by defining my Points of Parity (POP) that I have, and need to gain, and my Points of Difference (POD). I used my previous research into art therapy as a career, and also attended some Open Days (digital of course!) for various Art Psychotherapy Master’s degree courses. This has been really helpful in gaining a deeper understanding into what is expected from someone working with art in a clinical setting, and has made me even more excited and determined to do this.

Through defining my POP and POD, I was able to write a personal statement that I can use to introduce my professional brand to others. I used this statement as the basis for writing and designing all of my other professional documentation such as my portfolio and business cards.

There is a few ways I have worked to show what I mention in my personal statement in all my other professional documents. For instance, I have shown my versatility as a maker in my portfolio, through my selection of images. Each model and artwork I have chosen for my portfolio, has been significant for my identity as a maker, but also could be used by others to facilitate their wellbeing.

I have also chosen to use an outline of one of my models, as part of my brand. These are my little frog candles, which I started making first as stress management, and later turned into a small side-business. They are important to me, because they are made using the same mould from one of my earlier models, which showed me that I would like to work closely with people in the future. Other design choices include my muted colour palette, which considers the viewer and whether they have any sensory sensitivities.

Note – you can also find little illustrations of the frog candles on this page! Hint, they are used as bullet points.

Overall, I would like to portray my personal professional brand as a curious artist, maker, and facilitator.