Dance Artist Maria Lothe shares her experience taking part in the Freelancers Breakfast Club about online self-promotion, July 2018
Posted: 07/09/2018
I had a great time at the Freelancers Breakfast Club last
week, learning about online self-promotion for artists, and meeting other
freelancers working within different fields of art. If you have not been to the
Breakfast Club before, I highly recommend it. Its such a great initiative by LEAN,
and a great way for freelancers to get together and share their thoughts, ideas
or concerns. Its a relaxed, open and friendly environment open to both
emerging and established artist.
As a freelancer I often work alone, and I think its valuable
to be part of a group and community of artists with a variety of knowledge and
experience. I`m an artist based in Lewisham, and work as a choreographer, performer
and arts facilitator, often in collaboration with visual artists (www.marialothe.com) Recently I have also
had the pleasure to work with LEAN, assisting them on BRAG (Bellingham Regeneration
Arts Group) after being an intern for Lewisham Live Festival.
The guest speaker Jennifer Robinson is the founder and
director of Women of the Lens Film Digital Broadcast Festival (@womenofthelens)
and PR Consultant and Founder of Eshé Media. Being an emerging artist, I
thought it was very useful to hear what she had to say.
Jennifer talked about the language of self-promotion and that
its a way of displaying yourself as an artist, rather than bragging or showing
off. As a freelancer, you cannot be shy or be a wallflower, you need to be
confident in what you do people are attracted to confidence. You need to
have a voice and a brand as an artist, with a clear message/ethos, and find a
way of communicating this clearly and consistently. Jennifer talked about the common social media
platform, like facebook, Instagram, twitter and websites, and she recommended to
choose the ones you like and know you can be consistent with. Buffer/ Hootsuite
/e-clincher are easy to use scheduling sites, where you can plan and schedule
posts, saving you valuable time. These are some of the information she shared
with us, which was followed by an open group discussion.
Thank you both to LEAN and to Jennifer, already looking forward
to the next Freelancers Breakfast Club. If you havent been before, join the
next one 30th October. The more people attending, the more we show
how much this initiative is needed!
With all the best wishes,
Maria Lothe
