Tips for Marketing Yourself Online

With so many social media and marketing tool choices sometimes it feels like you’re wrestling an angry octopus just to get the word out about your skills.

For creatives, marketing might feel like a four letter word or a necessary evil. But choose your tools wisely, establish a system and set a consistent schedule and it’ll take the sting out the process.

Plus, marketing regularly can cure the feast or famine woes so common in our industry.

We try to spend only about 10%-15% of our time marketing (per day/per week)…but it can add up quick if you choose a bunch of different options. So be picky!

[Some of our epic marketing mistakes]

To market ourselves online we use a mix of different social media sites and a WordPress theme (from WooThemes).

SOCIAL MEDIA

It’s hard to keep up with the latest social media trends so we chose a handful that have been around a while and the user base falls within our target audience. Right now we use:

• Facebook (for building a tribe)
• Twitter (for commenting on industry news)
• LinkedIn (for connecting with industry leaders and potential team)
• WordPress (for thought leadership and sketch blogging)
• Pinterest (for establishing our studio culture)
• Redbubble and Instagram (for marketing random thoughts and ideas)

PORTFOLIOS

We get a lot of rough looking websites submitted to us to check out…lots of Flash effects, clunky navigations and poor design.

Unless websites are your thing it’s not a bad idea to use a template, a theme or host your portfolio with a service.

If all you need is a portfolio then there are many options and most are free.

It doesn’t hurt to use several options. That way you can be found anywhere someone may be looking.

We use a combo of free and freemium ones that have basic free plans and if you want more features you can pay extra.

• Behance
• Carbonmade
• Coroflot
• Design Taxi- The Creative Finder
• Plus our own gallery

Stats don’t really matter, jobs do. On one of our portfolios we get very few visitors per month but it’s led to several contacts and projects.

Be sure to put your best work up, not all of it. Be choosy and if you have several sweet spots then break the portfolio up by disciplines.

And then frequently change it up, take off and replace about 10% monthly if possible.

Here are a few possibilities that range from the free, freemium to paid:

• Jobrary
• Design Related
• Fig Dig
• Cargo Collective
• Viewbook
• Krop
• DeviantArt
• Shown’d
• Creative Shake
• Dripbook

Do you have any other suggestions not listed? Which do you prefer? Are any options more “professional” than others? More “artistic?”

On a shoestring? Read “Tweeting Your Own Horn: Marketing on a Shoestring Budget” for a possible strategy.