artists | The Penguin in the Room Blog

Thanks to client Tangled Feet for this image of their Pinterest profile

Pinterest began in 2009 and is a social media network that is image based! Hurrah and hurray for creative people who work in visual mediums. Pinterest isn’t just for discovering wedding ideas, it can be used for your career too. Here are five things you need to know about this social platform

1. It’s FREE

Like almost all social media networks it is free so just go to www.pinterest.com to set up an account. Why wouldn’t you?!

2. It’s easy to use

You create online pin boards, you know like the cork ones we had when we were kids. You then pin images from the internet to you your online pin board. You can have an “inspiration board” where you can pin images that inspire you (does what it says on the tin) and wonderful work by other artists/creatives and this can be useful when pitching projects or devising your own work. You can also create boards of your own work perhaps labelled by the year or theme. You can also follow other peoples boards (and they can follow you) and you can use snazzy images from other people’s boards and pin them on your own board to share the love. You can even comment on other people’s images to tell them how wonderful they are.

3. It’s useful

It is a great way to promote your work visually – we can see images of all your artworks/performances/make up in one place. Just think of the impact! You can also promote the link to your board via your website and other social media to engage with followers.

It’s a wonderful tool for raising awareness of your work and gathering an online fan base, as other people can comment on your images and re-pin them to your their own boards ie. sharing the image with their friends and followers.

4. Some things are private

A couple of years ago Pinterest introduced private boards. Private boards mean that you can create a mood board for a new project and keep it to yourself until the work is finished. After completion of your product you can publish the inspiration board behind it so your followers get an insight into your process. Cool, huh?

5. Copyright?

It is definitely worth putting your copyright in the title of the image or adding your watermark/logo to the image so that others cannot reproduce it. This also means that when other profiles pin your images they are also promoting your brand and logo.

Enjoy promoting your work and please do tweet or facebook us the links to your boards!

Penguin in the Room @prartsmarketing is a group of creatives with an arts marketing dream: penguin stepping our way into the arts industry and helping other creatives flourish! Specialising in online marketing, social media, branding, copy writing, media coaching and web design for actors, artists, casting directors, agents, production companies, theatre companies and creative individuals.

Contact us any time for penguin chats via email: info@penguinintheroom.com or Facebook.com/penguinintheroom or waddle over to our website: www.penguinintheroom.com

A hashtag is this lovely symbol # which you have probably seen banded about across twitter, the internet and even on tv and printed advertising now-a-days. But what is it for?! Well it has a number of fun functions (alliteration makes me happy).

Helping more people see your tweets – a great way to find news/info tailored to you on twitter, is to use the search function. If you are a director you might search “actors” to find some new talent. So if you are an actor and you are tweeting about your latest project you might want to hashtag it with “actors” eg #actors so that directors can find you. Similarly if you are an artist and you are tweeting about your latest artwork you might want to hashtag it with words that will help art lovers find you eg. #art #painting #sculpture
Promoting an event or campaign – if you are planning an event or marketing campaign its a terrific idea to create a hashtag for it. The hashtag can be used to encourage people to tweet about the event and to monitor feedback: raising awareness and giving you a list of testimonials for the product or event.
Linking conversations – every Sunday when the new episode of Downton Abbey is on you will probably notice that lots of people are using the hashtag #downton or #downtonabbey when commenting on the newest instalment If you click on this hashtag it will take you to all the tweets featuring this hashtag. You can read through whole conversations about Downton and join in yourself. This can be a useful tool if you are off to an event and the clever event hosts have read “tip 3” and created a hashtag for the event, such as #penguinworkshop The day before most people will probably tweet that they are excited about or off to this fabulous event eg. “So excited about #penguinworkshop tomorrow afternoon”. If you are going too you can click on this hashtag and see who is going to be at the event the next day and maybe even do some pre-event networking – perhaps arrange to all go to lunch together or meet for coffee before!
For Funnies – hashtags are also useful for making jokes and don’t forget you can hashtag a few words together. Popular ones are #shamlessselfpromotion #badhairday my personal favourites are #pickupapenguin and #lastnightapenguinsavedmylife

So there you are! Go forth and hashtag!

Penguin in the Room @prartsmarketing is one penguin with an arts marketing dream: penguin stepping my way into the arts industry and helping creatives flourish! Specialising in online marketing, social media, branding, copy writing, media coaching and web design for actors, artists, casting directors, agents, production companies, theatre companies and creative individuals.

Contact me any time for penguin chats via email: info@penguinintheroom.com orFacebook.com/penguinintheroom or waddle over to my website:www.penguinintheroom.com