2. Today’s Aims
Why do you need to promote ourselves online?
How do I create content for my audience?
What tools are available?
Benefits of networking
A short task!
Hints & tips
Q&A, any help etc.
3. About Me
Who am I?
My blogging journey so far
My main achievements
4. Creating an online presence
Who will you be aiming your blog & social media at?
Other people in your industry
Potential employers
Potential clients
What’s your tone & style?
5. WordPress
What is it?
How can you use it to promote yourself?
Achievements
Creativity
Previous work & experience
Theme
How have I used WordPress?
6. Twitter
Meet other people in your industry
Clients
Employers
People you can take inspiration from!
Make a professional account
Horror stories!
7. LinkedIn
What is it?
Great way to show off!
Meet potential employers, other people in your
sector & find job offers
Keep your profile fresh and updated
How has it worked for me?
8. And now…link them all together
Have the same profile picture across all platforms
Link blog posts to Twitter and LinkedIn
Instagram too!
Have ‘Find me on social media’ page on WordPress
13. Sophie Paterson on Social
Media for Interior Designers
If people find you through a social network it can act as a
kind of introduction to you and the kind of person you are.
Find someone you admire in your industry and see what
they tweet about and who they follow. When you are
thinking of posting a tweet, ask yourself if they would post
it.
Rather than just publishing links to your work, talk about
what you have been doing or where you have been.
Don’t overshare, and remember to reply to people who
talk to you and thank them for retweeting etc.
www.theartofbespoke.com/inspiration/sophie-paterson-on-social-media/
14. Networking
Pros:
Advice
Opportunities
Self-promotion
New connections…could help in the future!
Don’t be scared!
15. Task!
Choose a topic you’re familiar with. How could you
put that into a blog post?
Example: you went to the New Designers at the
Business Design Centre in London,and now you’re
writing up a blog post about it
Could include: speaker/venue/quotes/pictures...
Show off!
16. Final Thoughts
If you can’t be interesting make them smile!
#interiordesignproblems
Google alerts
Keep it fresh!
Requires determination, but you will reap the
benefits!
Editor's Notes
Just a bit about what I’m going to cover today, there will be time at the end for questions too!
The importance of using social media and blogging to get your name out there in the interiror design industry after graduating
Working out who you’ll be aiming your blog, social media sites etc to
Learning how to create content for your appropriate audience
What online tools are available for you
Ideas of questions to ask at the networking event you’re going to and future networking opportunities!
A short task, if there’s time! I know its nearly dinner time so I’ll keep it short!
And general advice I’ve learned from my experiences promoting myself online!
I’ll leave the second hour open to questions, help, advice and anything
Explain logo
Livi Wilkes, 3rd year PR student, blogger at Live Love Laugh PR – a blog aimed at PR students, and Editor of the Solent PR blog where I create content I and also attend events around the uni and take photos and do interviews
I started blogging in 2012, random blog about anything and everything, then when I joined uni and started contributing to the solent PR blog I realised I had loads of pr-y stuff to talk about so decided to re-brand myself! Since then, I create posts on tips and advice for pr students, interviews with PR pros, blogging about events I attend
Achievements – in a book
- best pr blogger
I’ve reaped a lot of benefits of having a strong online presence over the last 2 years which I’ll share as I go along, definitely crucial to all aspirational uni students
Before you set up a blog and professional twitter account, it’s important to have a think about who you are aiming it at and who you want to read it
These are the 3 people your blog and social media will mainly be aimed at, especially after graduating
Top quality writing and images, no grammatical errors or fuzzy pics!
You should set the tone and style at the outset that you want your personal brand to have and the image you want to portray
My blog is light hearted – its professional, but not ‘boring’ and no jargon – otherwise it can sound like an essay or academic piece of writing
A blog post is informal and conversational, but be wary of being too relaxed – that won’t impress the pros! I read somewhere once that employers won’t judge you on what you say on your blog, because they want to know you have a personality and a life outside of work, but try not to talk about drunk stories etc!
Ask for a show of hands about knowledge of wordpress
Wordpress is one of the top blogging sites, a lot of businesses actually run their websites through wordpress. You can buy the domain so, unlike blogger or blogspot, you can have .com or .co.uk etc instead of .wordpress.com. And it costs £10 a year to buy!
How can you use it?
- showcase talents/achievements/how you can help others businesses/what you’ve learned at uni
- - Creativity – through the wide variety of wordpress themes
- Photos! V. important for interior design – shows off your creativity
- Theme – make it relevant – so if theres a particular interior design style you’ll want to have – theres themes available for photography focus and
word focus,
- Different to FB or Linkedin. I’ll go into Linkedin more in a bit, but having your own platform and Url is much more professional than a page on facebook – that can be useful, but for re-locating people to your blog from your fb page instead of having every photo, and info about you crammed on one fb page. Plus, wordpress is the only social media platform where theres absolutely no template and you have control over every aspect of the layout. Its entirely yours!
How have I used it? Examples of what you can do, too!
To meet other PR bloggers – they got to know me too!
Sent it out to potential work experience placements – a lot of them seemed impressed with it
Doing interviews with PR professionals
Got a job as Editor of Solent PR blog after learning the ropes from setting up my own blog.
With a simple hashtag of #interiordesign you’ll be able to find other interior design students, people advertising interiror design jobs, people looking for an interior designer – endless possibilities!
In first year I made my personal twitter account private and set up another twitter account which I use for blogging stuff and PR stuff. I tweet just as much on both, but tend to keep any drunk stories for my personal account! I think I actually have more followers on my professional account which might say something about my tweets, who knows..! As well as keeping it professional, it also helps me keep track of people in the PR industry and bloggers I like reading about whereas I know I can see what my friends tweeted after a few shots on my other account.
Quick story – I actually came about to win pr blogger 2015 because I shared my blog posts on twitter and they were picked up by a pr practitioner who entered me in to the competition!
Horror stories! Be careful what you share online.
Justine Sacco, a PR consultant who once had only 170 Twitter followers, became one of the most hated people on Earth after tweeting, "Going to Africa. Hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding. I'm white!“. She found out she was fired as soon as she landed.
Basically, LinkedIn is an online CV.
You can get employers etc to write recommendations singing your praises, and put all the experience you’ve had onto it
There’s a great section on LinkedIn where you can search for jobs in any location/sector you want
As soon as you’ve finished work experience, for example, write about it on your linkedin – so you don’t forget what you did, get the recommendations from your supervisors so they don’t forget what you were like
Anecdote – I couldn’t find the PR managers name at a place I wanted to do work experience (radio station @ home) so I found him on linkedin and dropped him an email, turns out we live in villages next to one another and I secured 2 weeks experience! – more personal, not just a generic email etc.
Creating an online presence means people being able to link all your social media platforms back to you. Various ways to do this
Having the same PROFESSIONAL picture – no drunken toilet selfies – across all the platforms will 1) make you look professional and 2) help people recognise you better
Theres a way on wordpress to link blog posts to twitter automatically, but I prefer writing my own little summary on twitter along with the link, not just the automatic one. So like, new blog post! My top tips on being the best interior design student in the country #interiordesign #designbloggers etc.
As interiror design students you might use instagram as a platform a lot too – more than I would – so sharing your new post on there could work for you too. I have an example in a bit of how a professional instagram could be just as worthwhile as a professional twitter
LinkedIn has more of a professional vibe so sharing posts to that you might be a bit less chatty and hashtaggy, but share it all the same
Consider your blog as somewhat of a website – a contact page is vital, put links to all your sites in one place, and an email address too.
Just an example of an interior design blog I found on WordPress
Colour scheme
Link to instagram which can you can do with twitter as well – have your tweets down the side
Google interior design wordpress themes and you’ll find lots of articles on the best themes for you guys – theres so many themes to scroll through so this will help you!
- This is an interior designer who’s interivew I came across online, that’s in a couple of slides, about how interior designers should use social media so I had a look at all her networks. Obviously she can who relate social media and blogging to interior design better than I can! I did find her linkedin page but its not a good example of linkedin! Hers doesn’t have any information on, just a few of her skills so she could improve that.
Very simple and clean and pretty!
Obvious colour scheme
Brief but clear bio, including location.
Going down Sophie’s twitter, it was clear she uses instagram a lot so have a look into that to build your online rep if you haven’t already
Great way to showcase work but personally I think she could do a few more personable tweets, not just link from instagram
she’s regularly active which is a must
As interior design students, you probably know all about instagram themes and making them look pretty – unlike mine which is just any old photo of an size!
Very important in interior design to have what I call a pretty instagram as well as being an excellent showcase of work as the majority of your work is photos!
Quite a lot of words so easier to have a look! Should find full interview if you google art of bespoke and sophie paterson
Obviously these tips apply to all industries, but have a look at the interview to see her different social networks etc
Sophie could probably take her on own advice a tad on number 3
Twitter ettiquette..dont overshare..
New Designers at the Business Design Centre in London
Pros:
Advice – there will be people who started out in the exact same place as you and will be able to offer you advice on where to go/what to do after graduating to secure a job
Opportunities – there might be employers there looking for new recruits – work experience etc – keep a look out for them!
Promote yourself! Not necessarily with a huge life size cut out of your CV, but don’t be afraid to say the type of job you want after uni and why – the units you got the best grades in etc – show off a little bit! That’s the point of networking – otherwise people may think you don’t have much to offer
New connections – even if you don’t think theres anyone there that’s in the field you want to go to, who knows what you might be doing in 4/5 years! Be polite to everyone and be approachable! Don’t stand in the corner by the free buffet although that does always seem very appealing.
Can seem SO daunting but it’s not really that bad. Sometimes you’ll try and chat with someone who’s just really not giving anything back, but just cut that conversation short BUT make sure you leave a positive image of you in their minds – they might just be having an off day but could still remember you in the future.
Can do it in pairs if you want
Look at it like you’re showing off – all the things you learned, people you spoke too, the edge it gives you above interior design students
OR start an about me page/my achievments/my work page
Think of alternative ways to engage peoples minds; written, visual, movies, jokes …..
As well as nice little personal things about you, eg the other day I tweeted on my pro account about come dine with me and uploaded a pic of some flowers my boyfriend sent me – shows I actually have a personality and a life outside of PR
for news stories you can re tweet and re blog
Whats worse than not having a blog, is having a blog where the last post was written in 2012 – same applies to twitter and linkedin
Creating a useful online presence is a battle which requires strong will and time and determination but it will be worth your while
Any questions? Anything you want me to go over again?
