{"id":11,"date":"2012-03-02T15:07:44","date_gmt":"2012-03-02T19:07:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/?p=11"},"modified":"2019-01-10T10:57:37","modified_gmt":"2019-01-10T15:57:37","slug":"your-brand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/2012\/03\/02\/your-brand\/","title":{"rendered":"Your Brand"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><a id=\"top\" name=\"top\"><\/a>To be a successful working artist, take a few pages from the marketer\u2019s playbook.<\/h2>\n<h4>By Patrick L. Kennedy<\/h4>\n<div class=\"sidebar-story-box\">\n<div class=\"pillarNews\">\n<h3>IN THIS STORY<span> <\/span><\/h3>\n<div class=\"content\">\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"#emarketing\"><strong>Sidebar:<\/strong> E-marketing Tips from Entrepreneurial Alumni<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>To tweet or not to tweet? <\/strong>If you make your living as an independent painter, sculptor, graphic designer, musician, actor, or director, the answer is, to tweet. As well as to blog, email, and Facebook\u2014and most important, to do all of these strategically.<\/p>\n<p>Artists today should know how to market themselves, says CFA Dean Benjam\u00edn Ju\u00e1rez, who plans to make entrepreneurial skills part of the College\u2019s curriculum going forward.<\/p>\n<p>Nowadays, the arts have lots of competition for people\u2019s time and attention, Ju\u00e1rez explains. \u201cSo an artist needs to be not only an excellent, relevant artist, she also needs to be an advocate for her profession, for her art, and for her work. This means that she will have to acquire on top of her artistic skills some other tools that will allow her to be a good presenter, to express herself in writing and orally, to reach out to her community, to build new ways in which to experience the arts, to make use of technology and social media.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A big part of that, says Ju\u00e1rez, is knowing how to brand yourself.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cPersonal branding is a state of mind,\u201d <\/strong>Gary Bergmann tells audiences at his lectures on the topic. Bergmann, a personal branding consultant and\u00a0 a career counselor at BU\u2019s School of Management, says his advice applies to artists as much as, if not more than, it does to business professionals. Careful branding, he says, provides artists swifter recognition and the potential for a more devoted and appreciative audience. \u201cThe sooner you realize you are a brand and you need to integrate and unify all the elements of your communication, the better.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>You don\u2019t have to be Martha Stewart or Dolly Parton to practice \u201cpersonal branding.\u201d The term is defined by Dan Schawbel, a guru Bergmann cites often, as simply \u201chow we market ourselves to others.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Study after study has shown that \u201ca strong brand gets more revenue through higher awareness,\u201d says another School of Management branding expert, Associate Professor Susan Fournier. And self-employed artists know that they have to consider revenue if they want to keep making art.<\/p>\n<p>Not that an independent practitioner should try to <em>maximize<\/em> his or her brand. \u201cA coffee company wants its brand to be the biggest,\u201d says Fournier. \u201cThat might not be the best goal for an artist.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Personal branding in the arts is actually about staying true to one\u2019s vision. The point is to clearly define that vision, and to keep in mind the audience, no matter the size, that appreciates that vision.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cIt\u2019s not how well you are known,\u201d <\/strong>says Bergmann. \u201cIt\u2019s what you are known for.\u201d That\u2019s the first of two major principles of branding as Bergmann sees it. \u201cIt\u2019s writing your own mission statement. What are your key attributes?\u201d List them.<\/p>\n<p>For example, jewelry designer Kirsten Goede (\u201990) says, \u201cI am known for hand-crafted Swarovski crystal\u2014and an abundance of it\u2014and a lot of style. Bright, colorful, and feminine\u201d are the words associated with her line, Objets d\u2019Envy.<\/p>\n<p>Bergmann\u2019s second and closely related principle is: \u201cIt\u2019s not about you; it\u2019s about who your \u2018client\u2019 is.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In Goede\u2019s case, that means, \u201cA woman who\u2019s between 28 and 52, probably an educated professional\u2014but really somebody who\u2019s looking for something a little bit different and is not afraid to go a little bit bolder with her jewelry,\u201d she says. (Gayle King, best friend of Oprah Winfrey and editor-at-large of <em>O, The Oprah Magazine<\/em>, wore an Objets bracelet to the 2011 Academy Awards.) \u201cThere\u2019s a ton of jewelry designers out there, but there\u2019s a customer for everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And while a large company wants its product to \u201cresonate within the culture,\u201d says Fournier, artists need only focus on a segment of that culture. \u201cThere has to be a group that\u2019s drooling for what it is that you do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Once you\u2019ve defined your attributes <\/strong>and your audience or clientele, you\u2019re ready to promote your brand online and off. Web 2.0 and social media allow small entrepreneurs to market themselves as never before. (Think of all the crafts sold on Etsy.)<\/p>\n<p>This doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s time to lock yourself indoors and rely solely on the Internet to build your brand. But with cheap and speedy electronic communication, an artist can not only spread the word about upcoming exhibits or shows, but also develop a buzz and a sense of intimacy with fans.<\/p>\n<p>Goede perfectly blends shoe leather with savvy e-marketing. The women who read her email newsletter and buy her jewelry enjoy doing business with a small entrepreneur, she says. \u201cIt\u2019s sort of, \u2018This is my friend <em>and<\/em> my jewelry designer.\u2019\u201d (Goede says for that reason she finds email to be a more intimate venue than Facebook or Twitter, although she maintains pages on those sites as well.) Meanwhile, she goes out to visit office groups who invite her for lunchtime show-and-tells, and she holds fun \u201ccoffee-and-sparkle dates,\u201d in which she shows small groups her latest work.<\/p>\n<p>As you juggle on- and offline marketing efforts, the key is to remember \u201cthe three C\u2019s of personal branding,\u201d as Bergmann calls them: \u201cClarity, consistency, and constancy. You need to be very clear about who you are and what you do; the message has got to be the same over and over again; and you\u2019ve got to be out there all the time\u2014you can\u2019t be hiding in a corner.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The advantage of being a one-person promotional machine is that you can make your communications consistent yourself, without having the pieces separately approved by a committee. Using her photography skills and her CFA graphic design training, \u201cI control all the messaging,\u201d says Goede.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEverything has the same look and feel and voice, and it\u2019s got to be authentic, which is not so hard to do\u2014it\u2019s really just speaking from the heart. Jewelry design is one of the most important things in my life, so I can talk about it and spread the word pretty easily.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Many of us are wary <\/strong>of putting ourselves out there too much, of seeing our typos or ill-advised posts spread before we can delete them. And indeed, in some ways, you face greater risks branding yourself than if you were branding a coffee or a car, Fournier acknowledges. \u201cBecause the brand is a human, and humans make mistakes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But to a large extent, you have it all over a faceless corporation. \u201cA strong narrative is the biggest secret of branding,\u201d says Fournier. \u201cAll good brands have good stories. And good stories that are resonant and provocative have a main character. Well, the personal brand has that built in already. Artists, because they\u2019re corporeal, can make their stories come alive. It takes a lot more work to do that for a brand of coffee.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"sidebar-story\">\n<h3 class=\"sidebar-header\"><a id=\"emarketing\" name=\"emarketing\"><\/a>Sidebar<\/h3>\n<h2>E-marketing Tips from Entrepreneurial Alumni<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Yevgeny Kutik (\u201907), violinist<\/strong><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-418\" title=\"Yevgeny Kutik\" src=\"\/cfa-magazine\/files\/2012\/04\/Yevgeny-Kutik.jpg\" alt=\"Yevgeny Kutik\" width=\"100\" height=\"111\" \/>\u201cTwitter is an incredibly powerful way to get your music or art ideas out there. It is important to be creative on Twitter. Say things that provoke, are funny, or are informative\u2014anything that would genuinely interest a varied group of individuals. This can really help grow your group of followers as well as get your name out there. However, I think one should be careful when posting bland info-statements and the same old thing. This can do more harm than good.\u201d<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.yevgenykutik.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">www.yevgenykutik.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Julia Fernandez-Pol (\u201908), painter<\/strong><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-420\" title=\"Julia Fernandez-Pol\" src=\"\/cfa-magazine\/files\/2012\/04\/fernandez-pol4.jpg\" alt=\"Julia Fernandez-Pol\" width=\"100\" height=\"111\" \/>\u201cI use Facebook to promote shows, and also any reviews of my work or my friends\u2019. I have found it a wonderful way to stay in touch with an art-conscious community beyond my own physical limitations, having spent a lot of time in other countries.\u201d<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.juliafernandezpol.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">www.juliafernandezpol.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Kirsten Goede (\u201990), jewelry designer<\/strong><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-419\" title=\"Kirsten Goede\" src=\"\/cfa-magazine\/files\/2012\/04\/kirsten_goede.jpg\" alt=\"Kirsten Goede\" width=\"100\" height=\"111\" \/>\u201cSocial media is great, but really get those email addresses from people. Exchanging emails\u2014it\u2019s a much tighter relationship. Get those addresses any way you can. For example, I don\u2019t give out my business card so much as get others. You don\u2019t know whether someone will follow up if you just hand them your card, but once you have their contact info, you control where the relationship is going. I pay 80 bucks a month for an email newsletter service\u2014that forces me to get one out every month. I get sales inquiries every time.\u201d<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.objetsdenvy.com\/home.cfm\" target=\"_blank\">www.objetsdenvy.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"#top\">Back to top<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To be a successful working artist, take a few pages from the marketer\u2019s playbook. By Patrick L. Kennedy IN THIS STORY Sidebar: E-marketing Tips from Entrepreneurial Alumni To tweet or not to tweet? If you make your living as an independent painter, sculptor, graphic designer, musician, actor, or director, the answer is, to tweet. As [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6143,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6143"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6102,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11\/revisions\/6102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}