Instagram

Over the past three years at uni, I've been trying to maintain a professional online presence in the form of Instagram.

My professional account has come into fruition more this year, with me activley using it more often regularly than I have done previously, connecting with other creatives and posting relevant and consistent content. It's currently gathered just under 500 followers and work seems to be getting seen by people when I post. As a disclaimer, I'd like to say I dont think followers necessarily matter for anything on any kind of social network, but in terms of using this as a tool for self-promotion, I do think it plays into it a little.

I try integrate both my personal and professional account, posting work on both accounts and one day hope to merge them into one cohesive, consistent account.

THOUGHTS:

CONTENT - I noticed earlier in the year that I was posting only final, digital versions of my work. This wasnt too much of an issue as it made everything look quite clean and professional but I felt that my voice and my personality were being lost within that. Since then, I've started posting more product photos, images of process, and sketchbook pages in an attempt to vary the content and tailor it to who I am.

PERSONAL VS PROFESSIONAL - For a while now, and especially after going to the AOI talks, I've been debating the idea of keeping professional completley seperate from personal accounts. I think to an extent, keeping your professional life and personal life seperate works, but only to an extent. Being a creative individual and someone that is heavily influenced by everyday life, emotion and music, I feel it's unnatural for me to keep these completley seperate. Ideally, I would like to be able to merge the two together in a way that still allows me to keep up professional appearances but that also doesn't make me into some souless, image creating robot.