Everything You Need To Get Started

We’re looking forward to spending a few hours with Chelsea Matthews, CEO and founder of Matte Black, a culture-marketing firm and creative studio based in Los Angeles and London, for the AIGA Orange County event “Social Media for Creatives”. While we’re waiting for the Saturday July 9th, 2016 event, what better way to increase our excitement than have a chat with Chelsea and get a preview of what to expect.

Chelsea first dipped her toes into the social streams 7 years ago while working for a fashion company. Being self taught, she was able to learn as she went and grow as the channels grew and branched out to new potential and possibilities.

“For me the passion is between the brand and the consumer,” states Chelsea, but adds it’s also between, “the talent and their audience. This course is mostly about brands and how to optimize time, energy and resources to develop a good rhythm. We’ll discuss trends, case studies and the main channels (Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat).”

Anticipating a diverse audience of designers, photographers, strategists, illustrators and other creative businesses, she’s planning to speak about tools, schedules and plans that can help her attendees fully embrace the eco-system for those academically interested in the field or those who see it as a key future offering as a professional or business. The audience will drive aspects of the program–if you want to learn about best practices for scheduling/automation or how to price/packaging you’re going to have to ask!

“You can have a lot of fun with brands,” Chelsea states. Finding and exercising a brand voice can provide a great deal of satisfaction. Knowing what paid and organic strategies are most effective can help get you started. “Social Media is shifting to a paid platform so understanding how to test, optimize and approach analytics has never been so important.”

This is just one of the changes Chelsea sees happening today. The landscape is evolving. Getting a view of what to expect over the next year or two could be your competitive advantage.

Creatives have a unique perspective. Creatives can also have unique hurdles. Chelsea will discuss the legality and proper etiquette that can help you protect your work and yourself if you should repost or repurpose content. There are a lot of sources for cheap generic content…so many that it can be confusing what is public domain.

“When you understand the landscape,” sums up Chelsea, “you can feel like you own your social. It can be something you do in-house on a daily basis or the creative inspiration that let’s you oversee your social attack…and admit to yourself which areas you’re better off outsourcing.”

So come grab a seat for “Social Media for Creatives”. Bring an open mind, a lust for learning and a willingness to ask questions. In true social media fashion, what you want to get will largely dependent on you.