The Importance of Networking

As we all know, in the past year we have all faced many difficulties due to coronavirus and this has hugely affected the visual arts industry as a lot of our connections would be made in person, meeting and greeting people at exhibitions, portfolio reviews, meeting potential clients and firms, as well as being active on social media and sharing with the rest of the world our ongoing creations.

However, no matter what is going on in the world you have to keep going and push through the first barriers in the visual art world and connect with people in other ways. Whilst being at university, I have been set to complete a module called THD1446 - Applied Critical Languages, during this module I am set to create a website, blog, LinkedIn and Instagram account to show progression of work.

Whilst I have been creating my website, adding weekly posts on my Instagram account of shoots that I have created and began creating my LinkedIn account and made the first start to connect with other young practitioners and photography group pages.

This was when I realised the importance of networking, as we are already limited towards what we can and can't do it is so important to stay active on social media, and when I say social media I don't just mean one type of social media, I mean multiple different types such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.

From being active on multiple different types of social media, this allows your network to become wider than you will ever know as many people in the world may not see what you post on Instagram, although from making connections and requesting to be apart of groups through LinkedIn this allows so many more people to see what you have been creating and yet again possible clients and companies.

The more active you are, the more recognition you will receive.

Harley Kelly.