Joyce Katuari’s journey from 9-to-5 office warrior to full-time, globetrotting creative professional is an increasingly common one in this era: she started sharing her creative visions, fashion photography, and mixed media art on social media. Over the course of three and a half years she connected with other artists and industry insiders by fearlessly sharing her work and experimental aesthetic.
Today she’s a frequent contributor to art exhibits worldwide and PR manager for Beautiful Bizarre Magazine, while she works on launching her own passion projects, including VIRTUOGENIX Magazine, with an inaugural issue out this October, and a complementary photography studio this winter.
“Without social media, I would probably have zero chance of being a part of the creative industry,” she says.
Now she’s using the same platforms to discover and promote talented artists all over the world via her new magazine and corresponding social media channels, while continuing to build her own portfolio. So how does this artist and hustler keep up with ever-increasing social media demands for each of her burgeoning brands?
Building Social Brands with Adobe Spark
We first discovered Katuari’s work on Instagram where she posts under the pseudonym Miu Vermillion. She uses Adobe Spark Post and Spark Video to quickly promote her latest work, Beautiful Bizarre Magazine’s latest issues and exhibitions, and personal messages about her process. While she breaks out the big guns, like Adobe’s pro-tools, when working on her craft, she turns to Spark to communicate at the speed of social.
“I never thought I could make videos on my phone in 10 minutes or less. Adobe Spark Video makes the content creation process faster and easier.”
How @MiuVermillion Wins on Social
A short slideshow video, featuring still photography is an easy way to tease a larger content offering. Especially considering social video generates 1200% more shares than text and images combined, according to 2017 video marketing studies.
Graphics promoting her work also stand out on her profile when paired with photography and reposts of her favorite images.
Building a Strong Brand Identity with Adobe Spark
Though she’s found early success sharing her unique artistic view with the Internet, she’s now looking to create recognizable brands that will help her drive her desired business results—mainly: generating buzz and sales for VIRTUOGENIX Magazine while recruiting contributors in the creative fields and creating portfolio content for her personal brand as co-founder, creative director, and independent artist.
But when you’re working on multiple projects, cultivating brand assets often falls by the wayside—after all, most artists didn’t get into the business to create marketing content. But there’s a very real business reason for why artists should pay attention to branding. As Katuari notes, millions of images get shared online everyday and it’s easy for the creator to quickly become divorced from their creation. Consistent branding can ensure your work follows you wherever your work is shared.
“Even though I know I should, I never saw myself as a brand. Whatever people see on my social media, it’s a true (though limited) reflection of my real self,” she says. “But now that I’m planning on opening my own photography studio, I need to design and solidify a consistent image that represents who I am.”
As part of our Lighthouse program, the Spark team gave Katuari early access to Adobe Spark with premium features, which is now included in every Creative Cloud plan. Check out some of her new branded stories:
This video introduces the VIRTUOGENIX brand and mission, while teasing the contents in the inaugural issue. Coming out at under a minute and using text on screen ensure the video works for social media, where Katuari does most of her lead generating.
A slick media kit helps Katuari and her business partner quickly communicate the brand’s mission to potential advertisers and contributors, while reinforcing the brand’s style. Paralax design ensures the work looks great on any device—no web development needed.
While Miu generates leads and gets a fashion magazine off the ground, she also needs a quick, easy way to communicate who she is as a creative to potential clients and collaborators. Video is the most efficient way to communicate what you’re about and this one reflects Miu Vermillion as a pro with personality.
Adobe Spark with premium features allows Katuari to create social media content in one hub. In her Spark brand manager she can manage her various brands by adding as many logos, brand colors, or fonts to branded templates and themes as she needs. Each project that uses the theme will automatically carry her brand style on a number of branded surfaces.
As artists who share their work publicly, every piece or image ladders up to a personal world view or reflection of yourself to the world, especially since art is often so personal. Branding should be just as much an expression of personality and Spark’s new premium features offers communicators more control than ever to make it their own.
Joyce Katuari’s Tips for Winning on Social
Ready to get your work noticed? We tapped Katuari for her top social media tips.
- Use Hashtags for Discovery.
“At the moment, Instagram allows people to use up to 30 hashtags per post. I’d recommend using at least 10 less popular relevant hashtags (with less than 3 million posts per hashtags) because it can increase the visibility of the post. I never use extremely popular hashtags like #photography or #photo because I know my post will be pushed down by thousands of other people’s posts within minutes.” - Make Your Feed Cohesive.
“Lately, I try to make the images in my feed to look as cohesive as possible. I try to make sure each image I post will look nice next to the others. It seems to make a huge difference. I also try to post nothing but high quality images that look great as thumbnails. Eye-catching thumbnail can induce people to view the image in full size, wonderful image can make people want to view your profile, and well-curated feed can make people want to follow you.” - Don’t Try to Fit In.
“Without a recognizable brand, your posts will blend in with millions of others. Stay true to your personal aesthetic, personal standards, and principles. Don’t try to guess what other people want to see then post accordingly. Instead, try to reach more people with similar aesthetic and interests by commenting on their posts.” - Make Sure Your Brand Follows Your Content.
“There are millions of images online that get re-posted/re-tweeted/re-pinned without any credit. Even if people are curious enough to do reverse searches, they might never find the names of the people/team who created the images. If you can incorporate your logo into your posts as a part of the design, you increase the effectiveness of your social media campaign.”
Make your work stand out! Create branded content in three easy steps!