“Using Social Media to Promote Your Creative Business” – Arts@Work

Instructor: Jocelyn Mathewes

How can an online presence serve and build your art or creative business? Whether you’re starting from scratch or seeking to enhance or expand your online presence, this class is meant for you. Prior to the class, you’ll be given a set of questions to help frame what your needs and goals. During the class, we will discuss the incredible variety of platforms available (both popular and up-and-coming) and discuss how best to make them work for a variety of situations. You should walk away from this class with a sense of what is may be the best fit and best investment of your time and energy online.

This interactive online program is designed to be immediately applicable to your business. Jocelyn will meet you where you are, even if you have no social media presence at all. Participants will receive a set of questions before the workshop begins, allowing you to gather the information you need and come to the first session prepared to apply the principles and practices covered during the session.

Jocelyn will work everyone through three intersecting points:

• What does your business do/offer?

• Where is your audience or client base?

• Where do you enjoy spending your online time?

Using these three touch points, Jocelyn will make suggestions about how you might create or hone your online presence to best reflect your business and to attract the best audience for your work.

INSTRUCTOR BIO: Jocelyn Mathewes (@jocelynmathewes on Instagram and Facebook) is a mixed-media interdisciplinary artist, living with her family in rural Appalachia in East Tennessee. After receiving her B.A. in Studio Art from Messiah College, she pursued a career in writing, graphic design, and photography. After a decade of work under her belt, several life events led her to change her path, choosing one that led into fine art. She participated in the Artist Residency in Motherhood from 2016 – 2019. Her work has been exhibited in galleries, museums, and community spaces all over the United States. She pours her passion for the arts into her local community, serving on the advisory board for Create Appalachia and coordinating artist meet-ups to foster growth and collaboration. In 2020, she created Eat/Art Space, a private pop-up gallery from her dining room in Appalachia (@eatartspace). Eat/Art Space showcases regional artists and regional food purveyors.

“As an artist, Jocelyn says, “analog film, alternative processes, textile arts, and mixed media are my method for contemplating the natural world around me and the interior physical world of the body. Overlapping frames, media, and conceptual imagery are all merged to create a single, unrepeatable image, expressing my deep interest in the chaos of particular humanity and place. I seek to bring things that seem distant or invisible that much closer to understanding.”

Partial Funding provided by a generous grant from the Tennessee Arts Commission.