I was interviewed by blogger and freelance writer extraordinaire, Cheryl Santamaria, for a feature article on Women on Business. The article details the importance of using the Web as a tool for advertisting, both for budding entrepreneurs and established companies.
Working as a freelancer in make-up, I realize that there’s so much that I’ve learned along the way just by doing (rather than picking up from the classroom) especially on the business side. In the early days, when I first attempted to market myself to a large audience, aside from word of mouth, the Internet was my best advertising friend. I used livejournal, a free web-based journal to help me document different make-up looks I did on myself and on friends. Nowadays, if you’re an aspiring make-up artist, there are many more user-friendly resources available to you on the Web. Sites like Blogger (where this blog is hosted), Yola and Dripbook allow you to build your own blog/site with little to zero programming knowledge required. Social media-based sites like Twitter and Facebook allow you to send instant updates to those on your subscriber/friend list and further spread the word online. The best part about all these sites mentioned is that the basic layouts are free of charge to use!
So, if you’re just starting out and looking for your best promotion tool, take good quality photos to document your make-up work. Print out a few business cards (you don’t have to spend a lot of money, and can do this on your home computer), send out a mass email to your contact list, post it to your Facebook status or update your Twitter. Let your web presence be known and essentially you can initiate your own ‘e-word of mouth’.
