Not so long ago…
I was at a fork in the road of my life. I felt like I had to choose between pursuing education (aka a future) and pursuing my passions. I was tired of sitting in classrooms and being told what I needed to know to succeed, because here’s the thing: success is based on the individual. To me success meant something different than it did to my professors. To them success meant good grades, lots of money, and a safe lifestyle. To me success meant maintaining my creativity, improving my personal skills and talents, and being constantly challenged by my lifestyle. I didn’t want to live the same way as my peers. I wanted an alternative path to education through college.
I realized that no matter how much I wanted there to be an alternative, that desire alone would never get me anywhere. Due to this I was inspired to create my own alternative. I decided to build a brand that will give people a space to share their passions, to learn and grow skills, and find community. That brand is called Clam Chowder, and it is still in the development phases. So, I have learned a lot about those first steps really quickly.
Because Clam Chowder is a media based brand, this was a bit easier for me. I started by announcing my plans. I turned to my social media following that I had attained through my personal accounts. It turns out that the people who were already following me were already pretty interested in the projects that I was putting out. This gave me an immediate audience of supporters. It was what I needed to metaphorically push off from the dock.
My next step was to create some base content to showcase exactly what this brand was about. For me, the focus of my brand was on creating a space to share diverse artists, and artforms. I began with interviews, podcasts, and vlog style workshops. I reached out to artists I knew and talented individuals who were willing to contribute in one way or another. I interviewed several individuals and found that everyone who followed their work followed everything I produced that was relevant to them. I realized that if I pushed myself to maintain a constant stream of interviews that I would maintain a constant stream of viewers.
After I had built a base audience and some solid content I reached out to people who I knew would give me honest feedback on my projects and content so far. This was one of the most important processes for me. I received so much feedback and constructive comments. I even received donations to my cause through this. We were given camera equipment for our interviews, for example. That alone boosted our quality, and working with other creators helped us to learn tips on how to improve our audio quality as well as our updates on our social media.
I am still learning and still working to build this brand. I will say, however, that the number one, most important thing, has been sharing everything we do. It is constantly a surprise to me how many people are truly interested in our production process, our creative process, our interviews, and our workshops. We even have an audience that just follows our social updates, or uses our projects to find new artists to follow. There are people out there who want to see what you’re creating. That is the most important thing to remember.
If you have any questions let me know in the comments! Share your projects with me, I’d love to take a look at what you’re creating!