I-Park is a non-profit artists-in-residence program located in East Haddam, CT.
Since 2001, I-Park has hosted over 600 artists from around the world on this 450-acre site. The preserve serves as both an open-air and closed-studio laboratory/workshop for creative pursuits in a variety of fields. These include: visual arts, music composition/sound art, creative writing, moving image, architecture and landscape/garden/ecological design.
Each month, beginning in April and ending in November, seven artists, who have been selected by way of a highly competitive jury process, arrive at I-Park for a 4-week, fully-funded onsite residency to develop new projects or work on existing ones. Additionally, every 2 years, I-Park hosts an Environmental Art Exhibition preceded by a 3-week residency. For this year’s Environmental Art Program, 12 artists will create new works that respond to the landscape: sculptures, sound art and performance art.
A free public exhibition will be held on September 20, 2015.
The public is also invited for OPEN Studios on August 9th, 2015. Meet the artists-in-residence in their studios, view their works-in-progress and walk the grounds.
To learn more about I-Park, donation opportunities and their calendar of events, please visit www.i-park.org, call 860.873.2468 or send an email to info@i-park.org.
Thinking about creating a “how-to” video? If not, you should be. The company reports over 100 million hours watched in 2015.
YouTube “how-to” views are continually growing, in fact 70% year over year. It’s an opportunity for brands big and small to get “seen”. Millennials are the key drivers of this growth and Google cites that 67% state they can find a YouTube video for anything they want to learn. It’s quick, it’s easy and it’s at their fingertips.
The most popular “how-to” searches are related to home-improvement, beauty and cooking videos. However, don’t let that discourage you if your business or product does not fit into one of these categories; video is still a powerful SEO tool that all brands should be using.
Watch this short video on the best way to create your own video. Enjoy!
Every year you should update your marketing plan and continually be on a mission to maximize your results. As you know, results increase your dollars and dollars increase your growth. It’s an endless loop, but one every company should be on.
If you want to be in the loop, start implementing these items immediately. These marketing trends won’t be fading anytime soon and they are more than significant, they are necessary.
Mobile – embrace it. Your website should be accessible via mobile or tablet with optimal functionality for great user experience. This shows your company is current and relevant. Statistics show that 66% of mobile users read their emails on smartphones so having mobile-responsive messaging that matches your site’s functionality is important.
Content, content and more content. The quickest way to your audience’s heart is through valuable content. Content marketing through social media, blogging, email, and video helps you establish authority and gains trust with prospects, plus it’s a great SEO boost.
Personalize your content. Content creation has become a major marketing trend and people are on overload. This creates a very selective audience as to what they will read or watch. Personalizing your information for prospective clients is key for building your brand and for building relationships.
One size does not fit all. When you create and share brand content (a video, image, blog post, article, etc.) on different social media platforms you’re bound to get different results. It’s important to evaluate the type of engagement on each platform so you can customize your content for each one. This helps strengthen your brand with a new, targeted approach.
Be a human. Stop the pitch and try to connect on a real, human level. People are looking for honesty, education, and clarity and never truly want to be “sold”. When you take this approach, it will be recognized and your brand will naturally expand along with the bottom line.
Social Media is an incredible tool for many businesses. It is a great way to connect with your customers, target audience, and potential clients in somewhat of an informal setting. Unfortunately, it also provides opportunity for those who find themselves dissatisfied with your product or service, a place to vent. Specifically on sites like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Yelp.
While it’s wonderful to receive positive reviews, many times negative posts tend to outshine and ultimately weigh heavily on your new & impressionable, visitors.
Seeing as there’s no way to prevent negative reviews, we’ve come up with three easy steps to help your business to handle them.
1) Do not delete the comment. Many times, your instinct will tell you to delete – but that often causes more harm than good. Ignoring & banishing the complaints of your customers will only aggravate them further. To be sure that their voice is heard, they may enlist friends and family members to spam your social accounts with negative comments as well, thus creating a much larger problem than initially intended.
2) Respond, but choose your words wisely. You’ve made the smart decision to keep the comment public, now it’s time to respond…and fast. Take the time reply to the individual(s) as promptly as possible. Your response should first and foremost always be professional. Do not get defensive or aggressive with your words. It is appropriate to apologize for whatever may be angering this customer; be sure to let them know that you sympathize and understand their frustration.
3) Fix it. The last step in this process is to make an effort to rectify the situation to the best of your ability. Sometimes people simply want to speak to someone – put them in touch. If they want a refund or replacement – do your best to adhere to that request. If all else fails, offer a discount, coupon, free additional service, etc. We may not always be able to make everything 100% better, but giving it your best effort will hopefully leave the customer with a less bitter taste in their mouth, and prevent them from further posting negative comments about your company on the internet.
The best part about social media is that it allows people to interact directly with brands and companies – use this opportunity to your advantage. Do your best to converse with those who are singing your praises, as well as those who are doing just the opposite. Either way, your attention will be appreciated.
‘It’s all about networking’ is very quickly becoming a cliché, but don’t forget: clichés become clichés because they’re expressive and usually hit the bull right between the eyes (which, of course, is a cliché).
Networking is good for business, for individual advancement, for all manner of projects, promotions, plans and initiatives—good for just about everything. But as with most other forms of marketing, there are good ways and bad ways, right ways and wrong ways, useful ways and useless ways of doing it. Here are a couple of good, right and useful ways:
Always carry business cards with you—but don’t throw them out to everybody you bump into. Successful networking is about engaging the right people.
Listen as much as you talk. Sometimes, listen more than you talk. Figuring out what some of the specific needs of a potential client may be—which you can only do by listening—can result in valuable business. Just talking about yourself may not.
Help connect others. Introduce professionals who share common interests, businesses or industries. That can always work its way back to you in some positive way.
Be friendly and helpful. Share some professional insights and stories, or pass along relevant articles or blogs. Just as importantly, don’t necessarily expect anything in return.
Be proactive. Seek out individuals you would like to connect with and arrange to meet them. Decisiveness and intent, as long the self-serving nature of it takes a backseat to friendliness, helpfulness and sharing, can go a long way in letting people know what you’re looking for.
I-Park is a non-profit artists-in-residence program located in East Haddam, CT.
