Filthy Soup - Social media for business. Liberating and a bit weird at the same time.
You never know what doors might open through social media use. Don’t underestimate its value.
I’m Marianne, the designer and owner of Filthy Soup, serving up an array of fun, bold artwork to add a little brightness to life and raise a smile. It’s this idea that underpins all that we do.
I’ve got bags of experience working as a Graphic Designer on some fabulous creative projects, turning to Freelance a couple of years ago. I’d always secretly wanted my own brand and it seemed the right time to take the plunge and give it a go. From that, Filthy Soup was born, (more on the name another time, but no filth and no soup!). It’s been a rollercoaster of ups and downs and certainly a test of my resilience!
When you’ve never tried to go it alone before it’s really difficult to know where to start. Fear, excitement and ‘oh my god, what the heck am I doing?!’ were just some of the things buzzing round my brain on a daily occurrence. I knew the designs wouldn’t be a problem, but the advertising? How was I going to get myself known and who would be interested? There’s a lot of self doubt that I’ve squashed over time. I wasn’t prepared, or able, to stump up a 3 to 4 figure sum for a printed ad the size of a postage stamp, so I threw myself into social media with that kind of gung ho, ’let’s just do it’ feeling. It felt liberating and, to be honest, a bit weird at the same time. When you’re generally quite a private person it feels like a big leap to be putting your face out there. I’m still out of my comfort zone doing videos, but there is a real fascination for people to see the person behind the brand. For the most part I am my brand, so I can see why this is so important.
Instagram at the time was a new one for me, (and I’ll admit to getting help from my Insta-savvy 13yr old daughter on a number of occasions!) but I’ve had some real positives from it. It’s connected me and my brand with a whole host of people, including artists and retailers that I would never have connected with otherwise. I even took my first wholesale order, simply because a retailer had seen my Instagram product shots, followed, and connected with me. That was a real dance around the kitchen moment. When retailers traditionally go to large trade fairs to suss out the latest talent, it felt like a big win and has made me realise that there are other routes to market.
Using social media has given me the opportunity to not only tell my brand story, but show the character behind it. Over time it builds trust, which is a real biggy when you’re a new business. No printed ad can do that. Yes, there can be negatives, like stressing about the exact thing to write, or obsessing about how many likes or followers you have, but I’ve learnt to realise that a slow, organic growth means that the followers you do have are more genuine; it feels like they are on the journey with you. Our social media following isn’t going to happen overnight. It’s going to take effort, patience and creativity. We’re still pretty new to the game.
We’ve still got a long way to go and a lot more to learn, but I’m enjoying the journey and loving making connections with people.
With new products in the making and a new year just starting, I’m glad I took the leap.www.filthysoup.com Insta/Fb/Twitter – @lovefilthysoup