I want to start this off by telling two truths about myself.
1.I used to truly, dearly, hate my job. I had been working in the same fabric since I left school. Day after day I had been boxing protein bars in what felt like twenty thousand hours at the time. I found it soul-destroying and depressing and I sure was not the only one because my coworker hated it as much as I did: But I guess it´s easy to get stuck. After all, it did pay pretty well. But more essential: The longer you spend doing the same thing, the harder it usually gets to picture what you could be doing instead. I mean, at this point I had no idea what I could possibly write on a CV after almost a decade of wrapping stuff?
2.I have been painting for as long as I can remember. Oil, watercolor, pen – give me anything with color and I will draw just what you want. So if I was ever to get out of that factory it would have to be through art.
However, I was clueless about how to do that.
There are not that many art galleries where I come from and they always seemed to be for fancy people. Also; everyone who ever made it seemed to have gone to art school or some prestigeful class in New York City, That’s all the opposite of who I am and what I come from -so I did not know to start.
However, it would be nice to paint for someone who was not my mom, or one of her many friends.
I didn’t ever think that would happen before a coworker of mine mentioned Instagram and suggested I’d use it as a marketing place. I will admit, I was skeptical at first because I’ve never been on social media. However, over some wine at mine she sat it all up for me and I must admit: It was easy to use. Pretty quick I found my mother, a couple of old school friends and relatives I hadn’t spoken to in ages. I posted pictures of my drawings and sure it got some likes – but it was far from the marketing place I had dreamed of.
This is when I found Viplikes and everything changed.
Viplikes gave me the chance to buy Instagram followers I needed in order for others to see me. Before Viplikes it wouldn’t matter how often tagged, hashtagged, or invited people to like my site: Nobody was interested because I didn’t have enough people following me.
It is amazing what a couple of thousands of followers can do.
People, that before hadn’t paid attention to my art before suddenly took time to check-in, to like, and most of all to buy and order. It was like ripples on the water and I did not take too long before I had a pretty stable customer base. Thankfully I already had such a large stash of old paintings standing in my living room – because before I could start offering prints I could easily have drowned in orders.
I don’t work in that factory anymore and that is not because I cheated. I just had something people are happy paying for – and I took a shortcut introducing them to it. Best decision I’ve ever made.
