LinkedIn Art Licensing Community Reaches 2,000 Members

Cherish Flieder is pleased to announced today that the ArtOfLicensing.com group on LinkedIn has reached the milestone mark of 2,000 members. This makes it the largest due-free online networking group for an international art licensing community.

Members including licensors (artists, illustrators, designers, and licensing agents), licensees (product manufacturers, producers, corporations) as well as supporting roles such as attorneys, technical professionals, and media members. Members also include many international art licensing professionals which promotes avenues of communication for cross-cultural ideas.

ArtOfLicensing.com also has a following on Twitter (Twitter.com/ArtOfLicensing) and Facebook (Groups.to/ArtOfLicensing) as well where members can dialogue about art licensing issues on their preferred social media platform. Through Twitter real-time feed of participating art licensing artists is also offered. Visitors can see a cross section of artists’ “tweet” updates that can be bookmarked in an RSS reader or enjoyed live on the Twitter platform (Twitter.com/ArtOfLicensing/art-licensing-artists).

The ArtOfLicensing.com group was founded in July 2008 by designer and art licensor Cherish Flieder (SomethingToCherish.com) as a way to bring those in the business of art licensing together in a supportive and cooperative format.

Members find LinkedIn’s platform easy to navigate and a natural extension of their individual LinkedIn profiles. Members exchange helpful ideas, news items, resources, report on trade shows, trends, and share information on marketing, copyrighting and licensing processes.

For information on participating in this group, please visit: ArtOfLicensing.com

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About LinkedIn:

LinkedIn (LinkedIn.com) is a business-oriented social networking site of more than 60 million professionals from over 200 countries and territories around the world. Executives from all Fortune 500 companies are LinkedIn members. A new member joins LinkedIn approximately every second, and about half of our members are outside the U.S. When you join, you create a profile that summarizes your professional accomplishments. Your profile helps you find and be found by former colleagues, clients, and partners. You can add more connections by inviting trusted contacts to join LinkedIn and connect to you. Your network consists of your connections, your connections’ connections, and the people they know, linking you to thousands of qualified professionals.

About Cherish Flieder:

Cherish Flieder (SomethingToCherish.com) is not only a painter and designer, but conceptual artist that has skills to help any client with a wide array of graphic, illustrative, and marketing needs. Her design studio, (Cherished Solutions, llc, and brands Something to Cherish™, Been Cherished™ and Painting for Life™), works with publishers, manufacturers, and other niche businesses to achieve their goals in the marketplace by creating designs and illustrations and pairing them with thoughtful marketing objectives. Cherish works on the creation and production of conceptual and cohesive licensing collections, product development, books (especially children’s books), packaging, and other marketing materials.

Those of you who have been following the discussions on the Art Of Licensing LinkedIn group board can sense how difficult or even impossible to schedule a time to get us all together in one room to socialize at Surtex & National Stationery show. Since Paul Brent was the generator of the meet-up discussion, I bounced around with him a few concepts and he came up with this genius idea.

If everyone identifies themselves as a part of the group by wearing the Art Of Licensing logo/graphics, then we can easily identify and network with one another as we see each other throughout the shows. If you are exhibiting, you can even show your membership by posting a small sign in your booth.

No special time or location necessary. It is that simple.

So, take a quick minute out of your busy week, print out the graphics below and join in the fun. I will be looking forward to seeing you wear the group button next to your badge so that I can meet and support you at the show!

Download a printable PDF of the graphics here!

by Cherish Flieder

I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.”

You may have been sent an e-mail with this exact request on more than one occasion by a friend or colleague. If you have dismissed this invitation as just another one of those time wasting, friend collecting sites, then you may be at a considerable disadvantage.

So, if it’s that important, what exactly is LinkedIn you ask . . . and that’s a great question!

LinkedIn, found online at http://www.linkedin.com, is by far the largest and most professional, business-oriented, social media, networking site on the World Wide Web. Although it has only been around since 2002, it has over 25 million participants worldwide and grows at the rate of over 130,000 members each week!

LinkedIn is easy to use and opens the doors of opportunity to develop meaningful relationships with key players of the human race, in a new and effective way. The basic concept of how it works beckons back to the theory of “six degrees of separation.” On LinkedIn it will only show you up to three degrees of separation, but that alone will connect you to millions of professionals once you start linking up with other users. Your network will consist of your connections (1st), your connections’ connections (2nd), and then the connections to which they are connected (3rd). This dynamic function will start to make more sense as you begin see it in action.

It’s a good idea to create and maintain a professional LinkedIn profile page if you want:

• a beneficial way to promote your art brand, products and/or services online
• to meet key players in your areas of expertise
• to discover new business or job opportunities
• to learn about a new industry in which you hope to expand
• to reconnect with colleagues, classmates and clients

5 Things I Love About LinkedIn

• LinkedIn helps me to “stay in touch” and “touch base” with people that are important to me. Often, we get so busy that we never follow up on important connections and we loose out in the long run. LinkedIn is a superior tool for keeping you cognizant of your important connections and gives you an easy way to contact with them when the time is right.

• LinkedIn gives you a visual reference of your network, helping you readily discover commonalities. You can find someone with a skill you desire. You can post jobs or even apply for them online. When you are looking to join or serve with a new company, you can use LinkedIn to conduct preparatory research. LinkedIn makes it easy to discover which connections you have working with that company or who is associated with it, even before you have your first interview.
• LinkedIn is a great way to learn about any industry. You can see what other people are up to, see how they are promoting themselves and view their notable accomplishments.
• LinkedIn manages my database of connections for me. I don’t have to go and look up an e-mail for anyone that is connected to me or even open up my e-mail composer to send out a message. It gives me an instant connection to their e-mail in-box from their profile page.
• LinkedIn makes it simple for each member to keep their own information current for the benefit of the community. This feature helps users quickly access updated job summaries, aspirations, interests, status, website links, and more.

One last thing about social media sites . . . there are so many of them out there. If you are using them for your business you will need to carefully select the ones that help you best maintain professional connections and ultimately keep your brand in front of your clients. Professionally, I use Plaxo, Facebook and Twitter, in addition to LinkedIn. MySpace can be good too, if you approach it with a professional touch. But, if you only choose one, I urge you to go with LinkedIn, as it will give you the most professional online presence and effective online networking available.

10 Tips to Making the Most of Your LinkedIn Profile

> > > > > Wait, there’s more! < < < < <

Get the rest of this article “Leveraging LinkedIn’s Networking Power for Art Licensors” including the “10 Tips to Making the Most of Your LinkedIn Profile” when you sign up for my e-zine.

These complementary LinkedIn profile tips and information on how to use them will dynamically shift the way you use LinkedIn. Get ready to turbo-charge your online networking activities and reach out to your industry!

Also, when you sign up for my “Something to Cherish Souvenirs E-zine” for occasional art and info updates, you can also gain exclusive access to the Cherish COLOR” Trends Toolbar for your Mac or PC. If you are inspired by colors, you will appreciate having this little tool in your back pocket as you use the internet, giving you access to color trend and color mixing information from all of the leading sites on color.

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About the Author: Cherish Flieder is a visionary illustrator, designer, art licensor, and marketer. She loves the adventure of discovery and freely teaches others what she has learned. Cherish is the founder of Cherished Solutions, llc and art licensing brands Something to Cherish® and Painting for Life™. She assists publishers, manufacturers and other niche businesses with art services and thoughtful marketing strategies. She and her team work on the development of custom designs and licensed illustrations for consumer goods, product collections, books (especially children’s books), packaging, print, web, and marketing. Of course if you want to know more, feel free to visit Cherish’s LinkedIn profile at: http://www.linkedin.com/in/cherish.