Making Reels Work | Matt Robinson | Episode 924

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Matt Robinson | Episode 924

Matt Robinson’s love of yoga leads to his introduction to clay. A friend and fellow yogi (who has a BFA in ceramics) teaches wheel-throwing classes at a local community studio. After hearing her mention it off-hand at the yoga studio over the years, Matt was finally intrigued enough to give it a shot in 2019. It was love at first spin! A few years later, now with a tiny basement laundry room/pottery studio combo, Matt still finds ceramics just as intriguing and delightful.

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This interview has been edited for ease of reading

A lot of your reels are of you sitting at your wheel. Do you look for ideas on how to make it more interesting by taking ideas from other makers? Tell me your process for how you get your idea for a piece.

Yes, a little bit for sure. I will definitely give a shout out to Matthew Kelly Pottery. He makes some amazing reels. He is actually a talented videographer I would say. He does some serious reels where he will play with the speed, like speed things up and slow it down. He comes up with some really cool, really creative stuff. And there’s definitely been some others that I can’t think of off the top of my head but yes, for sure, I am inspired by other content. And not necessarily other ceramicists because I follow other accounts from other realms in the art world as well.

Do you ever cross pollinate between TikTok and Instagram?

I do not have the TikTok app downloaded. I’ve never been on it. So no, yeah, I have no idea.

Do you find the music component to be a big part of it? Is that a big component for you finding the right music?

First of all, I only use music that is noted as trending. It has the little up arrow that is in the shape of a little lighting bolt and that definitely makes a difference. The algorithm has an internal bias towards stuff that uses audio that tons of other people are using at the same time. I never use any audio that is just like, Oh I love this song, I am going to search for it and pick it. Very, very early on I used to do that, and that’s great to do if you like to do that but if you are specifically trying to grow, the trending audio I would say makes a difference.

You have a long term goal to convert followers to sales, is that accurate?

Yeah, for sure, I would love to be able to produce more work, to have more sales, but I would say that is definitely a goal. And something I have learned form you in this podcast is to start an email list. That’s on the top of my to do list. I just did some research over the last two weeks and kind of figured out which platform I am going to go with.

What platform for email management are you going to be using?

I chose Mailchimp. But if after this podcast you want to give me some of your thoughts and recommendations…(laughter) I would totally take them. Because I haven’t actraully done anything yet, so.

As your account has grown do you still feel like you are able to connect with your people?

Yeah, that’s a good question. I feel like I have that core group of people that followed me when I was still small and of course I followed them back because at that point I followed almost any artist that had an account that was devoted to art. And I love seeing those people, seeing them grow, seeing their work in my feed. There’s those people that I will comment on their work and they comment on my work and it’s just great to have that sense of community. Once you start to grown you just can’t keep up. But I love the fact that there are those people that I do have and we kind of maintain an internet relationship.