Kayleigh took up the role at Creative Cardiff in 2016. Originally from Glasgow, she made Cardiff her home in 2015 and has since spent her time as Creative Cardiff’s communications and engagement lead. Her work is focused on devising and implementing strategies to amplify the network’s activity.
She writes:
While Creative Cardiff connected creatives in real life at meet-ups, networking events and socials, it was online where the community truly flourished.
From zero network members in October 2015 to 3900 members five years on, individuals and organisations steadily signed up. They wanted to showcase their creative skills, to upload and apply for jobs (there have been close to one million hits on our Opportunities page to date) to collaborate with other creatives and to receive our fortnightly enewsletter, which compiled the latest in creative news and events.
From our ‘52 Things’ project in year one to the inaugural Our Creative Cardiff storywall, the website has been a crucial platform to spotlight the work of the creative community. Our mission is to strengthen and showcase Cardiff’s creative accomplishments by telling Cardiff’s creative story, both within the city and to the world.
We have built a brand that is trusted and that creatives are keen to stand behind and be involved with.
We’ve been in many a room where Creative Cardiff has been recommended, without prompt, as a useful network to be a part of. And the ‘big Cs’ of the Creative Cardiff logo have even become recognisable – we like to think of them as magnets pulling creatives together to spark new ideas and make cool things together.
Our approach to digital engagement has always been rooted in authenticity. We’re not on ‘broadcast’ mode – there is a person behind our accounts (most often me!), championing the activity that happens in the city and ready to have conversations. We encourage the creative community to ask questions, shout about what they do, challenge us and, most importantly, to share their needs. Organic, two-way and bilingual communication is always what we strive for.
We engage with creatives online in a manner familiar to most people: we like, we share, we comment, and we follow. You’ll find us on most social platforms because it is important to us to be where our community is. This approach amplifies the basic mechanics of social networks, generates person to person links, stimulates the emergence of new groups and grows the Creative Cardiff brand. The process is crucial to realising our founding ambition – to have a fully networked creative economy in the city.
We also move with the times, adapt to new technology and change up our offering to respond to the network’s needs.
In keeping with being where our audiences are. In 2020 we launched an English and a Welsh podcast to talk about the issues that matter to creative workers. We make Get A ‘Proper’ Job and Rhywbeth Creadigol? (Something Creative?) with, and for, our creative community.
That is true of all the work that we do. Telling the story of Cardiff’s creative community is a job that we are proud to do, and we are moved every day by the work that is created here. It can be known, and celebrated, even globally, because it is an irresistible force. And the story is nowhere near over.
