hello everyone!

For those of you who may have been wondering, I am alive and well. Beetnik Aesthetics is still alive, too. Maybe not so much on the internet, but in my head Beetnik is definitely alive, thriving, and constantly evolving.

When I first started Beetnik Aesthetics, I envisioned a brand that fully embraced the world and all of the positive opportunities it has to offer. I wanted to send a positive message.. A message that promoted positive thinking. In a time that is so often cluttered with negatively, I created t-shirt designs that would depict peace, love, and fun - three concepts that definitely portray a positive message. I thought to myself, “if I can share these designs with the world, we will all be that much closer to living in a more positive environment”. So I did just that - I shared the designs with the world.

I designed the first run of t-shirts and had them printed, built a website, bought shipping supplies, and registered Beetnik Aesthetics as a business. I created a myspace page, a facebook page, and a twitter account to connect with fans - or at least that’s what I thought I was doing. Using myspace and twitter, I gained as many friends and followers as possible. Since my target audience was literally everybody in the world, I didn’t care who I was friending, as long as the numbers kept going up. I didn’t always focus on a specific a specific group of people or a target demographic. My general thought process was this: more friends = greater possibility that somebody would like the brand. I gained a few friends here and there, but I never really connected with the fans. Since I wasn’t targeting a specific demographic, I just figured there was nothing in common. I kept selling shirts and had more and more printed.

Twitter made me realize that I was becoming sort of spammy. Requesting as many friends as possible and tweeting about new t-shirts and products was not the best way to promote the brand, because most people quite frankly just didn’t care. More followers and more tweets resulted in less website visits. Clearly the mass-marketing strategy wasn’t working out, but it was all I knew and I wasn’t exactly sure what else to do.

Blogs are an easy way to reach people because they usually have loyal readers and are the bloggers are easy to contact. I was getting a little bit of coverage from t-shirt blogs, but there are only so many of them and they typically only update with brand new products. I am interested in technology, fashion, green living, drug-free alternatives, video games, movies, cars, offroading, snowboarding, and almost all genres of music, but I felt that I could not market to any blogs that focused on any of these things specifically, simply because my designs did not necessarily portray any of these specific areas of interest… So what was I to do?

Months and months have gone by. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I had developed an entire brand without a target audience, and I don’t even know where to start. I want to share Beetnik Aesthetics with the world, but I have to begin on a smaller scale. On the other hand, I don’t want to focus on such a specific demographic that I exclude everyone else. I have been having plenty of fun over the past few months, trying to enjoy all that life has to offer. I want Beetnik Aesthetics to reflect this positive lifestyle, but how do I do it?

At this point, I am almost completely lost. This is my public cry for help, if you will. I am open to all advice, criticism, and suggestions. Please respond in the comments section with absolutely anything that comes to mind.

Thanks a bunch!

-a guy named loren