Member Spotlight: Timothy Simpson
Member Spotlight: Timothy Simpson
Founder of Social Image Crafting | Co-Founder of 901 Music
Interviewed & Transcribed by Felicia Ingram
Tell me about yourself.
I got started in photography and film. That’s what I actually minored in [at Union University].… But, for me, I always was really into the creative side of things. [I] really wanted to make beautiful stuff.… Film and photography were my way of really expressing that. And I loved the challenge particularly as I got into more photojournalism—making sure that I was capturing the moment. So it’s not just, “Hey, we’re going to set up this studio with perfect lighting and everything super tightly controlled”—which is really cool when you do that, and that’s really a fun way to stretch the bounds of your planning creativity there. But trying to capture things as they happen is a whole other challenge, and making sure that I’m really capturing the vibe of the moment when I’m doing concerts or when I covered the Ferguson protest, making sure I’m capturing what is going on when it’s happening—and really capturing it accurately and doing it justice.
What kind of things are you making now?
My photojournalism led me into music. Me and a buddy of mine [Nathan Armstrong] started 901 Music.… Through that, we really developed both a workflow (in terms of the content production) as well as our social strategy. And just the content marketing strategy that we use is really robust. And so I decided to spin off what we were doing into my own business, Social Image Crafting, where I provide everything from content marketing to pay-per-click stuff. I learned how to do that along the way. Building websites, that sort of thing, and really try to provide a holistic brand building agency.
You’ve been a part of theCO’s CO:mmunicate meetup as a sort of mentor. What was that like?
I was aiming to give people a framework to how they approach social media because we found that the best way, workflows, are super important.… Having mental framework for how systems […] function makes the job of developing those simpler and makes your life way easier and allows you to spend less time and energy producing stuff that’s going to take off and is really going to have a huge impact on your business and your following.
How has theCO has been a part of your business endeavors?
theCO has been a fantastic space to work out of. The environment provides a lot of passive motivation […] because you’re surrounded by people who are constantly working, and it motivates you to say, “Let’s go get some stuff done!” The people here are fantastic. I’ve made a lot of friends.… As long as I’m in Jackson, I’ll be here.