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Ink Identity is a podcast that analyzes the online presence and digital communication strategies of a local tattoo studio called Crown and Serpent. The studio is described as a tattoo wellness studio and is located in Edmonton. The hosts discuss the branding issues faced by Crown and Serpent, including the lack of a clear identity, inconsistent use of colors, and poor social media presence. They also mention the importance of showcasing the artists and their work, as well as the need for creative and dynamic content. Overall, Crown and Serpent is struggling to effectively promote themselves and maintain a cohesive brand image. Hello, my name is Kelsey and I'm Emily and welcome to the first and only episode of Ink Identity. For the past two weeks we've been monitoring and analyzing the online presence and digital communication strategies of the local tattoo studio known as Crown and Serpent here in Edmonton to see what they're doing, how they're doing it, and simply what can they do better. So let's start off with a little bit about who and what Crown and Serpent is. So it's a tattoo studio, actually a self-proclaimed tattoo wellness studio, located in a house on 101 Avenue and 122nd Street. It's a pretty intimate space. They have a roster of nine artists, each operating out of converted bedrooms in the house. And it's pretty, yeah, it's much more, ugh, okay. Let's start with a little bit about who and what Crown and Serpent is. So Crown and Serpent is a self-proclaimed tattoo wellness studio. It's located on 101 Avenue and 122nd Street. And it is home to nine individual artists who each operate out of a converted bedroom in the space. So it's a pretty intimate tattoo and very unlike other tattoo studios. Didn't you have an opportunity to talk to an artist? I did. I actually sat down with Jenna Norman, one of the artists there, just to get kind of a feel about how she uses her social media to market herself. As well as that inside the studio. Yeah, as well as how Crown and Serpent does it as well. So Crown and Serpent is all about inclusivity. And as Jenna puts it, all bodies deserve tattoos, which is like a really great message to put out there. Everybody feels comfortable to go get something like that. Yeah, it completely fits in with that whole tattoo wellness studio that they're trying to promote. And I guess according to Jenna, that each artist that operates in the space, they all share those similar values and messages. But I think Crown and Serpent runs into a little bit of trouble in trying to promote themselves as a company as well as their individual artists. Yes, because while Crown and Serpent claims to be a tattoo wellness studio, I'm not sure if they know exactly who they are. Yeah, I think we're definitely running into some branding issues with them. And we definitely saw this on their website because they really want to integrate the color purple. And we see that all over their website. Purple is all about purple. When I had an opportunity to look at their Instagram, it was really essentially chaotic. There were way too many colors on their highlight covers. It was almost like there was no purple at all. There was every other color but purple. And we know that developing a color scheme as a brand is really important and having that recognition. If we want to see that purple, that's that Crown and Serpent shade of purple. Just in the same way when we look at that shade of red, we're like, oh, that's Coca-Cola. You just want to be able to instantly click in your mind. And this wasn't the only problem that I saw. We frequently don't see the artists themselves on the page, which is an issue. Because posting yourself as an artist is so important. It allows your audience to develop a greater, more valuable connection with you. They get a feel for not just your art but yourself as a person. This finding was especially evident when we got into the highlights. Like I said before, how chaotic the highlights were is that the highlight content wasn't any different than the grid post. It's that we weren't getting any addition to it. If you click on it, it was labeled by the artist's name. Here's more of their tattoos rather than who the heck are these artists. Yeah, I found that on their website too. So each tattoo company website has a section for their artists. But you go into Crown and Serpent and some of the artists don't even have their photos there. I know. Like Cam, the owner, instead of a headshot, has a picture of a cartoon chicken. Yeah. I mean, it gives me some kind of indication of who he is as a person, but not really. Is that communicating exactly what he wants to? If you take a look at one of their competitors, I guess not really a competitor, but if you take a look at what other people are doing in the industry, like MD Tattoo Studio, their tattoo studio based in LA, you go to their artist page, and every single artist looks like it's been taken by a professional photographer in the studio. And it's all cohesive. There's no Snapchat filters. There's no cartoon chickens. But you actually get to see these artists and who you're looking at to put ink on your body. Yeah, it's not just the tattoos that they're choosing, but, yeah, it's the quality of them, and it's also the sizing. Like on Crown and Surface, it's all different sizing, and it changes the layout of the page. But MD Studio definitely makes them look like a family. Like they are that company, whereas Crown and Surface is missing that conciseness. That makes it look like, hey, we're a company. Here we are. And MD Studio, like you mentioned, isn't just adding more of those personal images of themselves, but their images themselves do have that better quality. Yeah, they look like they've been taken by a professional photographer. They look like they know what they're doing. Yeah. It depends how. We have to think of, like, on their social media, the quality of their content, MD Studio, because it's like turning in your resume. You're saying your feed is responsible for gravity and tension. Making that good first impression for an artist is saying, here's my portfolio. Again, looking at that professionalism, it's not just about that quality, but it's about that consistency of posting. And for a while, when I was looking at their Instagram, Crown and Surface hadn't posted in a while. It was just stuff on their stories, which is fine. Like we're reposting their content from other artists. However, after this little seal of time that went on, bang, nine separate grid posts. This is a problem. That's a lot of grid posts. That's a lot of grid posts. Yeah. And the problem is that they weren't all different. They were almost exactly the same thing. It said, here is a picture of this tattoo. And it had the same copy and paste description that said, tattoo by at. And then it was at the artist. So it's that it's OK if you post a lot of content. That's what's wrong here. I don't have a problem with you posting a whole bunch. I mean, that is a bit far. But the problem is that they were all static. And it was flat. There was no depth or dynamics to the posting. It's OK for those multiple posts. If we have, let's say, that flat picture saying this is who it's by, by the artist. But then we need a mixture. We need maybe here's this tattoo artist in action, a process photo. Here's a before and after. Here's a real. There's something different to bring to the table. Yeah, there's so many opportunities with social media to be creative. And in an industry like tattooing, which is all about creativity and uniqueness, you have an opportunity here to showcase that. But if you're just posting static photos, we're not really getting anything. And why do you have to do nine when you could have just done one if it's all the same? It didn't seem like there was a plan there at all. Yeah, no. One thing that we did notice about their social media is that at least some of the posts made it to other people. One was successful, which we know for sure. One was successful. So a while back they posted that we're hiring. And then lo and behold, we saw two new faces, well, two new Snapchat-filtered faces show up on their website. And not only was it successful, but it was in that Crown and Serpent purple. It was. Amazing. But this isn't the only thing that Crown and Serpent is struggling with, with maintaining accurate social media posts. Like they are successful sometimes, but you just said you think they're suffering from an identity crisis. Yes, the identity crisis of who is Crown and Serpent. And I say that because throughout Instagram, their website, and like their homepage, their About section, the copyright, Crown and Serpent is spelt or typed differently throughout all platforms. So on their homepage, Crown, like the C in Crown is lowercase, and the S in Serpent is lowercase, and it has an ampersand. They go into their About section, and all of a sudden the C and the S are capitalized, and they're using the word and. On their Instagram, We have a plus sign. Yeah. Who are you, Crown and Serpent? And then in the copyright, it is Crown, ampersand, Serpent, body and soul ink, which shows up nowhere else anywhere that I could find. Insert slide. So on top of that, you also, like when you go to the homepage, you're bombarded with all of these different ways to say Crown and Serpent, and you don't have any way to find them on social media. Not any social media on the homepage. Where did you have to go to find the social media? Under their Contact section at the very bottom, and they're small. And they've got links to social media sites that they don't even use, like their YouTube. Yeah, and their Facebook. And even their Facebook, they haven't posted on in years. Yeah, I think YouTube had three videos from two years ago, and that's it. At that point, you just get rid of it. Their Facebook had also only posted that hiring post, but before that, they had posted in 2022. Sorry. No, you're good. I was just going to say that you think for a company that relies so heavily on that Instagram promotion, those links would be on that homepage. They're not doing anything else, no other marketing strategies, so why are they putting that on that homepage? Yeah, considering that also, when you go to the Artist section, you can't click on the headshot of the artist to go to the gallery. You have to click on their social media link. Yeah, and you can be different but still carry out your consistent theme. Keep the same colors. First of all, like we just said, cohesiveness and consistency. The first thing that I think that they need to do, number one priority, figure out how you spell your name. Is it uppercase, is it lowercase, do you use the word and, do you have an ampersand, or is it a plus sign? I don't really have a preference either way. I just want to know what it is. Yeah, and my thing especially, like being in charge of just looking at their Instagram when we do that, is again choosing those brand colors and integrating them more generously throughout their feed and having that photo quality that we talked about. Now to go a bit further into that photo quality, I had the opportunity to interview the associate and professor of arts and cultural management here at McKeown, Rose Spencer, and her comments were also highlighting the qualities that need to be put out for artists themselves. She says that although keeping up with social media can be difficult as an artist because of finances and because they are themselves putting out that content, somebody else is doing it, and that can take away from the creative process of spending their time making these Instagram posts instead of tattooing. She says that it's still essential. Yeah, and like when I talked to Jenna, she brought up the same points. Like she is only one person, and as it is, she spends her entire day on Instagram. Which is ridiculous. I know, and the fact that she has to be on Instagram, and she's like expected to post things constantly and be consistent, it takes away from her time to actually focus on her art and her tattooing. Yeah, because that second job is like to shoot a tattoo artist slash social media manager. She's only one person, and Rose really highlights that it does take a village, and that a lot of artists don't want to do social media because of it. It becomes such a chore, which seems so silly, but is the reality of it. And she really highlighted that also when we look at how grand and serpent is all of those individual people, that having that individual brand is important. It goes back to what is that artist's values? How are they representing themselves in a way that is true to themselves? You need to portray your brand. You never want to seem inauthentic. You need to dig deep into yourself. What do I want to be known for? What does Crown and Serpent want to be known for? Is that being authentic? Yeah, and I think Crown and Serpent knows what it wants to be known for. They want to be a tattoo wellness studio. They want to focus on inclusivity, and all bodies matter. It's just portraying that. Yeah, is that they know who they are, but we don't know who they are. And I think that starts with their artists, showcasing their artists. Let us get to know who they are, because it will really humanize the brand, and it will help create that stronger connection that they want with their audience. Yeah, definitely. So I think to sum up kind of what we said is that we need artists. We need to see them. We need to go back to the drawing board. We need to see them. We need to go back to the drawing board. Who is Crown and Serpent? Not in the sense of what our motives are. What is our name? What are our colors? How do we show that to everybody on social media and our website? And just putting in that extra effort and quality. Once again, I want to thank both Jenna and Rose for lending their thoughts to us today, and everyone for taking the time to listen. This has been so much fun. I've had a great time. Once again, I'm Emily. And I'm Kelsey, and this has been Ink Identity.