Lessons

Lesson Info

Develop Shareable Content for Your Community

The next thing that we are gonna talk about is the idea developing sharable content for our fans and followers that's gonna get them really engaged with our brand. Because I think this is going to naturally happen as we sharing our products, we're sharing our work. We're sharing our sort of creative background and our studios and our day to day. We wanna go beyond this and get a little bit more into creating contents specifically to start a dialogue with our fans and followers. We're gonna spark more engagement by treating this as a conversation, an ongoing conversation with our fan. The same way as if we are at a that party, we wouldn't just necessarily talk but one thing. We would talk about multiple topics and we would keep the conversation moving forward. We wouldn't just say, I have a shop and maybe you should check that out and then walk away. We're gonna continue a conversation and it's not always gonna be about our products. This is a think core fear of so many creative people.

So, we feel too sale-sy. We get nervous about sharing our work because we feel like what we're asking for is people put down their wallet and give us money. And that's not what we're doing on social media at all, it's a small component of it. But we're gonna try to start a dialogue about the nature of our creative work and share an authentic way that isn't gonna feel sale-sy. Because we are peppering it in enough content that's on the same theme but not just go to my shop and buy this. It's gonna be a little bit more nuance than that. It's gonna create that ongoing conversation around what you do and what you're passionate about. So, this is important, we're creating content that isn't about things necessarily that we have for sale. So, it's important to pepper in this content that add in visual things that we're sharing on social media that are not necessarily are products that maybe connected to our products intentionally or they're connected to our creative work but it's not something that you say, click on the link in my profile and go buy this. This is a little bit beyond that. We're remembering that every follower is a real person. Hopefully you're not being followed by too many spambots. So, hopefully all of these people are actual human beings who have come to your feed for a reason. They're excited about what you're doing. They've clicked that follow button and now we wanna keep that conversation moving forward and offer them a variety of conversation topics. We're thinking about creating a community around our work. We're doing this by basically offering them an opportunity to engage with us. Not if you want with this a thing that we forget as artist, not everyone knows an artist personally. Not everyone knows creative people. So, this is an opportunity for them to engage with you and start to get to know real creative person that maybe they don't experience in their day to day lives. Maybe they don't perceived themselves as being creative and they wanna learn from you and experience a little bit of that via social media. And so, we're gonna create complimentary content that kind of speaks to the nature of our creative work but it isn't necessarily directly related to what we're doing for money. Or what we're doing for our shops. One person is doing a really great job with this is Justina Blakeney. You might've encounter her through her work, on her blog called the Jungalow. She does this amazing home decor blog. She's really known for her beautiful Bohemian Jungalow style. It's a very lush. It has a lot to do with sort of padding in plants. And making it feel vibrant, it's a very vibrant lifestyle brand. She started this amazing series, that she calls Face the Foliage. She started a special branded hashtag for this creative vibe project that she started. And essentially, she is creating work on this topic along with this theme on a regular basis. Just to engage people. It compliments the nature of her creative work. Her interiors are offering lush. They feature plants they've kind of had this really colorful vibe. But she's just taking in one step further And it's offering just a little treat for her followers. A little bit of visual inspiration that's connected but this is not for sale. She's not making prints. She's not trying to sell you this work. She's just trying to get engage you in a dialogue basically around the nature of using plants in our homes. About the beauty of natural materials And she really saw this project bring her a lot of engagement. This is something that really grew her brand and got more people more excited about the things that she is doing in her interior design, in her home decor blog. It kind of conjunctionally related and it has kind of helped to snowball her following and get her people excited about her creative vision. Her unique visual perspective. So, as a result of this series she saw a lot more engagement from fans. In particular, a lot of friends would show up and say, oh my gosh look at this and add tag their friends especially on Instagram. This is something that we can do, trying to create this dialogue, we're trying to create content that's engaging. We really want to create something that's so interesting. Or so fun and special. But people are gonna wanna bring in their friends and say hey take a look at this. And through this series this is something that just, you know, was really be able to do. She got a lot more engagement from people tagging their friends on these individual photos in the comments section and saying, come and look at this. She also created a really recognizable style. Part of that is because she was showing up on a regular basis. And creating this work consistently. So that people started to associate her name with this project. And then that kind of snowballed into her other work and created them more recognizable style overall. And she also really empowered others to share her style. She spends some time developing this branded hashtags Face the Foliage for other people could try out this technique. They could create this flat lays using pieces of nature flowers or, you know, twigs or something they might find on the ground or on the sidewalk and creating this beautiful faces. And engaging, you know, she didn't accuse them of copying. She said that's amazing you're taking part of this creative thing that I've creative project that I've created. And it helped empower them to share in her style and to really kind of adapt it and make it their own And participate in a community via that hashtag. So, this is sort of what I'm talking about in terms of creating content that people can engage with and really kind of adapt and make their own and kind of continue the conversation. It doesn't have to be so one sided. We can think about how to engage with our friends and followers and bring them into our process and let them try their hand at our technique or our style. So, Erin, I have question from an online Yeah, Student, that I wanted to pass along this is user 735dbb, curious about how does plan consistency equal authenticity? So, yes, I totally understand this. Essentially, authenticity, I think you should really look at it as not about sharing, just what comes to mind. I think that what's important to think about authenticity is that you wanna offer enough content that people can kind of get a better sense of what's going on your day to day. So, planning for consistency, planning to show up. It's the same way as if you plan to show up to meet friends. Or if you're planning to show up even to your job everyday. You can't sort of create the expectation that you know what you're doing and you're a professional. If you don't show up for these people. So, you wanna make sure that you're making enough time in your schedule to create content and share on a regular basis. So, that people understand your authentic point of view by having that regularity. I hope that answers that question, Oh, I think that's great. Yeah. And then one additional question that I think you may have already touched on maybe just reiterate, Hannah Grace she wants to share her work on instagram but also her creative process. Is this gonna be confusing for her followers? Should she only show finished works? Oh, absolutely not. I think that's fantastic Hannah? Yes. Hannah, that's amazing. I think that's a really great way to share the creation, the behind the scene sort of show people the, maybe not the entire process. Beginning that glimpse from start to finish. Kind of how you create those visual work. People love that type of content. People love to see how you're taking something from a blank piece of paper to a finished drawing. Or painting or whatever it is that you're creating. I think that can really pull people in a bigger way. That if you're just offering that finished work. Even if the finished work, I'm sure it's beautiful. I think being able to see the creative process and experience that somewhat firsthand by being able to see how you are sharing it. That's a really, really a great way to get people in and have them be really invested in the process. Excellent! Yeah. And we're also starting to get more images in on tagboard. So, I wanted to pass some of those along Freespiritak says, thank you for creative live And Erin Dollar for teaching 4,000 of us to use social media more effectively this morning. Oh my gosh. So, it's kind of a nice encouragement. I love that! Also, let's see EJ LeBlanch says, Erin's making me realize how far I have to go, but here is my progress! Yes! So, I love that! Yeah, and it's all about first steps, right? I know that we're gonna go through so much information today and this is part of why I think, you know, if you're really loving what you're seeing so far. Going back and being able to revisit some of these lessons. This stuff is content creation is something revisit as creatives all the time. We're not just gonna pick one style and stick with it forever and never be able to deviate from that. When we're creating this visual vocabulary. Think about keeping it flexible so that is your style evolves. Or this type of work you're making evolves. You can sort of shift with that. Again, we're not creating this rigid structure that we're gonna make a plan and stick to it forever. That's not possible. We're dynamic human beings we're gonna grow and change. And you know, taking that first step of just committing to one and to share your visual perspective. And what makes you special. That first step is the most important. Excellent! Yeah! Well, this is amazing. Thanks so much to all of you for sharing. This is really exciting to see these things coming in.