How to Grow Your Creative Community Through Social Media
Since I started moving my blog towards a more focused, helpful place for creative entrepreneurs, I found myself starting to miss the open, honest, journal style I had kept before. I enjoy sharing my life online, in hopes that it can help others in some way from the life lessons I’ve learned.
Peace and Chaos is all about honesty, openness, advice and life, but as it turns out, it’s time to say goodbye to the diary entries and focus more on being helpful in other ways, if I want this space to continue to grow in the right direction.
I also realized that just because Peace and Chaos has to keep growing in this new direction, doesn’t mean I can’t share more of my personal life with you guys through social media.
In fact, social media is the best way to share little parts and peaks into my world, and yet I haven’t done a very good job of it. Which only means that I have to start now.
This is how I plan to grow my creative community through social media:
I know Facebook is an amazing tool to share your life with friends and followers, because I’m pretty much always logged in to Facebook.
As a creative entrepreneur you really should start a Facebook fan page rather than use your own personal account. This way, you can keep the two separate, leaving your personal account for friends and family only. When a follower becomes a friend, then welcome them to your personal account, otherwise, a Facebook page is the perfect place to grow your online business presence.
The best way to grow your Facebook page is to be yourself 100%. You’ll want to give your followers a real glimpse into your life through status updates.
Facebook Update Ideas:
- Share your thoughts and ask questions.
- What’s inspiring you today.
- Links to your own blog posts.
- Links to other blogs, websites and videos you enjoy and think your followers will, too.
- Pictures of your creative space, work studio, projects in progress.
- Photos of your personal life: pets, children, adventures and more.
- New items for sale.
- Upcoming product releases.
- Surveys and polls.
- Offer discounts and sales specifically for your Facebook followers.
Frequency:
From my own personal experience with Facebook, I would say that although you should definitely post often and be consistent, you don’t want to bombard your followers a hundred times a day. I think at least 2–4 posts a day is a good amount to aim for, and to spread it out over the day, with a a few hours in-between.
Profile Ideas:
It’s super important that you include all relevant information on your business/blog in your profile, so that people who find your Facebook page can also easily find your website and other social media accounts.
You’ll want to write a short blurb on who you are, what your business is all about, and what to expect from you. This makes it easier for people to decide whether or not to follow you.
You can also add apps to your Facebook page to include links to your Newsletter, your online shop, giveaways and more. Make sure to look into any apps you might need!
Check out my Facebook page here. Or you can join my Facebook Group, Peace and Chaos Community, here! It’s a group for rebels, weirdos, artists, entrepreneurs and bad-ass babes to get together for support and friendship!
This has quickly become one of my favourite social media apps. I love keeping up with my favourite bloggers, artists and people through their photos on Instagram.
Connect with your community, your audience and your friends, through creative photo sharing on Instagram.
Although Instagram is becoming more and more professional, with a lot of tips and tricks, I personally prefer accounts that keep it simple. I like candid shots, photos of artwork and people’s adventures. Not so much the heavily branded, staged photos that are slowly taking over my feed. But that’s just my preference.
Instagram Photo Ideas:
- Selfies.
- Inspirational quotes.
- Healthy meals.
- Pictures of your pets and children (but not too many).
- Photos of your desk space/art studio.
- Blog post promo pics.
- Pretty pictures of plants, architecture, sunsets, etc.
Frequency:
Just like Facebook, you don’t want to bombard your followers. I think it’s best to aim for about 3 posts a day. A little more or less is fine. Whenever I post 3 times a day, I find I get the most likes, comments and new followers.
Whenever you post on Instagram, writing a great caption is super important. You want your followers to know exactly what it is they’re seeing, and why you posted it. Sometimes, a short, sweet caption is all you need. Other times a lengthy caption, kind of like a mini blog post, is awesome! Make sure to include relevant hashtags. Once I started using multiple hashtags (like 10–20) I started gaining a lot of new followers, received way more comments and got a ton more likes. It really, really helps to do a bit of research to see what the top hashtags are.
Profile Ideas:
Make sure your profile picture is really nice looking, whether it’s of you, your business logo or whatever. Make sure your profile description lets people know exactly who you are, what your business is and what you do. Make sure to include your website URL.
Twitter is pretty awesome. Whenever I use it regularly, I notice a huge increase in blog traffic. I also find it a lot easier to connect with other people online through Twitter, which really helps me grow my online community.
Twitter is super fast-paced, which can be a little intimidating, but it’s also super casual, which helps. In 140 characters or less, you can share updates, reach out to other blogs and businesses, share pictures, links to websites and more.
Don’t be afraid to share your true self on Twitter: share your goals, your hopes and dreams, your day to day adventures; share your real life.
Twitter Tweet Ideas:
- Include pictures with your tweets.
- Announce new blog posts.
- Share inspiring links to other websites and videos.
- Retweet other people’s tweets and any tweet you’re mentioned in.
- Reply to all of your tweets, have conversations.
- Tweet links to your favourite shops and products.
- Ask questions, using hashtags.
- Tweet press mentions.
- Share guest posts.
- Mention sponsors who support your blog.
- Share your favourite quotes.
- Send out your goals and dreams.
Frequency:
Because Twitter moves so fast, and even faster the more people you follow, it’s best to post often! You can post 2–3 times a day, or even up to once every hour or two. Any more than that might be a bit much (do you really have that much interesting things to say, anyway?).
It’s actually a good idea to share the same message multiple times (not in a row, obviously) to ensure more people get to see it. And to tweet about old blog posts frequently to bring attention to your older posts.
Using a scheduling tool like Hootsuite makes tweeting a lot easier. Just spend a few minutes each day to schedule your tweets, and you’ll be just fine!
Make sure to use effective hashtags, but only 1–3 hashtags per tweet.
Join Twitter Parties:
Twitter parties are a great way to get more involved with your creative community. Most Twitter parties are for a particular topic, like entrepreneurship, and then each specific party has a theme, like goals for next year. The host typically starts off my asking a question, which everyone will reply to. Through their answers you can start a conversation, and vice versa.
Profile Ideas:
The point of Twitter is to keep things short and sweet, including your profile. Simply mention a few things about yourself and your business. The simpler, the better. And add a link to your main website or shop.
A few social media guidelines to consider:
Sharing your personal life on social media can be a super effective way to create community, make sales and gain new followers, but there are a few things to keep in mind at the same time.
- Don’t rant or send out negative messages about other people or businesses, it only makes you look bad.
- Never use your accounts to shit talk family, friends, coworkers, etc.
- Keep your drama offline in general.
- Don’t spend all of your time on social media, it can be very addictive. As awesome as it is for marketing, it can easily become a distraction.
- Never get sucked into negative arguments or comments. Defend yourself in a way that’s polite and calm, never angry and mean.
- Better yet, simply delete, block and move on.
- Be personal, but stay professional.
- Never post anything while under the influence!
- Don’t just promote yourself and your business all of the time; also promote other people.
- Remember: 1/3 business, 1/3 inspirational and 1/3 personal.
What tips and advice do you have for people looking to grow their creative community through social media?
Peace,
Lets be friends on: BLOGLOVIN / FACEBOOK / TWITTER / INSTAGRAM / PINTEREST
Originally published at www.colenemeth.com on November 24, 2015.