How Can I Help? –
Supporting Fellow Creatives

I have had the privilege of participating in Write It Now with SARK, and the way I support fellow creatives changes with my schedule, needs, energy level, etc. For example, the first couple of rounds I spent a lot of time interacting on the Ning group. Then, my doctor told me to focus more on self-care, so I spent less time online. I liked the Facebook Fan Page, but some days reading everyone’s posts was more than I could manage. So, I was thinking about things every creative can do, in the nooks and crannies of their day, to support their fellow journeyers. Here’s what I came up with.

Micromovements for Supporting Fellow Creatives

Doing even a few of these Thirty-Second Micromovements a day will help someone’s work go viral:

• Bookmark their website/blog and return when you have more time and energy to explore.
• Subscribe to their newsletter, notifications, and/or RSS feed.
• Friend the Creatives You Connect with  on Facebook
• Follow a Fellow Creative on Twitter and/or Pinterest
• Like a Fellow Creative’s FB Fan Page
• Leave a short comment (on a blog, on a FB post, on a post on Pinterest, or reply to a tweet). This will take only a moment,  if you are commenting on a post you have already read and thought about.
• Repost or Retweet. Use the social media buttons on posts and on the site liberally. It takes a few moments to repost or retweet using the buttons.
• Like a Creative’s art or post on Pinterest or pin it to one of your boards
• Leave a message, post, tweet, or comment just because.
• Use the @_____(name)________ and post a message that is congruent with a person’s work directly to a fellow creative. Example: I’m going to comment on visionary art. Instead of just commenting on my newsfeed, I would write the post to @SARK.
• Refer one friend or family member to someone’s newsfeed, twitter feed, Pinterest boards, etc.
• Send a creative’s post or tweet to a friend and ask for feedback. Later, forward the response to the creative.
• If you know a creatives most useful hashtags (#s), add them to your posts, reposts, tweets, retweets, comments, etc. If you know a trending hashtag, like #goodenergy, use it. Example: RT @SARK Your post today was filled with #goodenergy. I’m sending it to my friends: _______short URL_______.
• If you can’t budget to purchase someone’s work product at the moment, refer the person’s work to someone who has the budget. (A great example of this was that a woman I admire greatly wrote a book about her recovery from a stroke and was doing a crowd fundraiser. I didn’t have any spare cash budgeted at the moment, but I posted her request on Facebook and then sent the post to friends who I knew had larger budgets than I do. The author found her publisher in this mix, which meant she didn’t need the money from the crowd fundraising.)

Be a Friend and Give without Expectation

I had the honor of meeting several of the early social media masters and mavens. When they first started connecting with people on social media, they were looking for friends not customers. So, they treated social media sites as if they were parties. They came online and asked people questions. They responded to what folk had to say. Then, people asked them questions which they then answered. They built good relationships and in return people followed them in droves.

After all, you wouldn’t go to a party, hog all the small talk time speaking about your products, hand out unsolicited business cards, and ask people to buy from you, would you? I guess some people have been on the receiving end of folks like this at parties. Their behavior feels obnoxious, doesn’t it?

The other key is to give without  expectation. Share who you are, what is important to you, without expecting anything in return.

Understand We Can Help Each Other
Using Social Media Micromovements

Retweeting, reposting, commenting, interacting, and subscribing create social proof for a creative’s work. When there are plenty of conversations buzzing around someone’s work, it will go viral. Then, the creative is easier to find on search engines. That brings the creative new readers, new relationships, new support systems, and new customers. This is something we all can do, using one or two of the Micromovements a day. We can create mutual success together!!!!