All around us, the fundamental landscape of how we do business is being changed. We are concerned for our continued health, our clients are concerned for theirs and you may be dealing with shelter-in-place orders. This puts many creatives in hard situations, especially those who depend on interacting with clients face to face. While you may be biding your time before you can start booking clients again, here are a few tips for staying connected and engaged with your audience during these trying times.
Keep posting!
While the unprecedented global situation may have you out of your creative flow, focus on maintaining some consistency. You may not post as often as before, but once or twice a week will keep some level of engagement with your audience. You don’t want to disappear off the radar completely. It’s completely understandable if you need to decompress or relax during this stressful time, but if you can do it, keep posting (even if its just a little)!
Bring people into your process.
Your creative output may have slowed as sessions, projects or appointments with clients have been canceled. You still have valuable content though as a creative: your process! Most of what we do seems like magic to most people, so show them what goes on behind the curtain. Go live on Instagram and engage with your audience as you paint, edit, mix, etc. It may not feel as direct of a benefit as showing off (and selling) a finished product, but it will be interesting to your viewers. It also takes off some of the weight of figuring out how to make a new finished product while in quarantine!
What does your audience want?
A lot of creatives use social media as a one-way street. You’re announcing your newest project, asking people to support your project or just posting to keep your engagement up. But you can use this time to deepen the connection to your audience beyond a strictly producer-consumer level. With options like the Instagram poll feature, you can ask what your audience wants to hear about from you. Brainstorm a few poll choices and you’ve just crowdsourced yourself some in-demand content with no hassle.
Be yourself.
The pressure is always there to “be your brand” and keep up that facade at all time. I’m not saying to start acting crazy on the ‘gram, but in these time where everyone is feeling pressure, showing that there is a human behind the art can be beneficial. No matter what you choose to do to stay connected, be authentic and just engage with people. At the end of the day, sometimes all it takes to make a new fan is a convo.
Hit me up on Instagram and Twitter @recruitzero and let me know if these tips helped or what other steps you took to stay engaged with your audience!