What specific tactics can artists use to make the most of social media?

Hi, this is Matt Stagliano and thanks for being

part of the artists Forge. We're a community of creatives who

help each other think like an artist. By discussing creativity

as a process instead of a skill or a talent. We believe everyone

has what it takes to create something amazing. We just need

some encouragement and inspiration along the way. What

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us on the web at the artist forged calm. Now on to the show.

Welcome back to morning walk and photo talk with

the artists Forge. Super excited to be continuing on in our

journey towards understanding and implementing better social

media practices, using everybody here as just objects. Basically,

for the last week, we have been talking about social media, and

philosophies. And then moving on towards strategies and tactics.

Yesterday, we had a pretty good mix, I think of how we think

about approaching social media, from asking ourselves what our

business and how we want to be online, what our strengths are,

and what platforms might suit that well. And then talking

about some of the tactics that we implement when we're trying

to work on social media platforms. But today, I think is

probably the day to really get into specific tactics that we

use in order to achieve our goals. And since this topic this

week, is one that Matt is driving, I'm gonna sit back and

yank you into the driver's seat one more time, sir, and hope

that you got some sleep last night.

Yes, we've been talking about social media for

the past couple of days. And it's easy to have the same

conversation over and over and over again. But like I've

repeated before, and for those of you that are joining Now,

that may or may not have been here the past couple of days,

the point being there's no right or wrong way to do this. There's

no shortage of gurus out there to tell you how to do social

media correctly. But quite frankly, no one knows your

business or your world better than you. And the thing that we

need to focus on, and we've mentioned this over the past

couple of days is how does your audience think? What is it that

they're looking for from you? How do you provide that

solution? How do you provide that value? How do you promote

yourself without feeling icky? Right? How do you push your

product or your art, or your writing or whatever the thing

is, and promote it and get the results that you're looking for

now the results are whatever your intention is? Are you

looking for a little bit of notoriety? Or you're looking for

followers? Are you looking to promote someone else? Are you

looking for collaborations or to grow your business so that

you're an influencer? Like, what is the intention that you have

with your social media, you always need to start there. So

one of the things that I have been doing lately is really

focusing on my messaging. Now, I think it was DC a couple of days

ago, Derek who had mentioned story brand, right? And we

talked about the story that you tell to your clients, your

customers, your you know, whoever it is that you're you're

aiming at how clear is your message, because without a clear

message, and without a story framework to follow, you're

going to be throwing darts at a dartboard when you're putting up

your posts on whatever platform that is whether it's Twitter or

Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, whatever. So having that clear

message is something that gives you a I guess, a center point

for you to spew all of your your social posts from that one

center from that one message. So for example, if I'm a

landscaper, and I go out there and say you know we cut the best

lawns ever and you're really going to love your lawn and our

lawn mowers are fantastic. Well, you're not saying really what

you do. You can say something along the lines of our service

gives you

lawns that make your neighbor jealous. Right? And here is

something where I immediately know what you do. I know the

emotion that it connects you solves your problem. You want to

make Harry next door feel bad about his lawn and jealous about

your lawn. Right you you Mix up the emotion you go through the

we mentioned the story brand framework, but it's basically,

you know, Campbell's Hero's Journey framework. When you

develop a message that is clear and concise, you can now drive

all of your social media, all of your blog posts all of your

outward facing content, to follow the same framework and

have the same message and just reinforce that over and over and

over. So instead of talking like yesterday, like we did about

tools, and strategies and tactics, today, I wanted to talk

a little bit more about the story aspect, we've talked about

storytelling in this group, for months and the importance of it

in our work, what I'd love to do is hear from people make this

pretty interactive with the moderators here and the

panelists. And then towards the end of the call, really start

talking to the audience about how you develop your message.

Now, it's easy to fall into, well, I do this, and I put this

for SEO, and I use these keywords, and I write these

blogs. Again, that's the tactical side of things. I want

to know how you, Nicole, cat, Assam, Becca, convert how you

feel about your art, into a story that you can tell your

clients and customers about what you do, and how you solve their

problem. Why do they want to be a consumer of your artwork? What

is the message that you put out there, and I wanted to kind of

frame this loosely, because I know it's gonna go to a bunch of

different places. But I wanted to talk about how you involve

your personality, how you think about your product, in the

context of the entire art world, I want you to think about your

your product in the context of how it helps people and how it

serves people. So with that in mind, Nicole, if you will allow

me, can we talk a little bit about story in social media?

Yes, sir. I think this is a really fantastic

avenue to take to look at social media. Because like we said, at

the end of our talk yesterday, we have to remember that we're

speaking to people. And I know I've beaten this over the head

over the last man, we're getting starting to get close to a year

here. I know I beat this topic over the head. But story is the

way that people think, and the way we make meaning, and the way

we build empathy. It's one of the most important tools we

have, not only as human beings, but as makers of art. And so

being able to put story into your brand, is going to do so

many things for your ability to connect with other people to

connect with their pain points to let them know what they can

expect from you all the good stuff that Matt mentioned. And I

think in order to first move into that space, the first thing

we have to ask ourselves is, is the business our brand, or are

we our brand. And the reason that's important is because it's

going to shape the kinds of stories that we tell. So if I am

my brand, then that takes me down the path of it's my

personality, it's who I am. It's my experiences in life, it's my

sense of humor, it's my sense of wonder, it's whatever it is

about me, that connects with people that will make them want

to come back and engage with the things that I do. And we are

seeing this grow more and more as a possibility. Whereas in the

past 150 or so years, it has been the business that people

interact with, and the practical things that they could get from

that business. Right now, more and more often, people are

building platforms for themselves, and then amassing a

group of people who connect with them. And then those people out

of those folks, that captive audience, you now have the

people who like you enough to want to engage with the things

that you do. So that is one avenue for storytelling that we

can take. And if we decide to take that story telling route,

then we have to recognize the fact that the brand rests on our

shoulders. And we now have the task of telling stories that

help people relate to us, as human beings, as makers of art,

as parents as rock climbers as whoever we are. Those stories

then get centered around those things, and the way that the

audience interacts with you. So I actually just asked people,

you had a great question, Matt, you know, how do we figure out

why people are showing up and personally I just asked them one

day just to Facebook, not on Instagram, which I should do at

some point for Instagram as well but I just asked them Why are

you guys here? Like what keeps you coming back to hang out on

Facebook with me, like, Why do you keep coming? And the

overwhelming answer was creativity. Some people said,

you know, I showed up for your photography. And some people

said, well, you're my cousin. So that's just how it goes. But the

majority of answers were actually just creativity. They,

you know, they showed up because they believe I'm a creative

person, and maybe they find that inspiring. And so hopefully,

that means I'm inspiring them to be creative as well, which was

not the answer I expected. But it gave me a really good insight

into the fact that most folks are not showing up for

photography, or for my books in general. They may be getting

those things as like a sideline and enjoying those things. But

mostly they're showing up for me, which is an interesting

place to be because I never built that with intention. I

simply fell into it. I don't know if the answer is true there

for Instagram, I'd have to find out. But that's one avenue we

can take for storytelling. The other one is the brand, itself,

the company, the business is the story. And what the business

offers is the story. And then I think we have to ask ourselves,

you know, what is it that people are going to get? What is my

goal for folks? And then how can I help relate that to them

through a story. And I did post a link in the Facebook group.

I have been really terrible about linking the Facebook

group, maybe somebody can help me out there, since I'm walking,

but I posted a link in the Facebook group, to a video that

kind of breaks down the story brand ethos. So you can see the

way that they are building these brand stories. And you have to

think of your your potential customer, your ideal customer as

a character in a story. And they have a call to action, they have

a problem that needs to get solved. And your business is the

person who's going to solve that for them. So you can think of

you know that the person as Bilbo Baggins and your company

as Gandalf and you are going to give them a call to action with

a solution to their problem. That's going to make everything

right in their lives. So go check that out. But it basically

means that we're diverging here. And we have a decision to make

people who are spending their time you know, making videos on

YouTube to grow their platform, who are doing things on tick

tock, specifically related to them, and not necessarily their

business, are moving into a space where storytelling needs

to be based around who they are as people, what their interests

are, et cetera, et cetera. A lot of YouTubers have done this. On

the other part, on the other path, we have the brand the

company as the vehicle for telling these stories. And then

that changes because now you're looking at it from a brand

perspective, from what customers are going to get from you. And

you have to put yourself in the position of the customer and ask

yourself, what makes this product experience etc.

Different from the rest of the pack? And how can I frame that

so that people understand what they're going to be getting from

me and anybody who follows Sue Bryce will remember she has

said, I'm going to take the best portrait of yourself you've ever

seen. Okay, that is like a value proposition right there. So you

have to know that in order to tell a story about it. First,

Kat has talked about building legacy. Becca has talked about

bringing ideas to life. So you really need to understand what

it is that people are getting from your business that they're

not getting from other places. And that becomes the goal of the

character in your story and what they're going to get from you.

So that's it from me.

And I think it's important to talk about

frameworks a little bit. And you know, storytelling, because

there's a lot of different methods out there, right story

brand is the one that I've generally latched on to. I like

the hero's journey, I like being able to insert someone into my

story and have them go through and emotionally feel what it

will be like to experience a photoshoot in the studio, right?

So I like taking them through the story brand framework. And

it's something that I've done for a couple of years. I love

that storytelling aspect. But it doesn't necessarily mean that

you have to subscribe to that. There's a several other

different frameworks out there. There's the AIDA framework, the

AI da, which is basically attention Interest, Desire

action framework. And this is more for think about landing

pages how you want to get people into a campaign, right? So you

want to grab their attention. You want to make it interesting

for them. You want to tap into their desire and you want to

call them to action of some sort. So that's the AI da

framework, and I can go through an example of that in a minute,

and then there's also the problem agitate solution or the

pa s framework. And that is great for coming up with new

marketing copy ideas, right, you've got a problem, you want

to agitate it. And then you provide the solution, you want

to provide something that helps get that customer from A to B.

So there's a million different ways out there to do stuff like

this. Those are some very time tested, the pa s and the AI da

are very time tested, marketing, copy driving sort of frameworks,

the story brand framework brings in more of you as the guide in

this hero's journey. And it's the same approach with a

slightly different twist. So I just wanted to put that all out

there, because there is no again, one right or wrong way to

do this, there's a million ways to come to tell your story and

to come up with solutions for your customers. So have any of

you and I'll just kind of toss this out there before I get into

it and keep the conversation from being just me. But Have any

of you used any frameworks besides, you know, storytelling,

or Campbell theory or anything like that? Have you used any of

the PS frameworks or the AI da? Have you even heard of them

before? And I'll just kind of toss that out there.

I can officially say that, I have no

idea what you're saying.

Okay, I have but not for myself. So I have used

those things when working for other companies. And I have to

say, I think what you said Matt is true and so interesting. But

ultimately, the funny thing about it is, we are basically

looking at the same thing in different packaging in order to

help us understand the process. And what I mean by that is, even

when we're using ita or pass, we're still actually telling

stories, but we're just giving ourselves step by step

instructions for what we should be doing for each step. And it's

just different ways of conceptualizing the same thing.

And when you look at, let's just think about commercials for a

second, all commercials are trying to tell a story. This is

what happy people look like when they're drinking Coke at the

beach. And you could be this person, right? This is what a

depressed person looks like, when they're not able to see

their doctor and can't have medication. And you might be

this person. Look, don't you identify here, you can get that

problem fixed like these, these things are all stories. But the

question of how we approach them. And what makes the most

sense to us, often determines which one we follow. Because

giving a problem and a conflict. And a solution is a story. In

and of itself, we just ask ourselves, like which one of

these things resonates with me the most, so that it can make me

effective at putting the information out there. And I

found, I found that all of them work really well. As long as you

are setting up a problem and solution and addressing a pain

point with enough accuracy to that audience. And then giving

them away, giving them some kind of action, click here, go there,

all that kind of stuff. But it does. I think that does also

make a difference between when you're actually running a

campaign you need people to respond to and when your

marketing is purely introductory top of mind, or or things like

that. So I think they all absolutely work. At the end of

the day. We're still telling stories. But what we're trying

to get folks to do might be different depending on what

we're actually putting out if it's remember me get engaged

with my brand. Versus now it is time to take action. Here's

something you can go do

about it. Yep. And you know, I last thing I

want to do, I felt the the panic and the disconnection in cats

voice a second ago. And two, I don't I don't want to drive

anyone away with this. I just think you know, as we talk so

much about story and creativity and Nicole, everything that

you're just saying is spot on. I took it upon myself to write a

couple of examples because I'm not going to just throw this out

there and not kind of connected back to what you can do. So,

example I'm prepping man, I do my do my homework. So I'll be at

it was at 837 this morning, but I'll I'll go with it. So the pa

s framework is something really simple. I wrote it out for the

artists Forge. Take a listen to this. See what you think. The

problem? You want to be a better artist but you don't know where

to start. The agitation. The artist Forge is the place for

creatives of all kinds We're here to help artists and writers

and anyone who wants to improve their creative skills by giving

them access to our community of like minded people that can

provide insight on how they too, can become a better Creator. The

solution, this is where we come in our goal at the artists Forge

is simple. We want you to think like an artist so that your

creations are as great as they can possibly be. Whether you

need advice, or just someone else with whom you connect, this

site will serve as a meeting point for those people looking

for inspiration from others, and those willing to give it out

freely. There's an example of the pa s framework. And I think

I got a million I wrote out like five or six of them. So that is

the thing that draws you in, you create the problem or you

identify the problem. You agitate it a little bit you you

dig into that emotional side, and then you provide the

solution. Why do people want to get involved with you? Right?

And so that looks at it from the artist forward perspective, the

artists forge perspective, but you can apply that to yourself,

start thinking about what some of those problems statements

might be in, start there. Right. So other problem statements that

I wrote out, while I was kind of brainstorming was, creativity is

a skill that everyone should develop. Unfortunately, we don't

all get the same opportunities to learn and practice it.

There's a problem. The agitation is the artists forge was created

so that anyone can access resources on how to be creative.

We want you to understand why creativity is important for your

life, business or organization by having conversations with us

about the topic. And then the solution is our blog offers

practical advice on being more creative in everyday solutions,

as well as tips for specific mediums like painting or drawing

or photography. If you have any questions about any aspect of

art, feel free to reach out to us via our contact page and

social media channel. You're providing solutions to the

problem that the person has, rather than just saying, look

upon my pretty picture and be wonder it'd be in a state of

wonder, like look upon it and fear me have a problem, identify

the road to get to the solution, provide the solution. Does that

all make sense?

I feel like you just called me out right there.

Oh, go look upon the picture and fear doesn't get anywhere, but

it feels really powerful. No, that was that was a beautiful,

beautiful explanation that so called out that's okay.

I'm sorry, wasn't trying to call you out.

So there's the ITA framework as well. And I'm just going to give

you a couple of examples of those because I wrote those as

well. And then I don't want to put my hard work to just cast it

aside. So I'm going to force you all to listen to it. So the AI

da ita framework. It's an old marketing framework. And this is

just to give you more examples of how you can apply this to

your business. So for example, again, it's grabbing attention.

It's driving interest driving desire, calling to action. So

for the attention statement, it might be something like, are you

looking for a creative outlet? Well, yes, I am. So the interest

would be we're helping you to we are here to help you find your

inner artist, we believe that everyone has the ability to

create something great, but it takes some guidance and

inspiration along the way. The artists Forge is an online

community of people who want to discuss all aspects of

creativity with others in order to learn more about themselves

and their own abilities. It's not just about painting or

drawing, we're talking about everything from music and

composition to poetry and furniture and meals and

photography in anything that helps us create and express

ourselves creatively. You can join our discussion by

subscribing or joining the Facebook group. Now the desire

part of it is subscribe now, so you don't miss out on any

opportunities for self discovery through creativity. Our members

have already found ways that they can use their skills in new

ways that they've never thought possible before by joining our

group. Join today and start creating something amazing. And

then the action is click this right now and subscribe to the

artist Ford Facebook group. So you don't miss out on any

opportunities for self discovery through creativity. That's

something that you can put together for a landing page for

an ad, write anything that you want to run on Google ads or

Facebook ads or wherever you put out these calls to action. It's

a different type of framework. It's a little bit longer than

the pause framework, but it drives that interest. It drives

that that energy and the emotion for the consumer to come back to

you because you're solving the problem for them. You're driving

them to action. So that's just an example of that. Start

thinking about it. How your story could be told in this way.

Right? And I'll be the first to admit I don't do this for every

single post that I do. But writing a statement like this,

whether it's story brand, or pause, or Aida, any one of those

is going to give you a center point from which you can drive

the rest of your story. And, you know, having, I think, Nicole,

was it you that said, you know, the tributaries off the Big

Muddy River, right? And if as long as you have that center

point, that you can drive all these spokes to different

platforms. Now you can massage your message into whatever that

platform needs. Again, it's knowing your audience, it's

knowing who's on Facebook, or Instagram or Pinterest,

understand who they are, and what messaging they need to

hear. And you can drive your message and redirect it to that

audience. Does that make sense?

Yes, it does. Indeed, it does.

So with that, I'd love to hear now, again, no

right or wrong, just some things that I was thinking about? Do

you guys want to give any specific examples as to how

you've used story in your business, whether it's a you

know, case study, or one time I did this? I'd love to hear from

you guys, I'll toss it out to the mods.

I definitely do. I think without realizing

that, you know, I'm following a specific structure. But I've

definitely you know, shared work and things based on purpose,

right? Because you always revert to that that primary mission and

find out like, okay, is this in alignment with that? And then,

you know, integrate otherwise, like, Rebecca had said something

in the group the other day about, you know, like

collaborating with other artists. So yesterday, I threw

up a thing about doing self portraits, like I do self

portraits pretty regularly and was like, Okay, let's see if

anybody else wants to jump on this train. And like, everybody

in their mother is like, yeah, sure, let's do it. And the

vision behind that really is just more like collaboration and

fun, and just something outside of the box to be a part of right

just to gain some IG bounce. But others might be more emotionally

driven. Right, like, okay, that's fun, something to do on

the sidelines. But maybe I want to book a portrait session,

because like, Katie McNeil, she had a portrait made when she was

like six or seven, and literally had not had another portrait

until she was 63. And so she shared about like driving that

home, like not existing in portraits for 55 years. Like,

that's a thing, right? There is very little photographic

evidence of that person's existence. And I have a similar

story, but obviously not not quite the breadth of yours. But

then talking about why that's valuable, why that matters. And

so you're pulling on those heartstrings a little bit more.

But that's typically how I lead is like, what's the emotional

component? And what's the why behind the emotion. And I

think it's really important that you

mentioned that, that you, you know, you weren't necessarily

aware that you're in a framework. And that's totally

cool, right, we all do things that seem to make sense. And you

just had some guy in a room somewhere that created a

framework around what we all do anyway, as part of the story.

And I think you do an incredible job, cat in a lot of your social

media, of tapping into that, of leading with your authenticity,

and then telling a bit of story, and then seeing if anybody will

come along with you. And it's clear by your engagement that

people do, and you have a really good mastery of this. And I love

watching what you do, especially in your stories, your posts are

great across your channels, your stories are amazing, because you

do this great mix of pulling people in showing them your real

life, bring them along with that journey. And people feel really

connected to that. And that is where engagement comes from, is

the second that people can start feeling any level of connection

or partnership with you. They are going to be a customer or

consumer for life. And as long as it remains authentic, which

you do incredibly well. I think, you know, the sky's the limit

there. So, Nicole or besom or Becca, do you ever you know,

consider how you're putting things out? Or do you kind of

throw stuff at a wall? I'm very guilty of throwing stuff at a

wall often. But I wanted to hear from you guys give you guys a

chance.

Listen here. Here's the disconnect. Alright

that I have and you know, everything you talked about

Matt? It's incredible. It's it These are great ways to

structure your approach. And I might issue and my disconnect

is, is I understand it, I get it, I do it, when I do it for my

website for a, let's say, if I want to do a campaign, I can do

that. Where I freeze, is when it comes to social media engagement

and how to actually use that stuff in the context of a quick

post and a quick story. And a quick this is exactly what Kat

does. And many of you do very, very well. It's an area where I

do suffer from comparing myself to others. And I don't even know

I actually freeze and I default to just putting my work out

there and a little bit in some app that I found that does, uh,

you know, brings in the pictures nicely and, and put a couple of

words that everybody else uses. And I can't seem to get past

that no matter how much I try, because I I don't know why.

Right. So it's that I call it the duff model, which is I

desire to do it, I understand how to do it, but I freeze when

I try to do it. So I don't know if there's any tips and hints at

how to break that. It feels like I'm stuck when it comes to short

social media engagement. Right? And it's just the basics. I

mean, I find that everything I come up with everybody's using,

this is nothing creative about it. There's nothing different.

There's nothing that's me about it. And when I think about what

is what am I and how can I? How can I put that out there in

little snippets and continuous in a continuous, consistent

stories and posts, I fall apart, I need help. And I don't need

help from a guru that's going to tell me to use those that I

totally understand it must be something else that's holding me

back. And I don't know what it is,

you know, besides you. It's kind of like

we were separated at birth you and I see things so much like we

have a lot of similar kind of challenges and struggles on a

day to day basis. And you know, what you're saying you're not

alone with it, I struggle with it every single day of coming up

with something and then when I can't, when I get that writer's

block, I just don't post anything, and then insert

inconsistency here. And now I'm not doing anything. When I look

at your work, for example, I'm scrolling through your Instagram

as we speak. And you've got really high engagement, right?

You're you're you're not at a loss of likes, you're not at a

loss of people looking at your work, you get plenty of

followers, right, you're producing beautiful work. What I

notice, and there's no criticism here, but what I'm noticing in

the in the aspect of storytelling is you do an

amazing job of showing who your client is, and raising them up

and making them feel beautiful and crediting the artists. What

I see is missing is the connection to the other viewer.

Right, the calls to action? Wouldn't you love to look like

this? Is this something that you can see with your you know, as

you're starting your pregnancy journey? Wouldn't you want to

capture that and playing to a little bit more of the desire in

the interest? Right? You're clearly driving interest people

are showing up in there. They're loving your images. But in terms

of that engagement, it's connecting with them in keeping

that conversation going. And you know, you did a great job

recently about that nine month journey, the photo milestones,

right that you that you put up and you've done an incredible

job of showing people that the wonder of maternity. And what

I'm not seeing in that is calling people to action to

engage with you. And it might be just as simple as that because a

lot of us feel icky, asking for, you know, trying to try to be

salesy, but it has nothing to do with that. It's just Can you

picture yourself in these types of images? If so, hey, give me a

call. Right? It's that it's that feeling it's driving that

interest in calling to that action. But it's difficult to do

my my only suggestion would be go through try to develop one of

these frameworks. And just anytime that you're feeling

stuck, look at it and say, How can I bring people back to that?

How can I bring people back to wanting to get in touch with me?

Right? And again, I'm not advising you or telling you

exactly how to do your social media. I'm just saying that's

the component that I see missing in my own stuff. And I see it in

in yours as well. Does that make sense?

Yeah, no, actually quite a bit. Now. So

you put your put your finger exactly on the on the, I guess

the part in the process where I do freeze, and that is asking,

asking it in a, a, in a way, that doesn't sound corny, right?

Or it doesn't sound like everybody else and I'm scrolling

through and looking at and they're asking it the same way

that's Can I,

can I pop in for just a sec here? Because I think

we need to change that word really quick. You're not asking

for anything. You are offering somebody a life changing

experience. That's a whole different mindset to have. And

it's, it's, I think that's where we mess up when we look at what

we're doing as business people. And for those of us who are

artists first and business people second, and our emotions

are tied up with what we do, we're often feeling like, we

have to try to talk people into giving us something, please. So

can I have another like, that's not us showing up on social

media, we do something that is amazing. We have to change the

way that we think about it to recognize that we're not asking,

we're not begging, we're not showing up on people's doorsteps

and irritating them. We're literally offering people a

chance to do something amazing for themselves. And that

completely changes the whole way that we show up and you have the

proof of that in the way that your clients respond to what

they get from you, and how they have that experience. And that

is what you're offering people. You're not asking them for

anything. You're giving them a chance.

Yeah, and I actually go and absolutely true.

And I and I get that but I think it was more about it's more

about how do I formulated in a way, it comes down to copy in a

way and it being not sort of it. In other words, it. I don't want

to be formal about it. But I tend to be formal when I try to

do it. And I'm trying to do it in a way like I look at other

people and they say wow, like that's brilliant how they just

said it sounds so simple. And and and that's where I kind of

stopped because I can't get to that simplicity. And that that

natural language like free flowing language that everybody

can just connect with. When it comes

here with us? Well, you know, it's just a question.

Sometimes it's just a question of putting somebody in your

head. Like, if you were going to be saying that me, if you were

like, cuz you do this all the time, like, Hey, Nicole, no

pressure, just if this is something you're interested in,

I'm here. Well, you know,

you just proved you just proved the beauty of

this group. Okay, like, we talk about things that nobody else

talks about, yeah, just put somebody in your head. And

that'll help you get there, there's a little tip, that's

probably better than any course I bought a boat, when or read or

any article, I read about this subject, put somebody in your

head, you just hit it on, you just gave me one little tip that

is absolutely amazing. And I'll run with it and see where that

goes. On the topic, I sound like sound passionate this morning,

I'm not screaming, I just got away.

It was great. I like it. Bring the passion, sir.

I just wanna say on the on the topic of asking,

though, I think asking things of your target audience and you

know, of your existing clients already is maybe a powerful step

towards that more casual and conversational type of

engagement and posting. And then we're leading kind of into

content marketing, like creating content that people can use to

inform themselves, you know, or however right. And so

essentially creating content based on questions and

conversations and quite things that you ask your clients,

that's gonna be valuable to future clients like things, you

know, they might want to know, about the process of a

photoshoot, you know, things they might be concerned about,

they want to see themselves and their concerns, their genuine,

you know, kind of stopping points before booking the

photoshoot reflected in clients who've moved past that and gone

through with the service, and how it's been a positive for

them. So I think, you know, thinking, again, as a

conversation, how do you have a great conversation with people,

you want to ask questions and get to know them? So how can you

do that through your social media already, you can do it in

your captions, you can do it in your stories, you can do it on

your Facebook, you can you know, reach out in ways and ask people

what they want to know and share that content with people so

they'll be more trusting and engaged with you.

And I love what you said there, Becca? It's,

it's asking questions, right, getting them to engage. And one

of the most powerful ways that I've seen to do it is through

the questions on Instagram Stories, right? If I write a lot

on Facebook, or you know, even a paragraph on Facebook, and I

asked someone to engage, rarely do I get someone to actually

typed something in there. But that little friggin sticker that

you put on a story that ask people questions, like, Oh,

someone named cat did that said hey, I'm thinking about a

selfie. Portrait Project anybody interested? Right? People want

to be involved. They don't want to do heavy lifting right out of

the gate, give them something simple and easy to engage, but

get information from them. So everything that Becca just said

is spot on. I find that Instagram stickers, those those

questions, the polls, things like that give you immediate

feedback from people because it is very lightweight for them to

interact. So maybe that could help besom understand your, your

viewers a little bit better right in your audience. And

asking them some of these questions just flat out, ask

them the questions, you don't have to be too professional

about it. Because I suffer from the same thing that you do, I

want that voice to be clear and professional. And that's just

been beat into me my entire life. But letting that guard

down a little bit being a little bit more vulnerable and

authentic, I think you'll find people really, really resonate

with that, especially with you because your work is so

beautiful.

I do that a lot as well. And what I think is really

important with that, so particularly with Instagram

stories, I feel like the questions where people can type

an answer. And also the polls are really great. And polls,

they're super easy. Like, you know, you can even do like, you

know, what would you rather wear to your maternity shoot and like

do some, you know, create a little image with like Option A

and Option B and let people choose and kind of go through

the process of styling, a photoshoot like a, you know,

imaginary photoshoot. And then they can kind of envision that

for themselves. But if you're going with the questions, these

are so great, because then they go to your you can go and

message back. So you're moving beyond just the engagement,

which you know, likes and you know, follows and whatever,

which don't necessarily lead anywhere. And you can really

start nurturing a one on one relationship with people.

Okay, I wanted to jump in here really quick,

because there's something cool that's happening, and when we

might not realize it. I know I've mentioned this, this

technique before, we've talked about using content funnels,

right. And the basic ideas of a content funnel is the same as

any funnel that has a very wide mouth, that tapers down to a

point. And it's very easy to get into a funnel, it doesn't

require any effort on your part. And most of the time, these are

the things that we post that are not requiring anything of the

viewer. So when you took a senior portrait, and it was

beautiful, and you just posted on your Instagram and said, Hey,

did a great senior portrait today with this amazing senior,

here's my favorite shot of the day, I can't wait to share the

rest or whatever, right? That does not require anything of

anybody. It is there is an example of your work, it's top

of mind thing, it's going to show up in people's feeds

whatever, as the funnel begins to get smaller, this is when we

begin asking things of people. And we're asking them to engage

with us somehow. And these are the kinds of posts that Becca is

talking about, where you're now saying cool, you saw my stuff

and you liked it, come engage with me a little bit. And you're

giving them an opportunity to now put forth some effort to

look at your pictures cost them nothing to hit the like button

cost them nothing. But now you're asking them to think a

little bit and respond. And then once they're used to that, you

begin asking other things, come check out this blog posts about

how to choose the best dress for your maternity photos, or

whatever. And then all of a sudden, they're getting used to

seeing your work that triggers in engagement with your work and

engagement with your brand. And then once you've trained them to

expect those things from you, and they've been pushed down

that funnel farther. Finally, at the bottom we have, if you want

to be able to have a you know, Legacy portrait of yourself like

this, I'm running this thing, click this button, whatever. Now

you're getting them to commit. And the good thing about that

funnel is that it is a tool for winnowing out the people who

will not engage. So you can always be asking yourself, what

part of the funnel does this fall in? Am I just giving people

something that's helpful and interesting, that they can look

at and enjoy? That's the entertainment part of the

funnel? Am I giving people something they can learn from?

Am I giving them something that asks them to engage and show up

for me and my my brand and themselves? And then in my you

know, at the very bottom of the funnel? Am I now asking giving

them a call to action, click the thing show up at the website,

etc, etc. So just to just to share what framework that all

fits within. So if you have to ask yourself that question of

what am I doing with this? Well, it could be top of funnel and

that's fine. Just remember that eventually. We do need to have

posts that are in the middle of the funnel asking for more

engagement and in the bottom of the funnel. Ask Looking for a

commitment. So that might be a framework that helps some people

conceptualize what they're actually doing.

I love it. I love it. Love it. Love it. Thank

you, Nicole. I can't believe we're already at 50 minutes into

this conversation. I could talk about this all day long. So what

I wanted to do is open it up to the audience, if you have any,

anything that you want to talk about in terms of story and how

you're using it, or do you or do you not use a framework when

you're developing your social content? Do you come back to a

center point? Do you have any level of sales funnel that you

loosely adhere to when you're creating or strongly adhere to

when you're creating your posts? Do you use some of these

techniques and engagement to connect with your audience a

little bit more, I'd love to hear from you, all you have to

do is raise your hand. And we'll bring you up on stage and we can

include you in the conversation. But I absolutely love love love

this because it inspires me to do more and think differently

about how I'm creating my content these days, I'm mainly

on Instagram. So I'm, I follow a lot of the same stuff that I

have done for years, I try to post consistently at the same

times I fail at that quite a bit. I try to come up with

something witty or engaging, I often fail at that. And I never

look at it like man, I suck at this. I look at it as Okay, that

didn't work. Let me try something else. Learn from the

failures, watch your analytics, understand what people are

doing, weed out the content that doesn't work for you and look at

the stuff that worked really well. And what did you do in

those posts, whether that's Facebook or, or Instagram or

wherever, and start to analyze your own stuff before you just

start mixing up new content and throwing out at the wall, take a

look back at what has performed really, really well for you and

start to find those common threads, where you asking

questions where you engaging them differently? Was it a style

of photo write, what we're trying to do is find your true

and authentic voice with your story. And continue to use that

across all of your channels. So, you know, for me, I'm trying

desperately to get better at it. I've said several days ago, I

have a real loathing for social media, but I understand the

necessity of it. And I'm trying to play the game. I'm trying to

use it so that my business, which is the thing that I'm most

interested in, starts to grow and gives me the lifestyle that

I want. So for you your y may be completely different. And that's

okay. It's just how are you approaching this in terms of

story. So like I said, if you if you want to just raise your

hand, we'll bring you on up. Go ahead, Nicole.

I just had an idea. So tomorrow, why don't we go

ahead and build out a story framework. Here in the group, do

that together, ask ourselves those questions and actually

walk ourselves through the process. That way, we know what

it looks like to figure out, okay, at the core, what are we

trying to do? And how does that connect to the pain point of our

potential customer? How can we explain it in a way? How do we

walk them through that process? Maybe that would be a really

great exercise to do here together tomorrow. So that we

get that experience and we have a good idea of what it looks

like to put into practice for ourselves next week.

I absolutely love that idea. And we can

choose what we want to do what framework we want to do, we can

come up with the concept of the beginning. I love it. Love it.

Love it. I can't wait to participate in that gene. Thanks

for jumping up here. What's going on, man?

Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. This

has been a great topic. I'm learning a lot. I've recently

been, since some of our previous conversations been trying to get

a lot better about putting some copy with my posts, so that I'm

not just posting and hoping people understand why I posted

it. That's been successful. And I'm definitely trying to follow,

you know, at least a, you know, a modified kind of internal

framework of you know, posts something substantive post

something meaningful. And I also really like calling out people

that are important to me, that influenced me because I feel

like sharing, you know what, how other people have inspired me to

create, you know, is important because it just goes back to a

comment I made actually I don't want to Cats posts about

dehumanization. One of the things as I was working my

corporate job in management, one of the things that I always

worked really hard towards was to humanize everything,

humanize. You know, the work that we do humanize leadership.

But what's really sad is that sometimes you have to remind

people to humanize people. And I think that when you share

something substantive, and you connect with somebody, on a

personal level, you know, you bring that, that human aspect

back into this platform, and I like sharing, you know, calling

out people. And actually, she's gonna be mad at me for

embarrassing her. But somebody very, very important to me just

joined as a listener, I won't call her out, but she was

actually the first person on YouTube who actually called me

out on one of her YouTube videos. And that started this

journey for me, of recognizing and realizing how important it

is to recognize, you know, the people that have carved out time

for you in their world and make sure that you're carving out

time for them in your world. And it's been fun to be able to do

that on social media. So that's all part of my thought process.

There's not time to really get into it. But one of the things

that I'd like to do some research on, and hopefully we'll

have a chance to participate tomorrow, because Nicole, I

think that's a great idea. To get into the storytelling

aspect. I hope everybody can can join for that. The two things

that, that I focus a lot on when I'm doing my video work. And I

only bring this up because I'm curious. And we'd like to spend

some time today, looking at maybe how this might apply to my

social media posts. massaman, I've talked a little bit about

this, I'm fascinated by something called the story

circle. And I'm also fascinated by the idea of a periodic table

of story elements. Those are two things that exist out there that

I've been trying to learn about, and figure out ways that I can

use those tools and frameworks to apply storytelling, to the

videos that I that I make. And then also, what I'd like to do

is just see, you know, if there's a way to, I think those

frameworks are, you know, intended for feature length

films. But I'd like to see if there's elements of that that

might be borrowed for social media to bring it, you know,

around to what we're talking about in the room this week. So

I'm kind of fascinated by that. I just want to bring up the

story circle in the periodic table, because I think those are

really cool ways of approaching storytelling framework. And one

of the things that Assam and I talked a lot about was

Christopher Nolan's U shaped storytelling method that he used

in The Dark Knight series and Inception where you're, you're

he basically tells the story simultaneously in the past and

present in the in the movie concludes that a meeting point

in the middle. There's a couple of really cool videos out there

about how he does that. It's all complicated stuff for, you know,

intended for filmmaking. But I'm fascinated by applying some of

those principles to social media. So I'm gonna spend some

time on that. And if I come up with anything worth sharing,

I'll raise my hand tomorrow. But it's been a great topic this

week. Thanks, Nicole, and everybody else.

Awesome. Thanks, Jean. I hadn't heard of it that

Periodic Table of story elements. But I'm going to I'm

going to check that out. Maybe I'll talk to you offline about

it. Any closing thoughts were here at the end of the hour,

we've talked about story, it's been kind of esoteric today

thinking about probably over complicating something that

really shouldn't be that complicated. But I think with a

little bit of effort and developing a central framework,

a central storyline for who you are as an artist, who you are as

a business person, what it is you're trying to get across. If

you can develop that central storyline, now you have a really

good understanding of the content that you're trying to

put out. And the why behind it. Why are you putting this out?

Why should people contact you? Why should people buy your art

or watch your movie or read your book, any of those things,

always starts with your why. And until you can tell that story of

your why you can't solve the problem for your customers or

your clients or your viewers or your fans. So trying to develop

a story framework, whether that's anything that we talked

about story brand, pause, Aida, any of the millions that are out

there, start somewhere, start analyzing what your story is,

and how you want to tell it. Then like the spokes on a wheel,

you can drive from that hub and start to really implement that

on all the platforms. So with that, are there any other

closing thoughts from any of the mods before we before we shut

down?

I guess I kind of tapped on this a little bit with

that example to besom about using polls in Instagram but I'm

just because I work mostly, I mean, almost exclusively on

commission, right? So I have to work very closely with my

clients and you know, develop their ideas. And then create

them quickly. So one way I like to kind of give a look into that

is to kind of invite my general audience to create with me a

little bit through social media. So doing things like going live,

and then you know, just kind of screwing around with whatever,

you know, fun project or experiment that I'm trying, and

taking their input and applying that to whatever I'm making are,

again, things like using polls and asking questions like, What

would you guys rather see. And that's going to give, you know,

my general audience who may or may not then be converted to

actual clients, look at what my creative process is like, and

more what it's like to actually work with me. And that's gonna

then you know, it, it shares with them that you know, my own

personal story, my own personal work ethic, my own personal

philosophy, and all of that. And also then lets them be involved

in a way without committing yet, and then drives them to trust

that process and want to give me money in the end. So just wanted

to throw that out there too.

Yeah, actually, back a couple of days ago, as I

was sitting on that boat, I wrote out that actual Instagram

post with all the like, I wrote out the questions that I want to

ask in a poll of what people would like to see more of, and

then I say that I haven't posted yet I get to refine it a little

bit. And the reason I say I want to refine it is not because it's

pretty simple. It's just I don't want it to attract photographers

only. That's really my so the way I worded it. And I couldn't

post it because I don't have Wi Fi but anyways, yeah, I'm gonna,

I'm gonna do that as a first step, and just ask questions

like that and see where that goes and take some of the advice

that was given today and, and focus in on, on, on doing one

one thing to move me in that direction, as opposed to try to

get it all right.

I think that's a really brilliant place. For us

to end this. Assam is, like Matt said, you know, it's been a lot

this week, it's been really great information. But there's a

lot here, and it can definitely feel overwhelming. And I think

it's important for us to remember, as we consider all of

the stuff that we've heard, and all of the stuff that we shared,

that we don't have to do all of this tomorrow, right? We can

just pick one thing that resonates, you know, like the

funnel, that makes sense to me. Um, so let me just see how I can

start using that, or just posting at the same time every

day, maybe that's one thing that we can do one step in the right

direction, in that practice of showing up for ourselves. And

it's a pretty easy thing, set a reminder on my phone at this

time of day, that's what I'm going to post, no matter what

I'm doing, I've decided I have to stop and do the thing. That's

just one thing, right? One thing, one step we can take in

the right direction. So there's a lot of fantastic information

here, from almost every perspective, from what your

philosophy of social media is, all the way down to, you know

the techniques and the tools that you can use to accomplish

it. But don't feel overwhelmed, just pick one thing. And start

with that.

Nicole, I also learned something this week.

Because I keep talking about being on a boat, I posted the

Instagram Stories of just videos I took on a boat, we're on a

water this beautiful mountains around with snow covered

mountains, and so on. And those posts got more engagement than

any of my damn photos that I post. Alright, so there's two

ways I could take that it's either I got the wrong audience,

and they just want to look at, like landscape stuff. And that's

the wrong way to take it. And the right way to take it is

people just want to see stuff. People just want to see what I

do all day long. And I get that part. But it kind of came

crashing in front of me when I saw that this week. So just talk

about what you do. So what if I'm out on a boat? And I'm a

photographer, I don't have to just post about photography.

Right?

Yeah. I mean, and that's a really good point.

massaman I think most of us have probably experienced that at

some point. Where one day I put a selfie in my stories because I

was getting ready to do a photo shoot. And I was trying to get,

you know, the engine running for getting people engaged that day

with the behind the scenes I was going to post Nick got more,

more likes more attention more, you know, than anything else.

And it would be really easy to do exactly what you said and be

like why do people engage with this and not with the image?

Well, here's the thing we have to remember. We use social media

to be entertained. Yes, we can also use it to get information

and inspiration. But the primary purpose of social media is

entertainment, even our friends become our entertainment during

the day when we're doing things like Doom scrolling through

Facebook. Our friends lives become a source of

entertainment. It's kind of terrible to think about it that

way. But it's the truth. It is a way to engage your brain in

something that is not necessarily productive and that

is entertainment. We may get out of it in some ways, but the

point is just to get you engaged and keep you entertained. And so

it's important to keep that in mind, that is what your content

is. And if you can, the whole trick to this content is to take

what is entertaining, and then make it valuable, beyond just a

pretty thing, and then use that power to give people something

because a business only exists to provide value. That's the

only reason they exist. And if you're not doing that, you're

not gonna make any money. So I think it's a really great point,

just to remember that social media is primarily a venue for

entertainment, we can use it for other things, but there's got to

be some entertainment value there and seeing a beautiful

place and seeing what an interesting person is doing in

their interesting life is entertaining. And there's

nothing wrong with that. That's why I write books because

they're entertaining. But you can still learn really great

things from them, and grow your empathy and experience. You

know, the world through a worldview that's not your own,

and all the other good things that come along with writing and

storytelling and reading books. But the primary way we do that

and get into people's brains is through entertainment. So it's a

good reminder. People don't just scroll around through Instagram,

so they can be like, I learned a really great thing today on

Instagram. They want to be entertained, and that's okay.

I would just like to show some solidarity to

besar. They're my most popular Instagram story of all time was

a video of a glitch I got playing Skyrim. And I usually

get like a couple 100 views or whatever on my stories. And this

was like a 1000s. And I don't know why. I guess it's

entertainment, because it was it was pretty strange looking

glitch. But yeah, I feel your pain.

This is amazing. And I'm not gonna even add

anything else. Nicole, I think you summed it up perfectly. It's

a great place to end before we go through the exercise

tomorrow. So just to kind of recap, if anybody else has

joined the room in kind of the middle of this movie that we're

talking about. The Facebook group is at the top of the room

here, feel free to join that it is a private group, you can't

find it, unless you're searching for it specifically. So go ahead

and click on that. If you want to join the Facebook group,

we'll go ahead and let you in there. But we're here every

morning at 9am, Eastern 7am, Mountain Time, 6am Pacific, and

whatever time it is, wherever you are in the world, but

generally figure it out yourself. But we're going to be

here tomorrow again. So if you feel like it, join us until

then, go create something amazing. And thank you all for

just being who you are and doing what you do. We'll talk to you

tomorrow. Bye. Thanks again for listening to this live clubhouse

discussion moderated by all of us at the artists Forge. We hope

you found the information useful and that it helps you gain a

little bit of insight as to how you work on your craft. For more

episodes, please join us each weekday on clubhouse or visit

the artists forge.com and go make something incredible