This is the second in a series of articles on how to use your limited time to grow your business on social media.

Your Customers Want to Know You

It is safe to say you are not alone in the marketplace unless you have somehow stumbled onto the first product or service in the entirety of human thought. So, how do you stand out across the millions of choices the internet offers your potential customers?

People buy from people. In our first post, we discussed how to leverage the people who love your product or service to gain a larger audience and grow your business. But the next part has less to do with the people who already love you and more to do with how we make sure there is something there to love.

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This is the first in a series of articles on how to use your limited time to grow your business on social media.

Your Business is Your Customers

Wow, Rob. Wow. Applause. You are a true business guru. Stop the voting because we’ve found the most ingenious little idiot in town.

OK. Now that it’s out of your system, let’s talk about what I mean by YOUR BUSINESS IS YOUR CUSTOMERS. Whatever you are selling - services, products, etc. - is driven by your customers and audience.

Think about when you go to buy something online. Do you search on Amazon and buy the first thing you see? Maybe. But that’s the quickest way to find the company that paid to be at the top.

That won’t do, so most of us look at the star ratings. And if we are conflicted about multiple products?…

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For the word (not pictures) people:

Caffeinate & Elevate: Let's kickstart an awesome week!

(... but first: COFFEE)

Step One: Make a List

• Get your big projects on the board

• List the little wins that will sustain your morale and motivation!

• They ALL add up to a great week. 😉

Step Two: ELEVATE

• Schedule time to boost other people on social media!

• COMMENT AND SHARE posts (... then like after that)

• BONUS POINTS: tag friends and coworkers in content they would find useful!

• BONUS BONUS Points: when you boost others on social, they are more likely to interact with the content you make as well (and the algorithm will also share your content with them more often)

We can help make Mondays better for each other!

ENGAGE
SUPPORT
SHARE
... and CAFFEINATE some more 😜

(skip the cutesy graphics and read the text)

YOUR VOICE MATTERS

You can grow your organization’s social media presence with your authentic self.

… BUT WHERE DO YOU START?

• HAVE A CO-WORKER YOU APPRECIATE?

• HAVE A FUN, POSITIVE WORK STORY?

• HAVE A WORK PROJECT OR SERVICE YOU ARE PROUD YOU DID?

• MADE A PUBLIC PRESENTATION?

• WENT TO A COMMUNITY EVENT?

SHARE IT AND TAG YOUR ORGANIZATION/BUSINESS!

KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID SUPERSTAR!

Because whatever you post will be ‘gone in 60 seconds.’ You’re not going to go viral - good, bad, or ugly - so set the expectations low and the stakes even lower than that.

AUTHENTIC CONNECTIONS > VANITY METRICS

People want to follow and know other people. Your organization or business is made of people. You are the authentic social voice of your organization, so get out there and post!!!

Tell me about something you recently posted that you're proud of!!!

Leave a comment

Communicating with Visuals

I think icons are pretty fantastic, but there are billions—maybe trillions—all around the internet. How do you pick visuals that reflect the message you want to communicate, and how will they be received?

I stumbled upon a cool YouTube video recently from 20191. It outlined a pretty amazing case study for iconography, and we built the data set! If you played the game Quick, Draw! from Google, you helped their neural network understand human drawings.

The secondary insight from this data set is how it can quickly tell you what icons and words say to people on a macro scale. There are 50 million individual sketches of different concepts—from aircraft carriers to zigzags—all drawn by people. If you want to frame a concept about your business, writing, game, or art, you could sketch out your ideas and come to this website to see how they reflect what people commonly see when they think of the ideas you are using!

As you click through the different concepts, you begin to see patterns take shape (literally). One of the other compelling parts of this warehouse of drawings is that it shows them drawn out in real-time. The game only gives 20 seconds to complete a drawing, and the drawings ‘play back’ in GIF form to show how people made their work.

You can always play the game yourself (on your phone or computer), as it’s quite addictive and fun. You would be lending your own perspective to this sketchbook, Rosetta Stone.

I know the next time I work on a logo, icon, or other design, this will be one of my first places to come to for inspiration. If you want to communicate clearly, this is a FREE public focus group!

The creative journey is fraught with obstacles, hazards, and endless questions. The biggest question is: How do I get this idea to people who need it?

This newsletter aims to provide the necessary tools to fill in some gaps along your journey to building the business, projects, or other creative ideas that only you can bring.

1. Getting Ideas Out of Your Brain

Take notes. Sorry, this one is really simple. Most phones these days have a notetaking app. If you have an iPhone, the base notes app is insanely robust and has just about anything you would need to keep track of new ideas quickly. Between tagging, folders, and smart folder organization, the iPhone notes app is a great place to start with organizing your thoughts and making quick notes that stay with you long term.

If you are on android, I would recommend something like Google Keep. It has a tagging system as well and can embed links effortlessly if you are a collector of tabs.

You won’t remember it. Just write it down.

2. Sending Files Can Really Suck

One of the challenges with many businesses, creative or otherwise, is the ability to get people the files they need quickly and reliably. As someone who worked in the video field for YEARS, it was always a struggle to find a tool that anyone could access. People would struggle with a Dropbox link or a Google account if I used their storage tech.

While people have become more tech-savvy over the years, the problem persists as people become tethered to their platform of choice and don’t want to veer off the path they’ve bushwhacked their way through.

In Comes WeTransfer.

They will send files up to 2 gigabytes (GB), covering most digital content size requirements (barring some larger video files, of course) for FREE. These files are short-lived, meaning you put the file on there to send to a client, and then once it’s gone, you can either re-send it or pay for longer terms and larger file sizes.

Pricing Plans

The best part is that WeTransfer lets you upload the files, put in your recipients’ email(s) and your email, and then craft an email message. Don’t want to send it via email? No problem. WeTransfer will let you copy a link instead—ideal if you are sending files phone to phone.

You can decide if your file expires in 3 or 7 days (or more if you select a paid plan). Upgraded plans also have more options available (like selling digital items through the file send option, longer custom storage times, and more).

I know this sounds like an ad, but it’s not. I just have a marketing brain, and I have one way to talk about awesome tools I find: sell them. I’m not getting a kickback on this product1; I just feel that strongly about it!

Welcome to Tools Works, a place for you to fuel and fill your creative toolbox. I am merely a curator and creator of valuable tips, tricks, and - yes - tools to help you in your creative journey. Please comment below if you have a go-to tool, software, plug-in, or *anything*. I will gladly steal it (with credit to you, of course)!

Steal Like an Artist

One of the most life-changing reads I’ve ever had was finding and devouring all of the content that crafts about the creative process.1

Austin Kleon

Weekly art, writing, and creative inspiration from the author of Steal Like an Artist and other bestsellers.

Now, before you look at that headline and run off shouting, “Rob said I could steal everything and pass it off as my own!”… that’s not what that means. Human creativity is an act of collection, distillation, combination, alteration, and general mad science that makes new things out of old things and your unique talents and experiences.

To Put it Another Way - Great creatives don’t copy; they honor their inspirations with new things crafted from the old and their new, unique perspective.

You might be scratching your head now and thinking, “Didn’t Rob already write about this???” Yes, I did. Here it is.

That is one of my points: part of creating and stealing like an artist is revisiting previous work and discovering new opportunities. This post is not quite that post. That post was an attempt to share many of my inspirations for finding my art style (an ongoing and frustratingly eternal pursuit).

This post is about developing your personal, creative toolbox. What you put into it will inevitably be what comes out of it. It is of the utmost importance that we continually refresh our palate with new and diverging things. We can fuse seemingly unconnected ideas into refreshing art and creative paints for our canvas.

You have a unique story only you can tell.
What story will that be?