One of the best aspects of the modern age is how we can create wonderful works of art and share it with the entire world. Art, music, movies, poetry, comedy, the list goes on and on, but we can so easily produce and consume any sort of content nowadays. This is both a blessing and a curse. While everyone is able to share their creations, it becomes that much harder to stand out from the rest.

There are plenty of cases where people have “gone viral.” Their content explodes and is consumed by thousands upon thousands of people either because of proper hashtags, producing the right content at just the right time, or a boost from a celebrity. Not many of us are lucky enough to have our content be picked up and shown to so many users, and we must rely on the fans we already have and hope we create things they enjoy enough to share.

From the audience perspective, it can be difficult to know how to best help the people whose content you enjoy. I decided to throw together a guide for folks who want to help their favorite content creators grow!

Sharing is Caring

One of the most basic ways to help someone grow is to share their content with your friends and family. Often times we make make friends with people who have similar interests, so by sharing what you love, there is a good chance your friends will convert to being fans of your favorite entertainers too.

If you want to go above and beyond, you can add a small paragraph as to why you love them. That testimony is better marketing than any paid advertisement because it is genuine. The people always have the power to make or break artists of every format!

Tag Properly

A majority of social medias have the feature to tag various categories by using hashtags. When you share or re-post their content you absolutely want to take advantage of this feature. Using a hashtag will throw that content in the database with whatever you mentioned. That way, whoever is searching those tags will naturally stumble upon that content and will convert normal folks to fans!

If you want to go above and beyond, check out what tags are the most popular and use those ones. They will have the most impact and reach the most amount of people!

Liking and Commenting

This depends on the social media, but nine times out of ten liking and commenting help tremendously with algorithms that control how many people will see their content. Although many of us loathe the algorithms because they seem to smother our reach, they are set in place to show users what they want to see the most. How they do this is by researching what users like and comment on, then give them more of the same or similar content. So by interacting with the post, it shows that this is content you actively want to consume.

If you want to go above and beyond, comment something genuine or tag a friend so they can see it as well. Anything more than just a like or “Great job” since the algorithms are also geared filter out these ‘weak’ forms of engagement in favor of more ‘authentic’ responses. This whole algorithm situation can be really confusing, but just remember more engagement is always helpful!

Consume Content

One of the most basic ways to help is to actively consume their content! Reading articles, watching videos, listening to podcasts etc. all help boost their numbers. Their main goal as content creators is to get the as many views as possible because the more people that watch results in more opportunities!

If you want to go above and beyond, be sure to save your personal favorite videos! Chances are you will later see that thumbnail and return to it and consume their content multiple times.

Feedback

Feedback is so crucial to indie content creators that it very well may be the most important way to help out. Praising publicly is always great, but providing your observations privately is a huge kindness. Even if you are trying to help the creator, nothing kills a spirit faster than publicly pointing out a flaw and then everyone joining in agreement. When providing your thoughts, you always want to be as specific as possible so it is easier for the creator to know where an issue is. Audio? Video? Consistency? Topics? Platform? Guests?

The faster they are made aware of a problem, the quicker they can resolve it. Granted, this is completely subjective to the artist since the issue you might have may be intended and just a part of the art.

If you want to go above and beyond, nothing builds a spirit up like public praise. Shouting about how incredible a person is from figurative mountain tops and literal comment threads is always a blessing. You can also point out specifically what you enjoyed about the content so they know exactly what their fans enjoy so they can enhance or continue to improve that aspect.

 

I hope these five pieces of advice help you help your favorite indie creators! With our powers combined we’ll watch them grow from hitting their first 100 subscribers to 1000 in no time! Have any more advice or wanna give a shout out to your favorite creator? Post about them in the comments!

Credits:  Cover photo by Mat Mousallam of Alex Saint, DeAngelo Murillo, and Peachgirl Photography
Sailor Mars Punk: Deegan Marie, Courtex Studios, taken by Heartless Aquarius
Interview: Roxy Roo, Alex Saint