Becoming an Influencer
The first 2 months of 2022 have certainly FLOWN by and I am proud to say my hard work on goals to grow my social media presence has really paid off!
I’ve been more consistent than ever before with content creation, and I’ve learned a lot in the process:
-Creating high quality, daily dance videos requires a tremendous amount of mental power, creativity, and dedication, more than I even expected. It’s hard work! So I have to be thoughtful about programming down time into my schedule, along with time for me to “seek inspiration” (usually for me this means getting into nature, doing experimentation in the studio to different music styles, or collabing with another creative).
-Pushing my creative boundaries by incorporating new dance styles and choreographies into my videos has helped me grow as a dancer more than anything else. Although I’m not as skilled at these new moves as I am with shuffling/shaping (which makes me self-conscious), I still push myself to post them because I am in it for the long-term investment of diversifying my style and I know this is the way to do it.
-Consistency breeds momentum. The more I am creating/posting: the more ideas I get, the more comfortable I feel in my dance flow, the more people see that I am creating and reach out to collab, etc. Momentum MATTERS when it comes to building something from the ground up - this is why I continue to push myself daily to be consistent.
-As long as I am creating content that I feel good about, that I trust the quality of, and that I know is helpful to others, I find that negative comments don’t bother me at all. I’m secure in myself and my mission so even though I’ve gotten a ton of weird and crazy messages from people online, it’s been pretty easy to brush off.
My ethos around content creation has blossomed out of asking myself these 2 questions:
Before creating a post:
1. How can I be of service to my community of followers? What can I post that will help them?
Before posting the post:
2. Will this post be a positive addition to the world, or a negative one? Am I being the change that I want to see?
To be honest, it would be easy for me to dress super sexy in each post, film in beautiful locations, hop on every “trend” and grow a following much faster than I am now based off of me trying to appear as cool as possible. That just doesn’t resonate with me though. To me, that feels like appealing to the lowest common denominator of being a human:
Insecurity
Sex appeal
Fear of missing out
Escapism
Instead, with my online presence, I am striving to appeal to the highest common denominators of what humans all share:
Our need to feel loved and to love others
Thinking deeply and critically
Developing our own character and style/sense of self
Nourishing our creativity - something we all have, even if you don’t consider yourself an “artist”
Inspiring and influencing others to create positive change in each other and in the world
My following on Instagram grew from 1900 to 11.5k in the last 5 weeks, and as it continues to grow, I will continue to push myself to show up and honor the people who are choosing to offer me their time and attention online. I will continue to strive to inspire, be of service, and help others feel acknowledged and cared about.
Thanks for reading my thoughts, and I hope my approach to social media can inspire you to be intentional with what you choose to post as well. I think as we all strive to become more mindful with what we are posting, we can make social media a healthier place for everyone.
To finish this out, here is a video of my favorite collaboration in February with my talented friend/videographer Andrew Tomkinson. We wanted to create a dark, cyberpunk vibe with a techno song and colored lighting. After just an hour of setup and shooting, I’m really happy with what we came up with! Please enjoy our art :)