What i learnt from doing “march meet the maker”
For those who haven’t heard about #MarchMeetTheMaker it is a 31 day Instagram Challenge, set by Joanne Hawker (and solely Joanne!) that runs throughout March every year. But it's more than just a challenge, it's a creative community that comes together to show people what they can do. It's about building each other up, making new connections, telling your small business story, growing your confidence (and Instagram following) and most importantly, it's about putting yourself out there. (taken directly from Joanne Hawker’s website).
The challenge was created in 2016 by Joanne herself. At the time, she was in bit of a creative rut with Instagram and couldn't find a way to pull herself out of it. Feeling determined, she went in search of challenge aimed at small creative businesses but couldn't find one. Feeling inspired, she went ahead and created a 31 day challenge which aims to show the different aspects of her business and asked her creative, small business friends to take part.
For the past 3 years I’ve started the challenge but never finished it. I usually only got to day nine at the most then dipped in and out. Life, work or my mind took over. A friend reminded me about the challenge again this year, and I thought that for once I will start it and finish it as nothing annoys me more knowing that I haven’t finished something and haven’t moved on from it.
Starting challenges is easy, it’s the consistency to carry on that is the hard part, again this year I began to wane at day nine, mainly with questioning myself. I notice that posting everyday on Instagram I don’t have as many likes compared to if I post every other day. And I know it’s not all about likes but you can question yourself whether the stuff you are posting if relevant to people or if people unfollow you or you get a less lot likes.
I have tried with Instagram before to roughly plan what I am going to post, I know what receives the most likes, comments, follows and interaction so always try to at least post one of those posts within nine squares, I also try and get photos ready so I’m not having to set up photos every time. This works for a little bit however what can happen is that I have photos but then want to post something else more relevant so left with pictures that don’t get used.
I realised that it was what I just told myself and it wasn’t a true reflection on what I was posting. You always think you hold a greater importance than you have, to what you post. Far better to have fewer followers that interact than loads of followers than remain silent. Another thing I noticed is that I didn’t really like being on social media so often so would scroll through when I was on there rather than look at people posts and be what it’s for - social. I observed more rather than get involved.
What did I want from Instagram (or any social media) to be informative about lingerie design, not be too serious and to be aesthetically pleasing. Ans so one thing I did learn how to do was where you should a picture and write a different caption., I had struggled in the past and only wrote about whats in the [picture, but having to post everyday I found that pushed myself to write about what was relevant regardless what the picture was. Also posting everyday I didn’t question to have the perfect picture as I had to just get it done, it did push myself out of my comfort zone and just post.
So did I manage to post everyday; yes, bar one. The youngest caught chicken pox towards the end of the challenge and wouldn’t settle for the whole day and I didn’t pick up my phone that day to do any work. I also questioned whether I should stop when we went on lockdown as it felt a bit frivolous posting about sewing when there was people out there getting ill. But what I have discovered more than ever since the lockdown is that people are questioning what they want to do with their lives and where they want to work and if I can help in any way with that then it makes it all worthwhile.
So here were the results:
Most likes: Bode sat on my knee whilst I am sewing #handsatwork
Most follows & profiles visits: Drawing of a bra using the template of e-book How to sketch a bra and brief (e-book available click here) #skill
Most saved: Rough sketch of grading #usp
Most reach & comments: Stories about disasters at work (if you’re in need of a laugh head here) #proudof
Most website clicks: Blog about the Betsy pattern (which is still free click here) #marketing