How to Support Your Friends Business Without Going Broke?
When I started blogging and creating content for social media I would receive messages from others asking "Do you want to become a model?" The pretty pictures weren't being translated as your everyday Instagram user. I take the time to plan out my shoots and to curate my captions to tell a story that can inspire other women. Many people don’t understand the blogging industry and that's completely fine. Every day I’m learning something new and trying to keep up with the industry trends. I’m here to share a few tips on how you can support your friend's business without going broke. A simple like and comment can take us, content creators, far. We love to hear feedback on the work we create especially if we want to turn this into a full-time business.
Help your friends network:
Networking and word of mouth are so important for small businesses! People like to receive feedback from others who personally know the brand and received an experience. Whenever I’m in a room full of people who are discussing beauty and natural hair I immediately pull up my best friend Krissy’s Instagram profile and show her work. Most times they will hit the follow button. For content creators, our website and social media profiles are considered to be our portfolio. My boyfriend likes to cracks jokes on me and says things like "you have Krissy info on speed dial." Yup, you know the vibes lol! Many people don’t realize I’m passionate about her brand as if it was mine. We are in the same industry of work but have different niches. If I receive a campaign that's beauty focus I’m quick to share it with Krissy. I want to make sure I can connect her with valuable people or help to put her in a position to make money.
Share their work on Social Media:
If you follow me on Instagram you can see I’m a fan of Krissy’s work. We are constantly receiving compliments from others on social media about our friendship and the way we support each other. Krissy is a beauty blogger for her brand and a writer for an online platform. Whenever she releases a new article I share her content with my Facebook page, retweet it on Twitter, and pin it to my Pinterest boards. I’m confident in the work she produces and her stories resonate with many other women who are trying to embrace their natural hair. I share her work on multiple platforms not because I’m annoying but because each platform has a different audience she can potentially reach. Celebrating your friend's work by hitting the share button could boost their business.
Help your friends brainstorm Ideas:
As creatives, it's not always easy to come up with new ideas. The writer's block is real and can be frustrating. Before I started writing this article I was struggling with how I should tailor the storyline. Every blog post I write the goal is to share pieces of my journey while providing insights that can be beneficial to you guys. At first, I wanted to talk about how I met my best friend when I moved to a new city but I realized I wrote similar articles that revealed pieces of how we met. I reached out to Krissy for ideas and she brainstormed different ways I can use the storyline of our friendship. I'm always open to receiving feedback from my friends because they may have a different perspective and approach.
Subscribe to their blog or business email list:
If you're not always on social media but you want to stay in the loop this is the perfect way to support. Subscribers receive first dibs on everything from product launches, giveaways, special offers, etc. This means a lot to content creators because this helps us to build a community outside of our social media platforms.
Comment on their blog post/ leave a review
For the people who don't understand what it takes to run a blog, this is so important. We love to hear feedback on the work we produce. If the content resonated with you and you were able to leave feeling like you learned something. We want to hear about it in the comments. This is very helpful for us when working with brands because it shows we have a community and people care about the content that we share. Also, this allows us to understand what content we should continue to create vs content that our audience may not care to see. Leaving comments on a friend blog post or website can help boost their traffic. The more traffic their website receives google will work its magic to boost the website search rank.
Krissy has a dope article dropping gems on the blogging industry and things she learned this year.