Publishing consistently does something magical.
It builds Creative Confidence.
Building Creative Confidence is essential for anyone publishing their work online.
It turns what was once a box of disconnected ideas, into a continually expanding interconnected kaleidoscope of mix & match possibilities for idea generation... eventually meshing into your latest piece of authentic, creative work.
It turns one's dread to publish into a comfort to publish. The ability to create consistently makes one get more confident in trying something radical. Publishing consistently creates insights. It creates this feeling of momentum.
A feeling of momentum that cannot be harmed. The momentum that creates a nostalgic outlook of old tossed-away ideas… which then generates a feeling of why can't we do something with this idea now?
Once you develop the creative confidence, and are posting your creative work on various creator platforms… how to best link to your relevant work on other platforms?
Link in Bio
Once you have creative confidence, and recognize that you cannot continually share all the relevant links to your work, how do you best share?
A frustrating part about social media, is that it lacks a canvas-like feel to it, in that when we visit an individuals profile... we are regimented to just about the same experience within each person's profile.
This led me to a frustration with the ONE location to place a URL/relevant links, that seems to be standard for most mainstream social media sites.
How to differentiate our profiles from others?
By sharing interesting links. Especially as far as it relates to your creative work.
For example, on Instagram, here is a screenshot of what one’s bio looks like, and the area in which we have to share interesting links to our work.
As just about anyone who is sharing and creating work online recognizes, this is just not feasible. We need room for more than one link!
Which led me to a discovery of Linktree. Shoutout to Abigail Reattoir for nudging me in this direction.
Linktree is a simple product. It is essentially a landing page for you to share your most relevant/recent links to your creative work online. Using Linktree as the single link in your profile can become as many links as you want after one click.
Links for what?
Links for your creative work, my friend!
I'll use myself as an example:
As of now, I have a link to my music. Which is labeled: Creative Beatmaking & Mixing.
A link to this newsletter. Which is labeled: The Freelance Graduate Student.
A link to my Instagram account. Which is labeled: Instagram.
A link to my Personal Website. Which is labeled: Personal Website.
A link to my Twitter account. Which is labeled: Twitter.
*See below or click here to check out the simple, yet free page I set up with all of my various links via Linktree.
When to update your links?
Being that I literally just set this up yesterday, for preliminary measures.. I recognize that I will probably be switching these links a lot.
First use-case: when I release my first song "Let Me Go" on ALL streaming platforms on March 26th (Just one day away).
How will I link this song? Including the platform links to "Let Me Go" that I think will be relevant for my "audience"? As far as my peers go, I think including the Spotify, SoundCloud and Apple Music link would be a good first step.
It is almost as if Linktree had the functionality from an Administrator perspective to allow me to then branch off the initial category of Creative Beatmaking & Mixing by creating, further links for my music. When one publishes consistently, there is probably an abundance of links that you could share. Perhaps less is more in this case! Because as one publishes consistently, especially in differnet mediums there are probably an abundance of links that you’d like to share.
Second use-case: when I will need to update my links for The Freelance Graduate Student. Updating the link by my weekly cadence? Every Thursday @10AM EST for a new piece of writing?
Should I always leave this link to take you directly to my homepage, or should it place you directly to my latest piece of writing?
Is it better to share links to keep people up-to-date with your latest writing, or is it more credible to take them to your body of work?
Creative Confidence Leads to Interesting Questions
Creative confidence leads to more room for exploration of ideas. The more confident you get in your exploration, the more interesting questions it will lead you to. Therefore, the more tools and tricks you will discover along the way to use at your disposal.
Frankly, a lot of freelance graduate work consists of a whole lot of detective work. Consider the latest platforms/software that enables your creative abilities to flourish and the execution of these tools to be your most important skill.
Honing in on this detective work, as well as leveling up your ability to express yourself in unique ways as a creator is what will bring just about anyone to the next level. I think starting more of an open dialogue on the tools we use, and how it levels us up in our creative work… is a critical conversation for anyone working digitally to have.
Here is my promise to try my best to discuss the latest & greatest tools I find in my online explorations. Because after all, we are pursuing to treat the internet as a superpower for learning. Given, we use the internet, and not let it use us.
Cheers to Lifelong Learning,
Adam Bartley
ENDNOTE
A reminder, if you're enjoying The Freelance Graduate Student, I would really love it if you shared it with a friend or two. You can send them here to subscribe. I try my very best to put out my best ideas each week, and I hope you have as much fun reading them as I do creating them.
If you find anything relevant to the previous writing I have put out, or just additional links you would like to share, please send them over.