Last week I wrote about the importance of hashtags, so this week I thought I’d write a post about following and unfollowing. As touched on in the previous post, following the hashtags that speak to you and feed your creative inspiration in an integral part of developing your own creative voice but also finding your tribe.

And it is this tribe, the contributors to the hashtags that inspire you, where you will find the accounts that you truly want to follow. Try and view the people you choose to follow as forming part of your mood board or scrapbook for your visual narrative, your visual story.

It is only natural, that as we hone and develop our creative skills, that what inspires us evolves as well… and have fellow online creative who can give us advice along the way.

 

Your inspiration grows and evolves with you

Our inspiration is not a fixed or stagnant entity. So we can’t expect to be continually inspired by the same accounts, as our creative story develops.

There will always be those who make up the core of your creative circle. These are the people that give you great support and feedback and are important to keep following.

But there are accounts you follow that perhaps simply don’t do anything for your inspiration anymore and that’s when you let them go. It’s important to give keep your list of accounts followed fresh and relative to what currently inspires you and fellow creatives you can turn to for advice and have as your soundboard.

 

The pull of following the Big Wigs on Instagram

Personally, I’ve found that the accounts that I choose to unfollow are usually the ones that other people following them. I followed them because I thought I should follow them too.

They are quite often large accounts (1m followers or thereabouts) and therefore your engagement with them is rather passive. More often than not is a one-way relationship and you are just another number in their profile stats.

That said, I do believe there is an argument for having a couple of accounts that you aspire to. The key is to make sure, that they are providing you with some sort of growth. Whether they are giving you advice on cooking,  painting,  photography, on whatever it is that makes your heart sing.

 

 

Make time for a regular refresh of your ‘following’

To be honest, you’ll notice it anyway when you start to get a little bored of what is in your news feed and perhaps even feel like you haven’t got those couple of people (in the same boat as you) who you can turn to for a little advice. Even so, it is really healthy every 4-6 weeks to have a look through your list of accounts you follow and ask yourself the following questions.

• Are these people still contributing to my tribe?
• If not, do their posts offer me inspiration or advice?
• Is this person someone I could reach out to for advice?

The questions are not complicated, and if you ask yourselves these questions as you go through your following list, you can reform who you follow by finding accounts that inspires you, give you advice and help, and feeds your creativity even more.

Let me know how you keep your ‘following’ fresh and relevant to your creativity!