For a platform that loves video, Instagram is not an easy place to get a video posted!  If you have a video that is under 60 seconds, Instagram is a great place to get a little more mileage and reach out of that content.  There are just a few things to know, and I’ve broken them down into three easy steps. Step 1. Get the video on your phone. This is seriously the hardest part.  Apple, I love you, but some days I hate you.  Why does airdrop not consistently work?  When it works, it’s amazing.  When it does not work…you’ll find me, in my living room, rubbing my iPhone on my computer shouting “WHY CAN’T YOU SEE EACH OTHER?!? YOU’RE RIGHT HERE!!!”  So if airdrop [...]

  So many publishers are not including amazing videos on their websites because they just don't know how.  Video is easy to use, and can be a powerful addition to any website. We're going to take you step by step through the process with some screenshots and tips for how to add video on all of the major platforms. Use a Content Delivery Network Unless you have an in-house web developer who is ready and willing to tackle hosting it on your own servers, use a content delivery network.  You're already familiar with at least one: YouTube.  Your video, and all of its data, lives there.  It doesn't eat up your bandwidth or bog down your site.  The video creator you're working with probably already uses one [...]

For our May Tuesday's Together meeting, we gathered at the 304 Collective studio to talk pricing and negotiation.  You can download the full guide from the Rising Tide Society.  We also spent some time crafting detail boards for flat lays out of both plaster and linen! Pricing for Profitability Often when creatives are just starting out, pricing is an arbitrary number pulled out of thin air or based on what either a national average is, or the pricing of similar products and services already being provided by others in the area.  A better way to establish what your pricing needs to be is to do calculate your cost of doing business and cost of project creation. Cost of Doing Business for Creative Entrepreneurs To [...]

As time marches on, video is only becoming more important in our digital world.  If you're an online publisher, video is something you NEED to include on your site.  You've probably had contributors submit a video in the past, but left that out of your post simply because you aren't sure exactly what to do with it. We want video to be a thing that everyone knows how to use, which will allow the awesome video creators of the world have their projects featured alongside those of our writer and photographer friends.  It will also use assets that already exist to enhance more website than just our own. Why Publishers Should Include Video The best reason to add video to your submissions and to include it on [...]

It might sound cliche, but it's ever so true: "Be yourself.  Everyone else is already taken." Sometimes this adage is easier said than done, though.  To be yourself, you have to figure out who you really are.  If we're being honest, most of us spend our whole lives figuring it out, then realizing we didn't have it all figured out, then searching again. That process is what I want to talk about today, on how to guard your own creative process while searching and figuring things out.  Whether you're planning an event,working on your website, or running your own business, how can you be sure that the story you're writing for yourself is an original; not a diminished revision from someone else? Be choosy about your [...]