Getting people to share your work

I was just talking with somebody in a thread who was complaining about how nobody wants to help promote their stuff, even though they promote other people.

Meanwhile, they were defensive to everybody in the thread, and their grammar was horrible. Like so bad that you could barely understand what they were saying.

So, I’m going to give you a secret to getting people you promote you, because people ALWAYS want to promote other cool stuff. They want to look cool to their own audience and frankly there just isn’t enough cool stuff that people do on their own to be able to feed an audience enough.

So, there’s ALWAYS a chance for collaboration, networking, or promotion…

…but you have to bring your A-game to every interaction, and then show up when its time to deliver.

You have to be presentable. Your work has to be crisp, clean, and unique. You have to be saying something interesting, or working hard, or making something awesome happen…

…because everything somebody presents to their audience is a reflection of them. Every post, every retweet, everything they put in their newsletter…is something that reflects on them.

It’s them saying “I think this is cool and so you should trust me and take a look”.

The more engaged the audience, the more they trust that person, and the more that trust means. When people can send hundreds of customers to somebody’s page it’s because that person has worked incredibly hard to share only the best stuff with their audience; stuff they know that audience will love.

The more powerful the bond, the more guarded somebody is of their audience.

When you’re young you never think about that, but people with an audience, even a small audience, are very protective of what they share, because they’ve been burned, and because they worked hard to build a good reputation with their audience.

And they don’t want you coming along and mucking it up, acting like a clown, making them look back, and turning people off from them.

That being said, almost everybody I know with an audience is dying to find cool things and share it with their fans, because it makes them seem cool and build cred with their fans.

But you gotta think about why somebody would share your work.

What’s in it for them? What makes your work noteworthy? How can you make it a no-brainer for them?

Yes, sharing their work is a good start, and it builds trust, but you sharing their stuff does nothing if your work doesn’t fit their audience’s interests, and it does nothing if your work isn’t up to snuff.

I have hundreds of people who I’ve known for years and consider friends that I won’t share their work, either because they are unreliable, unprofessional, or their work simply isn’t good enough.

If people aren’t sharing your work as much as you want, then, unfortunately, you have a you problem.

This goes for your fans sharing your work too, and for the press as well. People WANT to share your work. They desperately want to look like they are in the know of what’s hip and cool, but you have to give them a reason to believe you are hip and cool.

It’s not fair, but the world isn’t fair.

And it doesn’t get easier. Every level you have to think of people at the level about you.

I’m still trying to make sure when I go to somebody asking for a share, or to collaborate with them, that there is something in it for them, even if it’s just that they look cool by sharing a cool project, or recommending a cool creator.

That’s enough a lot of the time, but you’ve gotta be the kind of person who is making cool stuff, and who presents themselves in a way that reflects well on the people who work with you.

Otherwise, people will be standoffish at best and completely avoid you at worst.