Pivot When The Occasion Calls For It

As a freelance designer I am taught to regard social media as the target marketing strategy. Post quality content, post regularly, post often. As many of you, I have been pushing forward to build an audience on Instagram and other platforms. It feels like, one is constantly fighting against the algorithm. Trying blindly what works, not knowing which of the parameters were the winning ones, that got the post to succeed or underperform.

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Though many entrepreneurs and creatives, who have made it on social media, claim they have made it after years of working hard at it, it seems less and less likely that present posts will get seen on platforms that are built around an ad revenue profit structure. Paid promotions, to get posts seen by a larger audience, seem to be becoming the trend. With the recent changes on Instagram, seemingly also pushing for paid promotions, the saying Don’t Build Your House On Someone Else’s Land has never rung more true.

This is where today’s lesson comes into play (which does not only apply to audience growth on social media). You may have been chugging along a path to arrive at a desired goal, but are finding the path harder to maneuver. It might be daunting to depart from the path, as it may feel as if you’re abandoning the hard work you’ve put into it. Perhaps you are convinced you needed to follow this chosen path in order to achieve your goal. But All Roads Lead to Rome. It’s OK to pivot, without losing track of your goal. The same outcome can be reached by other methods. You may even be more successful, by finding a different path.

The fork in the road for me was, realising that the platform I had built on Instagram, stood on someone else’s land. Not only was I stuck in the mud, struggling to move forward, but if Instagram went away tomorrow, so would my content, audience and all the effort I had invested into it. I needed to pivot! Pivoting doesn’t necessarily mean abandoning what you have built, but finding more efficient and rewarding avenues. After days of watching countless tutorials, wrestling with WordPress and pulling my hair out, I finally managed to design…

The New Blog

The blog will live on my website and become the primary platform for my content. Instagram will remain an avenue for sharing my work, but the blog will become the new home for sharing passion projects, thoughts about what I have learned from them and some behind the scenes of why I do the things I do. I’m hoping that it will be a space for learning, sharing and become an extension of my business. I am also looking at expanding my content to sharing resources, writing advice columns and think pieces.

The blog is not fully populated yet, I am playing catch-up with some content from earlier this year that I would like to include, together with fresh material but it’s here! Have a look by clicking the button below. You can leave comments and share it with others. I would much appreciate that.

Blog Announcement GIF 4x3 — _{Illustration by unDraw, Animation by Sonja Geracsek}

Don’t be scared to pivot! You might find that the work you have invested, has brought you to this fork in the road. You aren’t abandoning your path, you are merely changing direction to achieve your desired goal. Think of your path as a hiking trail, you can take as many diversions as you like and still arrive at your destination. May the weather ever be in your favour, brave traveller!

– Sonja

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Great explained tips that every motion designer should know. Thank you :)

Great teaching style; very clear and thorough. Some very high level best practice advice in here too. Looking forward to the other two lessons in this series and the other classes by Sonja.

Great tips which can shorten the path for beginners to become faster animators.

Learned loads of helpful tips and tricks to make my workflow much more efficient - thank you!

This teacher is one of the reasons to use Skillshare!

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Great contents and value in your channel ! ;) I have to recover the old streams on the motion side !

Love your stuff! I would love to see some short-form video content from you in the vein of tutorials or showcasing your workflow.

I love what you do.

Really enjoying these live streams!

Really cool to be learning new things watching you Sonja. Keep it up!

Thanks for sharing! It's so great to see other people's workflows, and that tip about the multiple passes to get the hand-drawn effect is really helpful!

Thanks for the Stream. Good work, as always. It is a lot of work just for the setup of the animation.

That was a nice process to watch! Thanks for sharing.

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