Heroes of Cosplay Sanctuary

Let's talk about Organic versus Paid traffic, Cosplay Fam - Organic – free and under-priced attention – Facebook, Instagram, Vero , YouTube, and any other space you do not own that you post to and it grabs attention and gives people an option to continue to engage with you and build a following – you gain this through free means Google can bring you organic traffic – to your website and other...

We've been talking Motivation and Encouragement all week.  We're wrapping up with a thought on what may be affecting you right now. It’s ok if it isn’t ok all the time.                 Bad days happen.  Bad things happen. What's bad for one person may not be for another - this is internal - this is personal. You’re going to have a bad day or have had one.  But is it really the whole...

If you set your mind to something, you can do it.  Never think you can. Never start at a place of telling yourself, this is too hard, too detailed, has too many steps, people will laugh, people won’t get it, no one will like it, it’ll turn out bad Turn that off for a minute – just think about the end result. Your Cosplay is complete – you’re at the Con, it’s fun – and it took a lot of work, but yo...

We compare ourselves by nature.  Cosplay is a space where we can look at what others do and think that we're not doing enough or we don't have enough followers, or we want more attention like someone else has.  Whatever the case, there are ways to be kind to yourself and avoid these comparisons. What to try instead: Cheer others on and fit into one or more of 4 spaces – Coach, Mentor, Fr...

Morning routines can help, but they aren’t the only thing.  Do what works best for you - for me, I have a straight-forward morning routine for every day [weekends too]. What do I do in the morning? I spend time in three areas for about 20 minutes each Calm [ meditation ] open space where I wait on thoughts and emotions Apps that are useful for guided meditation https://www.headspace.com/ https://w...

Know Your Worth.  You have value, you are worthy!  Cosplay is a space for everyone, not meant to be a judgmental space  Judging yourself harshly is common in Cosplay.             It gets very competitive, can be political  Your value extends beyond Cosplay – you have a life outside of it, you have many talents, abilities and you contribute in many ways to the world around you. Cosplay should reinf...

When did Instagram and Social Media start performing better for me?   When I stopped trying to “game” the algorithm. Social media metrics become more and more like a credit score on every update. It’s complicated, even if you do it for a living (which I do). Let's talk about  What's important to look at and why Engagement and rich content Stories and posts (specifically Instagram) - Less...

How do you avoid the scroll hole, and do you want to? Scrolling = liking usually or quick clicks through stories to try and show up for different people – it’s a lot to pay attention to, and often doesn't add a lot of value to your day. There are a few easy things you can do to avoid the scroll trap that so many of us find ourselves caught up in. Turn on notifications for your must-see conten...

You want high engagement keywords in a ‘range’ that makes sense for your feed Using the same keywords often or over and over again flags your account Have keywords in your Bio – the most relevant to what you post You can stuff keywords into each Instagram post, but be careful to mix them up and use different hashtags often that are still relevant Finding new hashtags can be hard There’s also a hac...

Buying followers. Easy to do.  Many sites where you can pay to gain followers.  Everyone’s talking about the pitfalls.  Why do we do it? Because Instagram is industry and very few venues in the cosplay world pay attention to organic growth.  They see your follower count, they look that the pictures, and that’s it.  They process based on numbers. In that sense, it works, but long term: Engagement i...

Social media has us. And really – Instagram has us. It could make us better, bring us together, and connect us with a community of people that we would have never otherwise met. There are a lot of downfalls for Cosplayers on Instagra:                 Overwhelm                 Bullying and Drama                 The Expectations                 Feeding the Beast                             Getting s...

The best methods are still manual. You don’t have to buy ads to generate traffic – use YouTube as the sales funnel or to bring more attention to you. Make sure you’re clear on what you want people to do – even if you do not talk about it in your video – link to it! Manual effort to upload and write descriptions for videos, find other videos and leave genuine comments, and cross promote on other pl...

YouTube is much like fitness - consistent training and nutrition pay off, while being sporadic or doing to much can leave you wondering what went wrong. Of course, this is just an analogy. Whatever you do in the YouTube space – consistency is the best way to go – once a month, once a week, or more – consistency keeps people coming back for more. Scheduling is easy, and I recommend batching content...

Today we talk about the YouTube algorithm for about 3 minutes.  Why not very long?  Because my biggest tip is to try to not “game” the algorithm YouTube is part of Google, which you may know – they have a very advanced search engine that is used for YouTube It will always find the viewer for your content.  No matter what. If you have everything in place, YouTube will always bring your video to the...

What’s my story – I have about 60 subscribers on my channel, so how can I know anything about YouTube? I’ve worked on Channels before – building one to 125,000 followers while working with a fitness and lifestyle channel out of South Korea and I didn’t know then anywhere near what I do now, and I still have the #1 video idea on that channel – one 5 minute video that brought in 4 million views And...

YouTube is great for How – To content. Really Really.  If you're getting started, 0 - 100 the How-To space will grow your channel. Cosplay is the ultimate space for how-to, and there’s a ton of space on YouTube for great cosplay tutorials.  If you know any part of building inside of cosplay, you can create short videos on building anything from foam armor to sewing costumes. You need 1000 sub...

Let's tie together everything we've been talking about this week and focus in on the one thing that everything eventually will point to (which is you and your platform - whatever you have chosen it to be) o   What’s your main idea? What the one thing you want people to know about you or what you do? Use the platform closest to that and then point everything to that.  o   I recommend maki...

Are all of your eggs in the Patreon basket? We talked about websites, and email lists, and spaces to create funnels that point to your main idea.  What we didn't talk about is diversification. The more places you are and the more ways you can repackage your content, the better - from video to audio to photography, showing up is step one.  There are many ways to do this, and there are many way...

What if you don’t want maintenance? Isn't a website a lot of work? Isn't making money inside of Cosplay also a lot of work, and maybe we're not here for that - maybe we just want to have fun, or enjoy a hobby - does it have to be about money? No.  It's does not. But either way, do you want all the maintenance just to put your message and your truth out there? Social Media is “m...

Have you built an opt-in and do you have a way to capture emails?  This may be a little advanced, but think about emailing as a form or marketing to your fans and followers. You can still reach a lot of people through email.  I know people who do this with Pateron and it WORKS every single time. I will link to my favorite Patron here: https://www.patreon.com/liswonder/posts Email lists are still i...

Yes, a full week about eCommerce.  We'll talk about what it is, what it means, and then my tips on where to start and the most important parts of including eCommerce in your mix as a Cosplayer. Yes, Patreon and Ko-fi count as eCommerce.  People donate and you provide them options for those donations or continue to produce content in other spaces as a result. Today we're talking about you...

There are thoughts on what a Podcast needs to be. As much as I enjoy a studio-produced show - there are gems out there that I could care less about production quality because the quality of the show itself and the content provided is beyond golden. Coin and Concede is a great example: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC05tIrY9m9ujXCqIsIZSLww The Angry Geeks are among my favorites out there: https:/...

Making Podcasts are easy, and so in being a guest on a Podcast.  A 20-minute cast with a couple of pitches, intro, outro, and a few questions with conversation is almost done for you. If you are a guest on a show : Make sure the show is a good fit for you and it helps to have something to talk about – your work and thoughts on a subject being the biggest reason for being on a show. Have the docume...

Podcasting will give you rich content for your followers, and audience. They're also easier and require a lower commitment to creating over video. Yes, video is still where it is today - TikTok is proving that every second. But - if you want to get started and you have a truth to speak, and Cosplay is your thing - as visual as it is, there's still A LOT to talk about inside of Cosplay. ...

Day 2 of Podcast Tips, and I'm telling you a little about distribution.  Not only do Podcasts increase your footprint online, they can serve as your blog and give you rich content to point to inside of your other platforms, including social media and your website. Where can you go with a Podcast, that you can't with social?  All over - I'll link to many places where this Podcast is...