We recently connected with Robin Higgins and have shared our conversation below.

Robin, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

I’m obsessed with getting the “social” back into social media.

Creating content is often lonely and discouraging! I lead small group classes and accountability groups so you can feel good as you’re creating content.

In an industry without significant history or regulation, much of how we learn about social media is scattered and unorganized. When companies do hire experts, they’re often totally in the dark about what works on social and how their brand fits in.

If you like learning, if you like art classes, if you like solid frameworks, you’re going to love my classes and accountability groups.

I am all about real results, my techniques are based in real science from my time in the chemistry lab.

Traditional e-courses do not have a real community and across the industry have only a 9% completion rate. I meet weekly with my groups and my courses have a 91% completion rate.

Robin, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I help artists and business owners finally tackle social media. My small group classes and accountability groups help people gain the skills they need.

I’ve been in the online content space for over a decade, growing both business and personal art accounts.

Phase one of my internet career was getting hired by ehow to make chemistry tutorial videos. After I saw how many views they got, I started my own chemistry YouTube channel, grew that to over 20,000 subscribers and learned that tutoring chemistry and becoming an influencer in that space just wasn’t my passion.

That’s turned out to be a really important social lesson, and something I prioritize in class. If making content feels like pulling teeth, you’ll always want to stop. I want to help you figure out what content helps you achieve your goals, but also feels good to make and works within your existing schedule.

Phase two of my online career was taking all those lessons and bringing them to the next level.

I got hired at Abound, an online wholesale marketplace that stocks independent stores. I was their head of content, and during that time I met hundreds of handmade sellers and learned all about their businesses and social media struggles.

Creatively during this time, I felt like ok, I have really learned how to perform and edit videos, and I wanted to go after some big views.

I started a creative TikTok, which I grew to over 13,000 followers and have gotten over 10 million views on my videos.

And this was really where I realized I had a secret sauce. I wasn’t a huge influencer, I wasn’t a model or super famous, and I didn’t have an email database of thousands of people, but I was still consistently going viral.

I’m also a huge nerd, and I was tracking all my progress on a spreadsheet. Just because I was curious, what makes something take off, and what tanks a video, ensuring it won’t succeed?

And I started to notice… trends. I used that chemistry knowledge to follow the scientific method and I noticed more and more views coming in.

This was extremely validating, because finally my pure art, just my thoughts, started to get the views and attention I always thought they should have.

And all of this, all my experience and ups and downs and years of struggling to get my art seen led me to this aha moment. I realized the thing I was really passionate about, the thing I wanted to dive into and spend my life working on, was empowering other people like me.

People who have created something special, and magical, and the only thing stopping them from getting to their goals is knowing how to market it.

Because here’s a little observation. People, by in large, don’t like marketing. Spiritually, it often feels like the exact opposite of what we value, and the last thing we want to be doing.

It is so, so so common to be repelled by marketing, to feel like it’s cheap and gross that we actually get to the point of self sabotaging the very thing we care the most about.

When I fell into marketing and began to do it for other people, I started seeing their results, and I realized it’s actually pretty powerful to believe in yourself enough to want to market yourself.

So that’s why I’m here. Because I care so deeply about giving your art or your business a fair shot. Because I know how much you care and how hard you work, and how good you probably are, because I’ve done that too.

I realized that most people don’t need to pay a bunch of money to an influencer, or hire a team to make one great video. They need to gain the crucial skills of filming, editing, and habit formation that allow you to succeed on social long term.

I run two types of classes, one for artists and one for business owners.

We meet for 8 weeks, once a week via Zoom, and in addition to our classes there is a full video portal. The portal has step by step instructions so that you’ll never be confused or alone with you’re making content.

If you are looking to finally tackle social media, please reach out! I’d love to connect you with a group of like minded people and help you start making the content you know will transform your art or business.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Building a social media presence is both super complicated and very simple.

My most common advice is always going to be: get started.

Even if your posts seem random or unoptimized, you’ll learn so much just by putting posts out there and seeing what happens.

If you’ve already done that, then it’s time to start getting more specific. There are several different common roadblocks people hit after getting started, and that’s when it’s time to start carefully listening to your feelings.

For myself, once I figured out how to go viral consistently, my emotional journey really began. I had to figure out what I wanted to do on social media. Creating posts takes time and effort, and turning yourself into a public persona takes intention if you want to be authentic.

Social media also favors people who can be a jack of all trades. View social media like an art class. You have the option of getting into: filming, editing, acting, makeup, etc. Lean into your strengths, and work on making your weaknesses at least passable.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I will never abandon being an artist. I can’t, it’s too deep in my bones, it’s too important to my life and how I interact with the world.

As anyone who relates to the above knows, committing to art can be really tricky to navigate while also earning enough money to live and have a personal life.

The resilience that I’ve shown is the same as other dedicated artists. No matter how old I get or what stage of life I’m in, I’m always prioritizing art.

For years I always had the part of me that earned money, and the other part of me that was an artist.

With this business, I love that now I get to connect to other people like me. I am seriously such a fan of all my students and I love that I can help other amazing artists keep going and creating.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://theideagalaxy.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theideagalaxy
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/robinthiggins
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robintaylorhiggins/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@theideagalaxy
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@theideagalaxy