Applying Strategy to Passion.

When I started the Flea Market Love Letter project in 2017 what was the first mistake I made? Posting pictures of envelopes. I kid you not, I thought people would be interested in the envelopes. I quickly learned that my three followers (my mom and two friends I'd sent the Instagram link directly too) were liking the envelopes not because they wanted to but because they had to.

When I started attending Trinity College Dublin in 2018 for my MSc in Marketing I had volunteered for several organizations as Social Media coordinator. I thought I knew what I was talking about. I was mistaken: I knew I wanted to know what I was talking about but I didn't yet.

As the course carried on, I started applying the rules I was learning that Nike and Apple used on my little page where I posted envelope pictures. The first thing to go? The envelopes.

The reality is I turned my lectures and group work inward as the job market seemed increasingly daunting. I practiced on Flea Market Love Letters and where once I would have been embarrassed to admit I was applying strategy to my passion, now I am excited to share how the Three C's: Curation, Community and Consistency helped me grow an account, build a website and produce a monthly newsletter -- all genuinely, around envelopes.

1. Curation

Knowing what your audience wants is going to keep eyes on your page. I like the "Year in Review" posts available to us on Instagram. It gives me an idea of what posts performed well over the year and spoiler alert: they are not always the ones I have my heart behind. What my readers in 2019 engaged with most were: the launch of the website, the introduction of more "behind the scenes" content and more empathetic, heartfelt storytelling involving the letters rather than cold, hard facts.

I incorporated these notes into my style and tone for 2020. The project is only so strong as the community that chooses to engage with it, so making sure that it stays authentic to my vision and the interests of those readers means keeping in touch with them. My project is not a massive brand. It's me with a cellphone, laptop and incredible collection to share. My greatest resource? My readers.

2. Community

Ultimately, my passion project is my weekend-job. So it's my responsibility to direct where the project goes. And early on I realized I enjoyed the community aspect of building the project more than any personal recognition. It wasn't until 2019 where I even revealed my identity, or that it was a single person running the account, and that was in conjunction with my first podcast appearance for the project. Every decision should be measured for how your audience would react, what they deserve and how you can best execute that. At some point Flea Market Love Letters isn't about my passion for vintage love letters any more, and that's alright. It's become a people's project. But the people liked to see the face behind the posts.

Through my bi-weekly interview series "Finders Keepers" I reach out to fellow collectors and share their responses to five questions on their project. This mix of featured lesser and better known accounts means that my followers are finding new-to-them-content while the accounts I feature are sharing my post with their network. This exchange of likeminded content helps to build the community.

For some time in 2019 I ran a once monthly "Follow Friday" series. I asked my followers to nominate ten accounts to feature at the end of the month. I posted about this on my grid and shared the ten accounts in my stories at the end of the month. This was a great community building tool but when overused it became a bit "spammy". I decided to pause the series and recently have been feeling the waters about restarting it. Looks like it could be on the cards for 2021.

3. Consistency

When Flea Market Love Letters started as a dream on Tumblr in 2017 I posted every Tuesday and Thursday. Now I post every day. Why? Because it keeps the Instagram algorithm happy. This means my posts are consistently in front of the eyes that engage with them. While I learned this during my course it really didn't sit well with me how manipulative that felt. But after implementing the change to more consistent sharing slowly and deliberately, I did see an uptick in engagement and community conversation. So while I may be averaging the same number of interactions I am seeing more and more conversations taking place in the comments of those posts which means the tactics are working. Community over everything.

So that's how Curation, Community and Consistency have helped me grow the Flea Market Love Letters project and community. I am delighted to say that I don't know where this project will go. Passion projects are driven by the energy and spirit behind them. I enjoy spending my Sundays talking to fellow collectors, photographing vintage letters and writing blogs about all things envelopes.