Picture the scene. There I am, living my best life, and my phone buzzes with a social media notification. Someone has sent me a direct message! However, I’m sad to admit that my initial reaction to seeing this is usually a groan.
Why? It’s not because I don’t like hearing from people. Rather, the opposite is true. I love to hear from people and find out how they are practicing design wherever they are in the world, and to help them if I can.
I groan because it seems to be an unfortunate epidemic on Instagram and other social media that many of the messages I receive are quite frankly, a complete waste of everyone’s time.
I imagine if this is happening to me, it’s probably happening to other people. I’m picturing a sea of people who really want to ask design questions and a bunch of designers who would love to help, but wires getting crossed thanks to shoddy messaging structure! Argh!
So, to help us all out, I’m going to talk about the types of messages that won’t get you a response and how to instead optimise your approach for a better chance of hearing back!