The TCA Report

Just about six weeks ago, James and I set up a site for the creative types we know to gather, exchange ideas, share tips and promotional strategies, network and offer general support for each other. We called that endeavor The Creative Alliance.

In the last six weeks, some pretty exciting and amazing things have gone down over at TCA. We just welcomed our 99th member yesterday, and though the first week was chock full of new members, it’s tapered down a wee bit, but I think that’s a good thing. It gives the active members time to get to know each other better, so as a group we can reach out to new members and welcome them.

Joining new groups is overwhelming. I have personally avoided forums for the last six years because I’ve had some bad personal experiences on the Internet with forums in general, but there’s something about the atmosphere of TCA that feels different to me.

One of the things I love most about it is the people who have become active on a regular basis are really genuine. They want to work together, help each other out, get involved with one another and push each other to the absolute best we can all be. That is amazing and wonderful, and it makes me look forward to the site every single day.

We’ve accomplished a lot as a group over the last six weeks, and here are some of the awesome things we’ve achieved.

Our first group chat was central to helping drive traffic to your website. We all know that the more traffic you get on your personal site, whether it be a blog or a full website, the wider audience you reach overall. If you are putting content out there for the world to see, having decent, regular traffic helps get the word out about what you’ve got going on. In our effort, we exchanged strategies, and were fortunate enough to learn tips from a few experienced people. Acadia, for instance, shared his knowledge on how and why to use Alexa. Many believe Alexa has nothing to do with your overall site traffic, but here’s the thing…

We set up a comment exchange on TCA. Everyone who participates logs their daily/weekly blog in the forum, and visits the blogs/sites of everyone else participating. Then, they leave a comment and the site owner reciprocates by leaving a comment on the commentors last post/blog. The Alexa ranking for everyone who has been tracking has risen dramatically and so has their traffic. Combining all our knowledge and optimizing a strategy that would benefit everyone worked. Ask anyone who’s been participating, and they will tell you their traffic has increased.

On a more social level, this little experiment has also helped us all get to know each other better, which to me, is more important than site traffic, though Acadia would probably punch me in the teeth for saying that.

Our second group chat focused on promoting work, which led to some really innovative ideas, including guest blogging on each others sites and the Dark Journeys Blog Tour. I could never have done the blog tour without the support and willingness of the members of the TCA, and it has been amazing, as well as fun. Some of the others, like Patrick and Nicole, have been guest blogging with one another, and not only are they having a lot of fun doing it, they are also reaching beyond their original audience, which is awesome. James also recently set up an opportunity for guest bloggers in his cache of weekly posts, asking for people to submit weird tales for his Wednesday Wildcard.

The thing we learned through our group chats is that we are an incredibly social group. Despite our intense focus on the task at hand, we have so much fun talking to each other, we decided we needed a weekly bullshit chat just to hang out together. So every Wednesday night from 8 to 10 P.M. ET, we gather in the chatroom for the Toenail Thunderdome, Toonie Wild and of course, Milkbag Mania. Sounds bizarre… well it is. But it’s so much fun!

In light of all these group chats, we’ve also come to the conclusion that as a group, we have a lot to offer in the way of wisdom on account of our diversity as a group. This inspired us to start working on a monthly TCA podcast with multiple members contributing and working together. While everything we’ve done so far as a group has been exciting, this is teamwork and community at its finest, and I am really looking forward to completing the very first episode so we can share it with you all.

I love The Creative Alliance because WE (not just me, not just James, but everyone involved,) all had a vision, and together we move forward to realizing that vision. It’s a beautiful thing, and if you haven’t joined us yet… I hope you will consider. It’s a fantastic group of creative, brilliant minds, and I love them all!