You probably already know about the massive benefits of promoting your business online. But blogs, social media, and all of those other outlets that you use to promote your business can also be great for another reason – finding inspiration.

Yes, you can find inspiration for your art, your blog, your marketing, and so much more just by spending a little more time on those platforms that you already use. This doesn’t mean that you should copy anyone. It’s just the opposite! If you’re able to find the right kind of inspiration – and enough of it – you can carve out your very own niche or specialty and make your art or your business even stronger.

Here are some tips for building an online presence that keeps you constantly inspired.

Follow a lot of people

I think the main thing you need to start with when finding inspiration online is to follow a lot of people. Follow people on Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Periscope, whatever other platforms you use. Follow their blogs. Subscribe to their newsletters. Don’t just spam-follow a bunch of people. Check through a few of their posts first to make sure that they’re relevant and potentially inspiring for you. But if you don’t follow anyone online, you won’t have those constant sources of inspiration finding you where you are. Don’t be one of those people who tries to keep your following count down so that you look like an expert – you’ll just be doing yourself a disservice. So take a look through your suggested accounts on the platforms you use and set yourself up for constant inspiration down the line.

Find your experts

The experts in your industry are going to be a good place to start when looking for people to follow for inspiration. Experts will be the people in your industry who have more established businesses, more followers, more content, etc. They are, probably, where you see yourself in five years or so. Following people like this means that you have access to the top industry insights, and other content that’s probably relevant to your business. Plus, seeing someone succeeding in a way that you would like to succeed can be inspirational in and of itself.

Follow your peers

But! You shouldn’t ONLY follow those experts. You need to also follow people who are sort of on the same level as your business or even a bit smaller. Those people can also have really cool ideas that could help spark different ideas for you. They can also be great to build relationships with for potential partnerships or collaboration down the line.

Follow people in other specialties

The next category you should look for when building up your online network of inspiration is people who aren’t even in your industry or business category. You might not find as much super relevant content from these people, but they can still be super inspiring. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come across a photo on Instagram or a similar platform that really had nothing to do with what I was working on but it just had something about it that sparked an idea for a project or a blog post. Again, you shouldn’t just follow every person in any sort of creative field. But pick several who regularly post unique or inspiring things that you really enjoy.

Clean out your feed

Now here’s where I (sort of) contradict my first point. Your goal should not be to follow everyone under the sun – just to follow those who keep you inspired. So, if after a lengthy period of time you find that some of the people you follow are no longer providing that type of inspiration, it might be time to clean out your feed. Note: this doesn’t mean you should do that thing where you follow a bunch of people and then immediately unfollow them. That’s not cool. But maybe a few times a year, you can go through your feed and clean out the accounts that no longer provide awesome content or inspiration. This ensures that the majority of things you scroll past while spending time online could be inspirational for your business. This saves you time and keeps you just constantly inspired.

Try out different platforms

The platforms that you use to find and gather inspiration can also make a huge difference. There’s no right or wrong answer here – you just have to find the ones that work best for you. If you’re someone who’s really visually oriented (like me) then I would highly recommend platforms like Instagram and Pinterest. I find Twitter to be really great for finding blog inspiration (and awesome posts just to share with people). And Periscope is awesome for a regular motivational boost, in my opinion. Your best bet here is to just try out a bunch of platforms and see which ones work best. If something isn’t working, let it go. Then focus on the ones that work best for you.

Have a method for saving inspiration

Now that you’ve built an online presence that is likely to provide you with lots of awesome inspirational content all the time, you need to come up with a system for actually saving it. Otherwise, you’ll just scroll past a bunch of great content and then probably forget about it later. Again, you’ll have to find the system that works best for you. But there are plenty of options. You can set up a specific Pinterest board. You can save links in a Google Doc. You can keep a folder of screenshots on your phone. It can be a mixture of those things. Just find some way to save things so that you can go back to them when you need that extra inspiration boost.

Find your New Thing

Now here’s the most important thing. You can find all the awesome content and inspiration online that you want. But if you don’t do anything with it, who really cares? Again, I need to repeat that you should never just do the exact same thing someone else is doing. It’s not cool and won’t even help you because why would someone do business with you when they can do business with the person who actually thought of the idea first. So, what you need to do is build on an existing idea. Even one small change can make Your Thing different from Their Thing. Ideally, when you see something inspiring online you’ll immediately think of your own related idea that’s totally unique to you. But the reality is that there are so many ideas, products, services, blog posts, and other types of offerings out there that even the littlest differences can set you apart. So you can even save some of those pieces of inspiration that you find online and come back to them later when you have a way to set yourself apart.

So now it’s your turn! What are your favorite ways to find and save inspiration online?