FARQ

Earlier this week, 18 creators walked into a room at Tewinbury Farm for the first ever Friends of FARQ event. Four hours later, two brilliant guest sessions and one very long lunch later, we left feeling like we’d stumbled onto something pretty special.

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The response to Friends of FARQ - a passion project I’ve dreamt of launching for months now - solidified my exact reasoning for putting on the event in the first place:

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Creators want more opportunities to learn from and connect with each other offline.

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I’ve seen it time and time again. Since launching FARQ in 2021 and the pure magic that happens every year at our FARQ Retreat, I’ve observed how being a creator can be one of the most glamorous and exciting jobs in the world, whilst also being one of the most isolating.

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You can have hundreds of thousands of followers and still have very few people you can ask:

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“Is this normal to feel this way?”

“What would you charge?”

“How else should I be making money?”

“This is a stupid question BUT…”

Yes, FARQ as an agency already does that… community is at the very core of what we do. But our roster can only grow to a certain size in order to maintain our boutique and bespoke approach to management.

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Which leaves an entire pool of people still lost and isolated in this industry.

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Friends of FARQ exists to make the world of being a creator a little less lonely.

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So why did we choose ‘Diversifying Revenue Streams’ as the first topic on the agenda?

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I’ll be honest, with it being the first event, it was hard to pin-point exactly where everyone was going to be in their business without knowing any of them ahead of time. And the turn-out was incredibly varied - from creators with 800 followers to 800,000.

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Yet everyone still came away feeling like they’d learned something - which says a lot about how much there is still to learn, no matter where creators are on their journey.

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At FARQ, we’re increasingly thinking about creators as business owners, instead of simply ‘content creators’ - so it made sense to start there.

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While brand partnerships are a huge part, a sustainable creator business shouldn’t rely solely on any one revenue source. Hence my desire to encourage the Friends of FARQ attendees to be putting their eggs in multiple revenue baskets.

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Plus, if these creators are just starting out on their journey - laying good foundations from the beginning is far better than having to go back and do it later down the line.

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First up, the guests heard from Casa Lawson’s Alex Lawson on what opportunities exist beyond the platforms most creators traditionally focus on, specifically looking at Facebook as a revenue model most creators “are sleeping on”.

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Her hands-on approach to getting them all set up for success on the platform, how to start monetising and how to manage and maintain cross-promotion and scheduling across all platforms was a huge hit with the guests.

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Next up, we were joined by founder of Chloe’s Deal Club, Chloe Carmichael, who spoke at length on building communities away from socials and ‘owning’ your audience elsewhere - specifically the newsletter model.

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Chloe let the attendees in on all the lessons she wished she’d known when starting out, including how to maximise affiliate revenue whilst keeping your community engaged. It was incredibly insightful and well-received.

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Yet, what struck me even more than the amazing speakers we heard from, was the conversation that happened outside of the “structured” format.

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From the arrival cards - where we spoke candidly about our intentions for the day, our biggest challenges or things we’re proud of from the months prior - to conversations over coffee and the final round-table, those moments were almost as valuable as the formal sessions.

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And that is the power of community in action.

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Creators don’t need another networking event. Sometimes they just need to be surrounded by a group of people where they feel comfortable enough to ask the questions they wouldn’t (or couldn’t) ask publicly.

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That’s Friends of FARQ.

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So what’s next?

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We're already thinking about the next Friends of FARQ event - and how we can keep the conversations and connections going between the events, so watch this space for more information on that.

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In the meantime, you can register your interest in future Friends of FARQ events here.

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Huge thanks to our friends at Tewinbury Farm for hosting us. Use code FARQ if you’d like 15% off your stay!

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