Instagram and I have been in a love-hate relationship since the dawn of time, so it’s no surprise that planning out a new feed and starting over at the beginning of the decade was one of the leading stressors in my life during the month of December. As a creator, I am always coming up with new and fresh ideas of how to share my photos, and something about the beginning of 2020 inspired me to start fresh. I’ve always been someone drawn to colors. Although right now neutrals are the new black, I’ve always danced to the beat of my own drum and wanted to start off the year colorfully.
It started with a purple “New Year’s Eve” post. Purple is definitely an “out there” color in the world of Instagram. I wasn’t sure where I was going to go from there, but color blocking my feed has always been a dream of mine. Then it hit me: I was going to turn my feed into a rainbow — what could be more colorful than that?
I quickly claimed the hashtag #colorfulena and notified my followers about my plan: post three photos per week in a specific color as we work our way through the rainbow, starting with purple and ending with pink.
As first, no one cared or caught on, so I came up with a motivator: “Hashtag your purple pictures from the past and present with #colorfulena to be reposted on my stories!” For some reason, that clicked, and my hashtag turned into a wonderful sea of purples with over 50 shares. I was ecstatic. As we cycled through the rainbow, I started getting more and more creative with my posts. I learned how to edit a plain wall to any color of the rainbow, which helped the color blocking immensely. I started hand-drawing graphics to share with my followers. I also partnered with fun companies who wanted in on the action. It was a dream come true.
Scrolling through the hundreds of pictures shared in my hashtag has created a beautiful rainbow gradient. I have created my own colorful community on Instagram. My followers have started interacting with each other and creating new relationships. All because of a simple idea turned reality.
Now that I’m in my final week of #colorfulena, I am so sad to see it go. Nearly 1,000 pictures were shared with the hashtag, and so much love and support was spread through this Instagram community. I never would have thought that anyone would use my hashtag, let alone have this much of a positive impact. #colorfulena has challenged my creativity to new limits and has created the best environment for me to start my 2020 Instagram journey in. I am so thankful for every one of my followers that have gotten involved with this fun little campaign, and I’m so excited that together we collaborated to create something beautiful. Step outside your comfort levels every once and a while, and you never know how it could change your life!