1. Addressing Your Own Mental Health
   1. When talking about how you support your own mental health, make it clear to your fans which approaches are based on evidence versus personal experience.
2. Careful Messaging
   1. Develop relationships with advisors and/or nonprofit organizations that can help ensure your messaging is safe.
3. Offer Resources
   1. Provide resources for fans who may be struggling, using our Expert Directory as a starting point.

Storytelling Tips

Integrate Professional Perspectives and Effective Resources into Social Media Content 

• If the content you create for your platforms and channels allows for guests or expert commentary, use that opportunity to give professionals a voice. 
• Work with experts or nonprofit organizations who can advise you on safe and effective mental health messaging, provide resources that you can point fans to, and suggest protocols for responding to followers who express distress, a need for help, or suicidal thoughts. 
• Some effective ways you can integrate experts and mental health partners include: creating a custom landing page with a tone and selection of resources that best resonates with your community; including experts and/or representatives from organizations in your content; or hosting live events on Instagram or other platforms that allow your community to ask questions to mental health professionals.

Keep the Audience’s Perspective in Mind

• Even if you aren’t presenting yourself as an expert, fans who feel connected to you or look up to you may take your perspectives and tips as fact instead of finding strategies that work best for their unique mental health needs. 
• Use “I” statements and phrases like “in my experience” or “this is what works for me personally.” Emphasize that, as with our physical health, we all deal with unique mental health challenges and need to find solutions and support networks that work for us as individuals.
• Be sure to emphasize that the approaches you’re discussing are based in evidence versus your own personal experiences.

Share Mental Health Challenges You Have Faced So Fans Facing Similar Struggles Will Feel Less Alone and Include Messages About Getting Through Those Challenges

• Look for opportunities to share details about getting help and feeling better through support networks, self-care, coping skills, therapy, or treatment. 
• When presenting these solutions or positive experiences, be just as detailed and vivid as you are when presenting your struggles to help fans walk away feeling hopeful and motivated to take action to support themselves or loved ones. 

Avoid Sharing Potentially Harmful Details

• Follow safe messaging guidelines around mental health. It’s important to avoid sharing details that might be triggering for people who are struggling or inadvertently give people harmful information about how to obtain or use substances, hide dangerous behaviors like self-injury, or attempt suicide. 
• This guide’s storytelling tips, language recommendations and guidance on safe ways to talk about suicide and self-injury, are a good place to start.