Doing Your Own Content is totally the new
Doing Your Own Stunts
Make content. Market content. Learn. Repeat.
Twenty-two days ago, I started doing #the100dayproject (with The Great Discontent and Elle Luna). For those who aren’t familiar with it, the premise is this: Pick one action. Repeat it every day for one hundred days. Post your progress on Instagram.
Now, I started because I was interested in pursuing a daily practice in discipline, because I believe that creation breeds creation, yada-yada-yada. Two days in, and I was already getting more curious about different tactics for Instagram marketing. Two weeks in, and I was considering the advantages of setting up a like-like-like-follow bot.
I mean, I have content. Why not market it?
That screenshot above is of tonight’s #the100dayproject post — and also of tonight’s hashtag test, where I’m watching how the post reacts if I tag it using the platform’s most popular hashtags. (I couldn’t bring myself to put #tagsforlikes, but that’s not saying I won’t try tomorrow.)
And yes, I really am singing Blink 182.
I’ve always been a singer. It’s a given in my life. It’s like, my main keyword. I’d guestimate that 80% of the time, when someone is trying to explain me to someone else, they use the phrase “You know — the singer!” somewhere in the exchange. Now, I’ve never relied on music to provide my sole income, but it is forever one of the primary things in life that defines and describes me.
By day, I’m a content (marketing) strategist. I really do enjoy it. Love it, even. I have some super cool clients. I get to ask questions about why things are the way they are and sound the way they sound. I’ve started describing my job as ‘UX for words’ — I think that’s pretty accurate.
I never really set out to create my own content solely for testing purposes. I mean, clearly, music is very important to who I am. I also recently started a web show called #entrylevelboss, where I try to bring awareness to young professionals about how many options they really have besides going to Get a Real Job in Corporate America. And, more importantly, I try to equip them with the tools to perform a little content strategy magic on their own careers.
I do these things (the singing, the Instagramming, the web showing) because I love them. But I market them because it’s my job. And because I know that literally the worst thing that could happen from doing all this is that I get that much better at my day job.
I had a boss who straight-up told me once, “I f*cking hate Facebook. I don’t use it when we’re not at work.” Okay, lady — but I think you should consider a new f*cking job if that’s really the case.
Can everyone sing? Nah. Does everyone want to run their own weekly webshow? Not really. But I get curious about marketers who have no interest in… well, marketing.
I’ve haphazardly created my own test cases, and now I’m going to go out there and experiment on them. Shoot, I’m even marketing to you right now! By writing this Medium post! I just can’t help myself!
I truly believe that the best marketers these days find content to market no matter what. They want to experiment. They want to test ideas. They want the data.
I know I do, anyways.
Alexa Shoen is an independent content strategist based in Berlin. She’s the host and creator of #entrylevelboss, a weekly web show for the quarter-life crisis crowd. She’s also singing a lot of 15-second songs right now on Instagram, and she takes requests.
