Creating Content 101 — By 50+ Content Creators
Creating content has never been easier with technologies. Take out a mobile device and capture the moment, add a filter and soundtrack then click the publish button. If timing fits, we would quickly get notified about the interactions from our community circles.
Sustaining content creation is another story. Numbers don’t lie. By mid-2022, more than 50 million people consider themselves to be content creators on several digital platforms. In the niche of video creators on YouTube, more than 96% of YouTube creators do not earn enough to reach the poverty line (~$12K) in the US. Brand deals still dominate as the biggest revenue stream from most creators, yet the regularity and stability of getting sponsorships is uncertain, thus creating income insecurity to most creators and they have to seek other means to sustain themselves in this profession.
“The job of the future is content creation” — by top Medium writer and author Sergey Faldin.
We could still be some years away from realising the power of creating content, however, creating content has already been an economic driver for certain groups of creators to ditch their 9am to 5pm hustles and focus on their passion and establish revenue streams from their expertises. Still, the majority of creators in the economy have yet been able to fully materialise and monetise their professional skills and knowledge through creating content.
Creato was built with a clear goal to make content creation sustainable. Content can be free but creating content is not. We believe the right solution forward is to turn creativity into a sustainable profession. But what to do exactly to make it happen? To get a deeper understanding about how content creation works from creators’ point of view, as well as digging deep in the problems and challenges that creators of different categories face in the booming creator economy, our team kicked off a video podcast channel to invite creators from various backgrounds to chit-chat with us, and simply talk about anything surrounding their creative journeys of content creation.
From stories that creators do not often talk about in front of cameras, to behind-the-scenes thoughts and feelings of themselves in every step along the day-to-day operation of creating content, audience would dive into their secrets and personal lives. In 9 months’ time, we hosted more than 50 episodes on our channel. We have been thrilled to be able to talk to creators from over 15 cities across the globe. Depending on the backgrounds of creators, our episodes offer multiple languages including English, Mandarin and Cantonese.
Are you ready? Let’s reveal some secrets and tips that they share with us about creating content.
1. Content Is King
“Press the button!”, said by Johnny Lo from Taiwan, who has been a Brand Ambassador with GoPro for over 9 years, as well as a two-time awardee of Million Dollar Challenge at GoPro. That’s the number one shooting tip by Johnny, as you would be surprised about the moments that you’ve captured. In his second attempt taking part in the Million Dollar Challenge with GoPro, he vividly remembered submitting more than 200 video clips that he recorded. Yet the winning video clip was totally out of his imagination in the first place — the moment that his daughter was holding the selfie stick and laughing. “You never know what you are going to capture until you capture it”…keep it going! To make editing content easier, Johnny also suggested we should keep the clips short and sweet. At the end of the day, we most likely will put the clips together, so keeping each clip within 10 seconds would be good enough.
Rudy Meyer, another video creator based in Marseille, France talked about how “Your imagination is your only limit!” As a sports enthusiast, Rudy has all the opportunities at his fingertip to get the best shots! He wholeheartedly urged us to “just go out there and shoot content!” and of course connect with one another through creating content too.
The phrase “Content is king” was originally from an essay written by Bill Gates back in 1996. What Gates stated back then was more about business models of selling information and advertising at a lower cost with the distributional nature of the internet. Riding on the booming creator economy right now, content is king empowers creators to transform and productise knowledge, skills and experiences into a professional career.
2. Your Ordinary Is Someone Else’s Extraordinary
We might be getting mundane about things around us, but the varieties among individuals stay varied. Baki Zainal (巴麒) — a Malaysian TV presenter and radio host shares his thoughts on the challenges he faced from transitioning his work from traditional media to a become content creator. He quoted a famous saying by Kyle Mulinder that “Your ordinary is someone else’s extraordinary.”, very self-explanatory that we should never doubt the content that we see and create because it would actually be fascinating in others’ eyes. You just never know how beautiful your content can be from other people’s viewpoints.
The original intention that Baki did content creation was to share his stories. “Be you. Tell your story. Do not try to be anyone else.” If one was to look at your story, they were to pay attention to you because they want to listen to you, not anyone else. Regardless of the number of followers or subscribers, Baki reminded us to stay special and be ourselves. It brings a lot when it comes to marketing, media and building yourself as a person.
3. Miracle Is Done By Everyday Hustles
Being a photographer and an outdoor activities enthusiast for many years, Tommi started his video channel — beware the mountainman (山人物近) just over 2 years ago. With his marathon experiences, photography and videography skills, he is very good at creating content about outdoor paradises in Hong Kong. The unique fact of Tommi is that he is capable of carrying heavy shooting equipment with him whenever he hikes. He shared about his regular training in running marathons in order for him to be able to hike and at the same time capture the beautiful landscapes with substantial video production equipment while he is up there at the mountain tops. “There is no miracle, but everyday hustles.” When it comes to creating content in the area that he specialises in, Tommi walks the talk and demonstrates how he does it remarkably.
4. Self Discipline Is Indispensable
“In the world of creating content, no one tells you when the deadline is or what to do first.”, said by Kate Lam — an outdoor enthusiast who runs a video channel with the mission to show the world how beautiful our hometown — Hong Kong is. You have to safeguard your own content schedule and be responsible for it. It all comes down to self discipline.
Samson — a medical student in Hong Kong who as well runs a video channel TechiCardia — about computer assembling & technology gadgets, also shares the same thought. As a 1-man team, there is close to nil feedback until the video content has been released. Therefore, you are the sole driver to make sure quality output can be delivered within a certain period of time to keep the momentum going.
“Setting a deadline is a very good way of doing it.”, according to Jeannie Lam, a video creator and actress based in Hong Kong. She claimed that she can be a forever procrastinator if there is no deadline whatsoever in the content in progress, and subsequently the solution is to set a deadline! Done is better than perfect, as you are always creating content anyway, keeping them coming along is the key.
5. Take Half Step If The 1st Step Takes Time
“Your first piece of content will suck, so get it over as soon as possible.” Abu Phampi — video creator who is based in Abu Dhabi and an enthusiast in Standup paddle boarding and wing foiling spoke the truth for every new content creator. “Dreaming a dream makes it stay a dream.” Just get going, get change and go out to hang out with people to get inspired in creating content.
Great minds think alike. Benjamin — a Japanese online course and video creator spoke about the importance of getting started. “If you are making progress, who cares if it’s slower, you are still moving away from where you were.” He would not have imagined the things that he achieved if he did not go ahead and take the very small step to build his video channel and the subsequent online course business.
“All I had was my cell phone, I didn’t even have a mic.” That’s how Shell started her series of videos walking around the coastline of Taiwan just on her bare feet. It took her several months due to the pandemic, but she completed what she envisioned from the start. There is literally no excuse for anyone not to get started. Having equipment or not is not a reason not to take a small step forward. Indeed, equipment plays a vital role. Some content creators might lack the resources, yet we should be able to find a way to work around it without trading off getting things going.
6. It’s Worse Regretting Than Trying And Then Failing
It’s normal that we do not know what the unknown holds, and that’s part of the beauty of it. Amelyn & Dan, the Singapore-based couple who are travel content creators, encourage people to do what they want to do and don’t let the fear of others judge and stop them from trying to pursue what they are passionate about. People will never know what they can actually accomplish if they do not try.
The world we live in is full of “never-enough” dominations, said by Brené Brown, author of Daring Greatly. The courage to show our vulnerability when needed is what we should embrace. It goes for other aspects in lives too. Let’s try it first and if you fail, at least there is little room to regret but to try again with a better strategy.
7. Always A Work-in-progress
There is a common saying in the world of startups: “If you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.”, by Reid Hoffman. The same goes for content creation. Anson Cheung, a Hong Kong based video creator focusing on technology products and reviews talked about getting started and refining it along the way. Instead of planning out and predicting too much, let’s just do it first. Scenarios that we predicted mostly likely would not happen anyway if we are staying in the thinking stage.
Anson also mentioned how he managed to deliver objective reviews about different products while maintaining his subjective perspective in the videos. There is one more great subtlety about Anson — he reminded us not to forget to take a break from time to time in order to stay in the creative zones. His way of doing it is through making himself a cup of coffee and taking it slow in order to allow himself to have a break. Burger — another video creator in fitness training highlighted the importance of having a “de-load” period along his creative journey, much like a period of regular rest times are required in between weight training in order to avoid over-training and have better performances overall.
8. What Is Your Niche
Depending on the feedback of the initial content that you created, as well as if you are good at creating certain content topics, at least in the very beginning, every creator should plainly focus on 1–2 content niches. This has been pointed out by several creators, namely Mavis — who used to work at a technology media and became a freelancer in recent times; Smith — host of a video channel “The Smithy Show” as well as Nick — a video creator who specialised in Insta360 camera content. After all, it is a trial and error exercise for all of us.
9. No Blind Eye To Trends
We’ve had a handful of conversations about a common dilemma — to either create something we like, or to create something that the mass audience would like to watch. Jacky Lai — an English online course and video creator who is based in Japan mentioned his strategies in striving a balance between informative & evergreen videos as well as videos that could get viral by following certain trends. He described the “been there, done that” experience in both content directions during our conversation.
On the other hand, Derek Tang, a Reel-video focused creator, who amasses over 500K+ followership on Instagram in a short period of time, talked about the major difference between being a content creator and an artist. Creators should not ignore the trends on digital channels, while artists such as a photographer or an illustrator, can afford to maintain their own styles along their careers. Derek meticulously observed that short-formed videos have been popular and engaging in overseas regions and started to create and post short videos since 2 years ago, when reel videos were yet a trendy thing in Hong Kong. By the time the Reels trend eventually arrived in Hong Kong, his hard work paid off substantially in terms of the engagement rates and digital popularity within the past 12 months.
10. Values Over Engagement Rates
Frankly speaking, we all care about the engagement rates we get on different social media channels. Be it the number of views or followership, number of likes, comments and shares, it is simply an intangible recognition. Like it or not, that could also be the first impression when people look at your digital profiles.
Sally — a Hong Kong based slasher who founded Slasher College offering online course Slasher 101, takes on a different approach. She meticulously focuses on delivering values when creating content. The reason is simple — making positive influences on others through creating content is way more powerful than getting highly engaged social metrics. The latter is always out of our control and it lapses quickly anyway. The impacts are more profound if your content offers positive influences on peoples’ lives who might be in similar shoes. Sally creates content specialising in spiritual growth and sharing her journey to become a slasher and live a life the way you want it.
Final Thoughts
Which one of the above is your favourite line? Running the video podcast channel has played a valuable part along the Creato journey. It opened up our eyes and ears significantly through getting to know creators from a variety of background.
Creating content is here to stay and accelerate, therefore its sustainability is vital. The reliance on viewership and engagement rates on social media channels might be able to pay bills for some creators, but the market needs something more to serve a wider group of the pie to sustain the professionalism of content creation.
We have slowed down a bit to re-focus on what we do, but we are not stopping. Our goal is clear — we come together to make an impact in the creator economy.
We all need support from one another, especially, speaking for ourselves, for those who are building a startup. Getting to talk to creators from all walks of life gives us a lot of motivation, recognition and connection moving along. Thanks to those who came along as part of our journey, we sincerely appreciate your understanding, effort and above all, your time to make us and our product better.
At Creato, our goal is to empower 6M+ Creators to turn creativity into a sustainable profession. If you are a content creator or you know your friends who might be interested in knowing more about Creato, please tell them to get in touch with us! :)
You can also enjoy our podcast conversations with Creators while you are on the go, other than YouTube, the podcast is also available on Spotify, Google podcast and Apple podcast.
If you like what we write, tell your friends about it! We would like to hear about your stories too! 😄
