What I Learned From Creating Content for 30 Days
Just DO it, people are lazy, the bots are here and Patreon just might save the day.
I set out to do a #30DayContentChallenge a.k.a 30 Days of Sandepantz last month of last year (December 2017). The premise was simple: put out a fresh piece of content every day. It can be a meme, a photo, a video, writing, music covers, anything. The Instagram feed needs an update every day. That’s all.
Personal Takeaways:
I LOVE THIS SH*T. I like to entertain, take centerstage, be goofy and turns out ideas flow very naturally when you aren’t stressed about survival. This is hardly news. It’s usually all good from the creating end until I meet my roadblock #1: Perfectionism.
Can you blame me in this time and age when social media, especially Instagram, is anything but spontaneous?
It is carefully curated and don’t even get me started on Themes. I tried to learn everything I could about it and the stress of having to choose one was enough to almost halt this whole idea before it took off. Putting myself out there also led to a face-to-face with arch nemesis #2: Judgment. You can’t always be perfect and that’s okay. That could even be part of your brand, I was beginning to realize three days in, but when it comes down to the content even if you’re all ‘horseblinds-and-click-share’ about it, there are times when you just don’t love the stuff that you’re about to post.
It is largely habit and consistency over quality and perfection.
This lesson was learnt on Day 5 when I posted a mash up of Charlie Puth’s Attention + Britney’s Piece of Me. Was it my best work? Hardly. But you have to honour the commitment and y’all have no idea what a big gulp of pride that was. Lastly, this cemented a resolve that was sown mid 2016 to create, regardless of feedback. Authenticity over acceptance/even acknowledgment.
Social media can drive home this feeling that if someone disagrees with you (vehemently), they want you to die. And maybe that’s true, but that’s okay.
If this — whatever it is writing, singing, dancing, comedy — if it is truly the love of your life, you should be okay. You can manage to do it despite negative BS.
This is the closest I’ve come to simultaneously expressing my true self while also not really giving a f*ck. It probably shows.
And while that could be superpower from a creator standpoint, I’m generally not on board with DGAF vibes. Creators are faced with a wild environment now more evident than ever based on the following observations:
1. Content creation = Influencer deals = Monetization
It’s hard to approach any social media platform today without considering its potential to make you money thus very quickly taking away the kick of just creation and validation. There exists today a permissible sense of entitlement when you create something that’s consumed on social platforms.
If you’re creating content, you ought to get paid for it.
Actually no. Let this please not be the benchmark of success as an Internet creator. You are a creator, the internet is your platform because of agency. The internet is not an industry though it may seem so thanks to dumb FART content awesomely explained by Cody Ko. The recent scandal involving British YouTuber Elle Darby demanding freebies is an example of how anybody creating content of their own volition just assumes that they should be paid because there’s this idea that collaboration for advertising is some driving force. NOT for every business, not the norm but yes, branded sponsored content is surely a frequent occurrence.
So give it 3 weeks 3 months, your content creating and validation will soon not be enough. If you are on the internet, you are forced to scan monetization potential and view it as an influencer space though the biggest reward for internet content creation still is audience growth. But even someone who killed that part, one of the most successful influencers on the planet, called out the bitter truth when it comes to content marketing and the lack of transparency. It’s still a mostly vague path for livelihood as a YouTuber so take a minute to consider if that’s really what you want out of this.
2. There is little drive for audience to take action.
I know I didn’t make a Disqus account to post comments for years. Vicarious experience through funny YouTube comments is enough. People can spend an hour on your page, maybe even drop a few Likes, rarely a Comment but a Follow? Why bother? Why SHOW your appreciation? It’s tied in with a deeper mindset of just caring less, a trait that’s cool and trickles down to ‘modern love’.
Social media gets you super triggered but immediately presents you the option of the highest rated comments so you can be lazy again and just +1 what you like.
Content creators totally get this. From a marketing standpoint, what needs to be understood is that engagement or duration of view is much more important than number of Followers. Across the board, FB or Instagram, views are not the sole indicator of reach. An honourable mention of bots and automated accounts (which I will collectively refer to as ‘zombies’) that have challenged the whole point of connectivity of people and ideas on the web.
3. Lurking to Loyalty could happen if you’re in the game 6 months minimum, without a breather.
Six months of a thirty day content challenge is needed for any of this to register. For people to get the message that you’re doing this thing. That’s six months of fresh, awesome, ‘on brand’ content that you also actively market to curator accounts, at some point. No instant gratification model here.
Planning is key. Even if you switch things up, a sure way to fail is if you don’t always have at least 7–10 ideas roughly written out.
In time, scheduling comes into play. A post’s success rate is what happens within the first 24 hours. Instagram is effing up chronology which is confusing but in my experience, it’s just never a good idea to post at an ‘odd time’ and that’s something that varies person to person. I posted daily between 12:30–2am barring a few days when I posted at 7pm or 10pm and for me, those posts had lesser engagement. That said, I think right now at least, bad timing alone will not drown out a post. It’s a 60–40 situation leaning towards quality of content.
4. The accounts that quickly grow are those that are on the nose about their theme.
Not talking aesthetics this time. ‘On brand’ content is much easier to launch. Naming your profile Vegan Meal Plans or Daily Fashionista, that coupled with relevant hashtags will draw the numbers in. Put yourself in the best suited box. You have been warned though, hashtags draw in the zombies.
5. Social media was always meant to be transmedia but each platform constantly aspires to be a one stop shop for everything and as creators, it’s important to not fall for this.
I picked Instagram as primary platform for my content challenge because that’s where my demographic hangs out, not necessarily the best place for vlogs, comedy shorts or non iPhone portrait mode photography. If you are a creator, an artist, a personal profile that banks on personality, talents and a range of skills and interests… YouTube is still the best bet for discoverability. You’ll in fact be called a YouTuber even if you post on another platform because it’s synonymous with that type of humor/personality driven content. Facebook Creator has recently entered this space and needs to add a custom thumbnail NOW if it’s really going head to head. I’ve noticed a lot of MENA creators use FB videos/FB live as their primary platform but I feel like YouTube still has the edge there when it comes to reaching new audiences. The only edge with FB Creator is that it’s emerging and not as saturated and unregulated as YouTube. Is someone curating the best of YouTube through a channel or Newsletter instead of aggregation because that would be rad.
There is a whole technique to mould your content in a way that it’s influencer worthy, and right now every piece of content on the internet invariably leans toward influencer at some point. How else do you sustain respectably? If you are entering the content creator game NOW, the organic route might not work — real talk. The pathway for the ‘sellout’ seems clearer than options for people who genuinely want to be creative, experimental and provide some sort of value. People aren’t the problem. There’s a good number who are willing to pay for quality, inspiration and knowledge.
I see a difference between creator and influencer where the former aims at expressing themselves honest to their vision while the latter is more geared towards landing advertising deals.
I really think Patreon is going to change the game and bring out exactly this distinction that I want, as a creator.
‘Patreon powers membership businesses for creators’. When you sign up as a Creator, the demand from your Followers is a subscription fee. For the creator, it might not bring you that one whammy sponsored deal that gets tongues wagging but this is growth of a vested audience at grassroot level.
This whole universe takes a lot out of you and it takes immense discipline to master the art of posting and then disconnecting. I didn’t sleep very well the whole of December because creating everyday and posting with the right thumbnail/hashtags etc is work. One of the biggest worries is taking a break. #DigitalDetox is a more common term these days but the worry of being forgotten if you stop is so real and makes it extremely hard for anyone to do this kind of ‘work’ continuously in an authentic manner. This won’t be the case with the backing of a platform like Patreon that shows a path of sustainability.
You might wonder — well I certainly did, out loud, constantly for three days — why this content experiment was so urgent. Read a little about the why here and for now, do follow my creative pursuits on the platform of your choice by heading to about.me/sandhyaramachandran
