Today, we are going to discuss what it means to be a “Content Creator” in the social media world.
Content Creator: What does it mean?
Unfortunately, this term has really been reserved for social media influencers who seem to hoard titles and flex their follower count. But being a content creator is, by definition, a much broader term that encompasses a large demographic of social media users.
Creator obviously means that you create something. And Content is a term thrown around in the social media world to mean a form of readable, viewable, or listenable material that is used to communicate to another person. At a primitive state, it’s a form of communication. So, “Content Creator” is a person creating a form of communication between themselves and the world.
If you find yourself taking a picture of your food, or posting a political stance, you are creating content. And that content is a message to the world about how you feel or what you think on a certain topic.
What makes a great content creator?
The best content creators are people who use social media to deliver a specific message to a specific audience.
The most popular content creators are people who have delivered this specific message to so many people, that it only makes sense to broaden their message and capture a larger group of people.
You see this in music artists, when they have a niche group of listeners that like lyrics on heavy topics such as drug abuse and bad parenting. And then, one year, that artist puts out an album on love and sadness. The original audience is at first taken back, but the artist has traded their initial audience message for a broader message that more people can relate to.
Why wouldn’t they just start with a broader message?
For specific messages, you can create a tight-nit following.
For broad messages, it feels like white noise, and people don’t care unless they see other people care.
So how does this relate to “Content Creators”?
How to succeed as a content creator:
If you want to be a successful content creator, I believe that you should follow these basic principles. They are the principles that brought me to 100k followers across all my social platforms.
My biggest mistake in the social media world was trading my soul for likes. Don’t do that. If you are just following trends and creating any and all content that gets views, your viewers are sporadic and uninterested in who you are or what you have to say. They just want you to sing and dance.
That’s why the best influencers often times feel genuine (even if they are not). They stick to the same message and same personality and same genre of content day in and day out. And their following grows slowly, but it grows strong.
The flip-side is that you are like me, and you grow a massive following only to realize that every post about your passion gets 100 views. If that. But every post about the new tik tok trend gets 300,000. It’s because even though I had a ton of followers, none of them cared about my message. Because I didn’t have one. I traded my soul for likes. So don’t do that, and just be yourself.
2. Post Consistently
At the end of the day, people won’t follow an account with five (5) posts, distributed throughout the span of two months. They want to open up their phone, and at any given point, go to your profile and see that you have provided some additional value to their life in exchange for their followership. This one is simple and easy to understand, but probably the hardest principle of all. Posting consistently is attributed largely to burnout. It’s hard to keep up the constant grind of recording, editing, mastering, and uploading a new video every day/every other day. But it’s essential. My suggestion is that you start off posting something everyday. Even if it’s not a well produced video, you can at least make “check-ins” with your contacts to make sure they don’t forget who you are or why they follow you. And believe it or not, if you don’t stay top of mind, they will (forget why they followed you). If you need help with this, just check out: this blog
3. Content Value Currency
You see this everywhere. Post value, post value, post value. What does it mean? If you scroll through your friends feed, you will immediately see what is most important to them. Maybe videos of people failing and hurting themselves populate. Maybe it’s educational videos. Maybe it’s scantily clad women. Regardless of what populates, that’s a genre of value to the consumer. Every consumer is looking for that one drug: dopamine. When I see an educational video, and I feel like I am learning, I feel happy. It goes directly into my core motivations and even when it’s entertaining, I feel like I am moving towards my goals. Whatever the genre of content is, think of each text/image/video as having a “Value Currency”. A quantifiable amount of value that you can attribute to the content. The easiest way to start doing this, is to create content that you would watch. For me, I create content that is Edutainment/Infotainment. Content that both educates, and hopefully keeps the user engaged. Here's an example of this content. And I want my content to be worth at least +$75 in Value Currency. I can assess that as to whether A. it’s actually educational (largely the information in the video) and B. it’s engaging (largely story or production based).
Wrapping up:
I could go through a million more examples and a dozen more principles. And I will. But for now, go forth and implement what you’ve seen here. Try out www.influenx.ai if you would like to automate some of this workload and to read more, read "What are social media automation tools?". And follow my blog for more content that can help you grow your social media presence.
Remember: you are a content creator.
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