It's Not Too Late: What I Learned During a Year of Full-Time Content Creation
Over the last 10 months, I’ve dedicated myself full-time to creating content on every major online platform: blogging, Instagram, Youtube, Medium, Facebook groups, Reddit, Twitter, and Quora. People will tell you things like...you should be on YouTube, Instagram DM for clients, blah, blah blah.
Like with diet and exercise, what I learned is that the medium and platform that works best is the one YOU can stick to with being consistent.
The strategies are the same, from blogging to YouTubing. All you need to be successful is:
Identify and understand your audience
Make quality content CONSISTENTLY
Link to lead magnets that get people to your email list
Offer a product (coaching, advising, online course, workbook, mastermind group, etc.)
It’s simple in theory, but in practice, it takes a fierce amount of determination, rigor, creativity, and courage.
Here are my top learnings:
It’s not too late to start, even in a supersaturated online niche.
You need to create in-depth content (none of that fluffy “3 ways to…” content marketing clickbaity fluff), but it really is a numbers game. You will be shocked by what takes off and what is a flop.
Reddit is my top idea generator for content ideas and top place for distributing my content.
Consistent YouTube videos were my fastest way to a lot of exposure. Still, I had to get through the awkward learning curve of getting comfortable on camera.
My best email sign up conversion is from webinars or virtual office hours.
People who engage with me directly are a lot more likely to be fans and later purchase.
When you don’t have a big audience, you have to spend almost as much time promoting your content as you do creating it.
The platform strategies are all the same: know your audience, make good content, be consistent, link to lead magnets that get people on to your email list. Don’t just post, PROMOTE & ENGAGE.
I quit my 9-to-5 job a year ago and moved to Mexico to save money while becoming an artist and content creator. I’m an academic, grassroots activist turned nonprofit manager. If I can figure out online content creation and growing an audience, so can you.
Moving into 2020, it’s not too late to become a content creator. It’s a world of abundance out there. Just commit to moving past the uncomfortable degradation of making content for the internet to judge with no paycheck. Once you gain 1,000 true fans, you can build a business around creating content for them.
Experimenting: finding what works
It hasn’t been all fun and tacos being a digital nomad in Mexico. I’m working as hard as I ever have, but with an invigorated soul. Everything is an experiment, a game I am playing. I’m not trying to become a mega influencer or sell a ton of products. I’m just trying to grow an email list of 1,000 true fans. I want my true fans to inform the content and products I create.
Sometimes I feel stress or resistance like, “Ugh, I don’t feel like blog writing or promoting this webinar.” In these moments, I listen to my body and change my methods to stay focused on what is fun and motivates me. Consistency is really the most critical part of creating content.
Essentially my strategy is, do whatever I need to do to stay motivated to keep creating.
I’m continually tuning into what my body is telling me. Sometimes that means going to ballet class or paint to get away from my computer. Sometimes that is getting out of bed at 1 am to write because I have nonstop ideas. My motivation and creativity need to be finely calibrated with taking care of myself, or it quickly deteriorates to anxiety and dread.
I’ve experimented with both personal and brand content creation with three different purposes, which I will use as examples throughout.
Win A Fulbright, my online course for people applying for Fulbright scholarships. I started this blog & website in Feb. 2019. This has been the easiest to create content because the audience and purpose are crystal clear.
My personal brand, my portfolio website and blog about things I’m doing and learning started in April 2019. I struggle with creating consistent content because my audience and purpose don’t feel clear, and I am not totally comfortable talking about myself.
Post-Grad Coach, videos and blog content for college-aged folks and recent grads about figuring out adulting. After my lessons from the other two, it’s been quick to get this up and running over the last two months. I don’t have a website yet since I’m not set on a brand name.
My intention here is that you don’t copy what I do, but that you experiment and figure out what things work best for your style and what you are trying to achieve. Most of all, find the thing that motivates you. Imagine coming home from a long day at your 9-to-5. What makes you excited enough to spend your evening working on creating content? If something feels tedious, it’s not the right medium for you. Keep experimenting until you find what works for you.
What has worked well for me
Using Reddit for content ideas & distribution
Reddit has strong communities that will call you out for any sort of marketing or self-promotion. This is why people are always surprised when I tell them it’s my top resource.
In Reddit, I’m an anthropologist. I get insights into people’s challenges and see common patterns.
This then becomes my source of content ideas. Start by identifying your audience and subreddits (or other online communities) they hang out in. For example, one of my audiences is recent college grads. I am in the subreddits Life After School, Grad Admission, Fulbright, etc.
I joined the Fulbright subreddit, not to sell my online course but to get ideas. It’s small with only 2K members working on their Fulbright scholarship applications. The post volume is so low that I probably answer 80% of all posts. Some of the responses, I then copy and paste into blog posts. Once I see that question again, which always happens, I then link to my blog post or YouTube video.
The key to not being spammy is to genuinely answer their question in the post and then link them to the content source for more details. I spend about one hour on Reddit once or twice a week doing this. I spend more time on Reddit when I am low on content ideas. Since I have credibility in this subreddit, when I have a new blog post, I announce it and ask for feedback or additional questions. In subreddits were I am new, I don’t post my content directly as posts, but spend more time answering questions. I get lots of DMs with thank yous, more specific questions, or asking for advising services. I market nothing on Reddit, but I’m shocked by how many messages I get about my services.
Sample Reddit response. Always answer the question in the post and then link to your content if it’s appropriate.
Anyone who DMs me, I ask if they want to be added to my email list. Do you know what has a higher email sign up conversion rate than lead magnets? Asking people directly to sign up! Almost everyone says yes. I don’t send them to a form to sign up. Instead, I make it super easy for them and just have them DM their email. Although this process is low volume, I know the people who interact with me are going to be my best subscribers.
I am not anonymous on Reddit. Make sure to create a separate account if you don’t want to mix your personal Reddit with this strategy.
Becoming a leader in a Facebook group
Growing a Facebook group from scratch is like being the new kid at school and throwing a party where nobody shows up, except your cousins. Similar to Reddit, find where your audience hangs out, join those groups, and become a leader in them.
I found a Facebook group for Fulbright applicants that already had close to 900 members. Similar to my Reddit strategy, I became hyperactive answering questions. The admin eventually reached out and asked if I wanted to take over as the admin. I then started posting all my content there. Like Reddit, I get lots of DMs and ask those people to join my email list.
The group was pretty stale. I invigorated it by making sure no post went unanswered. Every Monday, I write a post tagging new members and asking them to introduce themselves and to post a question for the community (Facebook has an easy button that says, “Welcome new members”). When I can’t answer a question, I do a search for previous similar posts and tag those group members to answer the question. I’m a ninja in there, making sure all needs are met. I tried Facebook Live, but the group really isn’t active enough for enough people to show up. I will experiment more with it once the group has a stronger foundation.
YouTubing for exposure
I felt hesitant about getting into video since it felt like such a heavy lift compared to blogging. I knew that consistency was key. I made a scary goal to make 1-2 videos a week for 3 months to see what happened.
My first few videos looked like I was in an interrogation room: poor webcam/audio quality, and I was awkward on camera. I posted my first few videos to my personal Facebook and texted my giant Mexican family to watch and like. I quickly learned that the more specific content does better. For example, I made one video on stress management techniques. I should have instead made it more targeted like “Stress management techniques during midterms.”
In 9 weeks, I made 10 videos and got 63 subscribers with over 3,000 total video views. Yes, that is insignificant for YouTube, but it is significant exposure toward my goal of 1,000 true fans. It took my Win A Fulbright blog 6 months to have 3,000 unique views, and my personal blog has only reached a third of that amount, ever. My top-performing videos link to my virtual office hours and newsletter lead magnets. Over 80% of my YouTube subscribers are also subscribed to my email list. I don’t rely on the YouTube algorithm. Many people find my videos from Reddit.
Warning: one stupid thing I did was pay $3 for 2,000 views on one video (not included in the total above). This made the average view time on the video 19 seconds, which tells the YouTube algorithm that people don’t like this video. There are no shortcuts in this game.
But what I didn’t expect was how much fun YouTubing would be for me. It’s easier for me to talk than to write. Now I make a video first, and then that turns into blog content.
After 4 videos, I was hooked and invested in some equipment. My 7th video took off, and now the YouTube algorithm is starting to recommend my content. The YouTube algorithm makes it significantly easier to show up in search compared to a google search.
Webinars/Office Hours
I have the same exact content in a YouTube video and in a free online mini-course as I do for a regular webinar I give, but way more people sign up for a live webinar.
Webinars and virtual office hours over a Zoom call work well for me because I am comfortable presenting and with live coaching. Unlike a downloadable lead magnet that I spend hours agonizing over and perfecting, webinars are very little work for me once I have a deck ready. All I do is show up. People who attend get a ton of value and become my biggest fans.
About 30% of registrants actually show up. At first, I was only doing a webinar every 6-8 weeks. The week before the webinar, I would spend hours promoting everywhere and reaching out to people and asking them to share. I really hated spending the time pushing the webinars.
Now I shifted my strategy to holding regular webinars. Again consistency is key. I try to keep weekly office hours and a monthly webinar. All my top blog posts and videos link to my office hours page. I prefer doing small intimate groups so I can give individualized attention. I learn people’s names and sometimes follow up with them personally with more info on something I couldn’t get to in the webinar.
You also just never know what opportunities will come your way when you connect with even a small group of people. One of my webinars only three people showed up, but good word got back to the Clinton Foundation. They asked me to create part of their Clinton Global Initiative University curriculum required for their 600 students.
Social Media for connecting with people
I use social media for research, content ideas, and connecting with people to create joint content. I capture ideas, quotes, and screenshots into an Evernote folder and keep a content pipeline in Notion.
My YouTube Notion Pipeline
I follow influencers and hashtags in my niche. I often reach out to people I find interesting to see if I can interview them for my blog. To date, nobody has turned down my request to be interviewed or write a guest blog post. People like being recognized.
Reusing content
I pump out content by constantly reusing content across different platforms. A tweet thread will become a blog post. A YouTube video will become a blog post. An old blog post, I’ll republish on Medium. The slides I use for clients, and all my brands are the same with different colors. The worksheets I created for a client, I turn into a lead magnet. I just keep recycling.
Example of recycling content
If you want to become a pro at doing this and cultivating your creative ideas, check out Building A Second Brain, the online course created by productivity expert / my husband Tiago Forte.
What hasn’t worked as well
Personal blogging
Blogging has worked well for my Win A Fulbright brand, but not for my personal brand. It’s hard for me to be consistent because I don’t have a clear goal, and I don’t know who I am as a brand. My audience is diverse and doesn’t fall into a clear-cut niche since I, of course, don’t fall into a niche. Most of my personal email list is friends, former colleagues, and Twitter followers. I’m self-conscious about what I put on my personal blog. When I write, I over-analyze and judge myself too much, which makes the process cumbersome and not fun.
I believe personal blogging is essential, and it’s my own limiting beliefs and self-judgments that are holding me back. I know that to overcome this, I just have to be consistent to get over my negative self-talk. Starting in 2020, I want to make a scary goal of posting two blog posts and newsletters a month.
Social Media for a Brand
Instagram and Twitter for Win A Fulbright have been flops for me. I took a great online course on using Instagram for your business, but at the end of the day, I couldn’t be consistent. It takes a lot of work to build a following from scratch, and it was too many accounts for me to keep up with. For Instagram, your brand has to be visually attractive. I got tired of spending time editing photos, researching the best hashtags to trend in, strategically following and unfollowing accounts. Overall I wasn’t getting the results for people actually clicking on my links and going to my website & lead magnets.
For Twitter, you have to engage and be in conversations. Under the brand “Win a Fulbright,” there aren’t many exciting conversations happening on Twitter, and I quickly got bored and gave up.
I know social media is essential for many brands, but I wasn’t motivated to keep doing it. I would rather engage deeply with people on Reddit, write an in-depth blog, or edit a YouTube video than spend so much time on social media.
Learning about analytics and SEO
I get really overwhelmed with all the details on how to increase SEO, how to research the best hashtags, how to split test, how to gain X followers on Y platform. Some people nerd out on these things, but I quickly realized that it wasn’t fun for me.
Now I just make stuff. If something has a lot of likes & engagement, I create more stuff like that.
Cold emailing people to share my content
I spent many hours contacting universities about sharing my webinars and free content with their students. It basically went nowhere and I hated doing it. Instead, I channeled my energy into creating more and letting people come to me.
Posting content on Medium
A few people told me, “Medium is dead. Don’t waste your time on it.” So much of Medium is pretty fluffy, “3 ways to x, y, z” life-coaching type content. I still gave it a shot. It takes time to find the right publications to submit to, wait to hear back if you get accepted, and start the process over if you are rejected from a publication. Even when I got accepted to publications, there still wasn’t a significant reach or conversion to my email list. Again consistency is key, and I was never able to be consistent enough to get good results.
What’s Next
Here’s what I learned in my year of experimentation:
What is easy is sustainable, what is pleasurable is motivating, what feels like dreadful labor, needs to go.
I’m not sure what those things are for you, but test things out and see what feels right for you. Once you choose the right platform for you, there are terabytes of information on how to excel on that platform.
Now my major challenge is that I have too many email lists with different audiences. My husband tells me I should combine them all, but that feels uncomfortable to me since my audiences are all different. I struggle to know who I am a brand. I don’t necessarily want to be a college/career advisor; it just happens to be the thing I am having fun creating content on for the moment.
I want to move into creating content on city planning issues, how to do community journalism, how to breakdown the nonprofit industrial complex, how to build teams that trust each other, improv and gamification techniques for facilitating, being a woman of color solopreneur, health policy issues...the list goes on and on. My interests are so diverse, I’m stuck thinking I have to create a new brand for each of my interests, but I know that is not the right path either. Figuring this out will be the next part of my journey.
If you are interested in following along, subscribe to my newsletter.
A huge thanks to Maria Aldrey, Tasshin Fogleman, Nate Baird, Suthen Siva, and Tiago Forte for their feedback!