Dear Content Creator,
Many times, we are our own greatest enemies and we don’t even realise it. Sometime in 2018, I made a post where I listed some signs that you are your own greatest enemy. If you haven’t seen it, you should consider taking a peep.
I believe that there are also signs like this that apply specifically to content creators. When you do any of these things, you’re basically being your own enemy and stopping yourself from getting to where you ought to be. So in this post, I’ll be sharing three things that I believe African content creators should avoid. If you relate with any of these, then you should consider working on letting go of that habit.
- Negative comparison
In finding motivation and even inspiration for fresh content, it’s difficult (almost impossible) as a content creator to not compare yourself with other creators. However, it becomes a problem when you start to do a lot of negative comparison and putting yourself down for not doing as ‘well’ as someone you think is doing well.
First of all, you have different goals from this person and possibly different reasons why you are creating content. When you compare yourself too much with other creators, you start to want to copy and gradually lose touch with your own authenticity or the authenticity of your brand. Again, like I said, different goals!
Also, you might have different or even less resources than this person you are comparing yourself with and beating yourself up about. I’ve been in this position before where I was really comparing myself to other creators in terms of how frequent and consistent they were in putting out content. Then, I sat down and actually thought about it. Most of these people I was looking at are full-time content creators. I have a 9 to 5 job and other side work so imagine how little time I have to actually focus on content creation.
Now why should I, working 9-5 plus extra work be beating myself up for not consistently putting out as much content as a full-time content creator? Do you get where I’m going with this? Stop being too hard on yourself because you’re comparing your work with other people. Your only competition should be you.
- Understand your audience
Understanding what your audience wants will help you put out content that people actually want to read or watch. The best content answers questions that your audience have or anticipates needs that they don’t even know they have yet. The only way to address these needs are with your content.
Basically, you need to commit time to understand what your audience wants. Study which kinds of your content does better with the audience and put out more similar content.
- Show Up
The more content you have, the more traffic you can attract. It’s easy to fall out of line and then start procrastinating putting out any more content. However, one thing I’ve learned with content creation is that the only way to make up for not showing up is to show up. It’s not by planning some big content entry or waiting for the ‘right’ time. It is by simply coming back and showing up.
So put out as much content as you can and continue to show up every time! Content creation requires commitment so even if you only have a limited time to do it, ensure you are committed to making it work and showing up at that time.
Dear content creator,
I hope these bits of advice will help you as much as they have helped me.
Love,
Tomi of Lagos
TOMI OF LAGOS. 