Some Basic Do’s and Don’ts of Content Creation
Becoming a content creator as a career became a popular idea when COVID-19 shut down the world. Millions of people suddenly found themselves at home with more time on their hands than they ever thought they’d have. Gamers suddenly had all the time in the world to game. People who never played video games before started gaming.
More free time also meant more time to scroll on social media, make connections with people, and find safe spaces and communities with others. These communities connected people with content creators, showing them a potential business opportunity for themselves. Content creators started popping up from all over the world, on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitch, among other platforms. The content varies from video game live broadcasting, also known as streaming, long-form and short-form video content, and graphic design content.
If you want to know how to get started as a content creator, I can help you. There is a lot to consider, but I’ll keep it as simple as possible for starters.
Do’s and Don’ts of Content Creation
Don’t: Quit Your Job
Growing as a content creator takes time and dedication. If you’re thinking “I’m going to invest in a professional-grade streaming setup, go live, and quit my job the next day”, I have to hit you with some reality. No one succeeds at content creation overnight, and you will not be the exception to that rule. Creators don’t become popular just by playing video games. There is much more to it, and it takes time.
Do: Create Content on Multiple Platforms
The creator space is highly saturated with creators of varying niches and sizes. This market, while friendly to newcomers, is not going to flood you with viewers, followers, and subscribers. Your massive community won’t come stampeding in with fan-made picket signs. You have to work on multiple platforms, maintain consistency with your brand and your content on each platform, and people will start to notice you. The best platforms to create content on are TikTok, Twitch, YouTube, and Instagram.
Do: Network with Other Content Creators
Making connections with similar creators is a very important aspect of content creation. You want to meet creators like yourself, at various points in their content creation career, from veterans that spent years building their brand, creators that are grinding but haven’t quite met their goals, and new creators like yourself. Evaluate their brands, and see what sets them apart from every other creator. You want to see how they engage with their communities, what incentives they have for their viewers, their followers and their subscribers. You also want to determine what you do and do not want to do with your own brand. This isn’t an objective of comparison. You’re not deciding what you’re going to do better than these other creators. You’re deciding what you’re going to do differently that will set you apart from them, along with other creators.
Don’t: Promote Your Content in Other Creators’ Communities
You can gain attention on social media and direct it to your primary creator platform in various ways. You can post trendy videos promoting your channel and profile, describing your content, posting clips of your content, etc. What you shouldn’t do is infiltrate another creator’s space with the sole intention of promoting yourself to their community. These creators put so much time and effort into their work to build their communities of supporters. For a new creator to enter these communities, play the part of a supporter, and then drop links to their own profiles and content is disrespectful to those creators. You don’t want to be known as the creator that tries to steal supporters from other creators.
Do: Find a Niche for Your Content
The content creation market is highly saturated with creators. This means that it’s going to take a lot of work to draw in supporters, because there are so many other creators they could be supporting. You can more easily grow your brand and your community of supporters is by finding a niche, or a much more narrowed down category of content. Popular niches for content creators are cozy, horror, strategy, adventure, multiplayer, and so on. You could even niche yourself down to one specific game, which might make starting out as a creator even easier. If you create content for one single game consistently, fans of that game will likely find you and start following your content. From there, you may decide to expand to a specific genre, or even variety, but starting out with as narrowed of a niche as possible will improve your chances of growth greatly.
Do: Stay Consistent with Your Content
In order to succeed as a content creator, you need to be consistent. That means maintaining your content on a regular basis. Publish your content schedule on your social media platforms, and stick to that schedule. When supporters find you, they will look for your content at those scheduled times, and if you’re not consistent with it, they’ll find another creator that is. Many platforms have algorithms, and if you maintain that consistency, you will be inserted into that algorithm and pushed out to users with similar interests to your current followers. That means you’re expanding your reach, and growing as a creator.
Do: Make Sure You Have What You Need
Every creator has their “dream” creator space – their stream setup, their video editing space, their gamer space. I have a post that lists the 10 things you need as a streamer, and most of these things branch out to most other forms of content creation as well. You don’t need all the professional quality tools to get started – just some basic utilities to make your career easier.
Get Started
These are the small basic points of content creation as a newbie. If you stick to the basics, keep your brand simple but unique, and maintain your network and connections, you’ll start yourself on the right foot as a creator. Content creation is a fun experience, even if you’re trying to make it a career. Make sure you’re always having fun with it. I believe in you! You’ve got this.
