Crafting your voice as a content creator
Craft your avatar!
Write for your audience!
Write in your niche, and only in your niche!
These are advice from other writers, and I get it. I really do get it.
I’m going to be super honest: it doesn’t work for me!
Since I started taking Medium seriously (only in the past few months), I’ve spent so much time (way too much time if you ask me) crafting the perfect sentences, always thinking about my niche and avatar (avatar = ideal reader), and formatting articles for the never-ending requirements for different publications.
I’m tired, and I’m done doing that.
Some successful writers (e.g. Viam and Kristen Walters ) don’t ever publish in publications (except if it’s their own) and have huge followers with a crazy amount of comments on their articles.
They are just being themselves. And by doing just that, they are successful.
Regardless of the platform, comments are the most valuable currency because it means people pay attention to the content.
These are just some questions that run through my mind when creating content.
I’m done writing stuff that I think my readers might like.
It’s exhausting.
I’ve been writing in sprints.
One sprint is two weeks long, and I set different goals for each sprint.
After the sprint, I do a retrospective and analyze my data.
This process is methodological and analytical, which is important if you want to succeed in this content creation game.
The idea is that you create more of what resonates with people based on the data you gather from your sprint.
It does work, and there’s no doubt about this.
But!
Is it exhausting?
Yes! Very much so!
I’ve been creating video and written content for years. But only in the past few months have I realized that the more I force myself to write what I think might resonate with my viewers and readers, the further I get away from myself.
It doesn’t feel good.
It’s like walking in shoes that are one size too small.
You can do it, but is it comfortable for the long term?
Absolutely not!
If you’re one of these content creators, ask yourself:
I asked myself, and the answer was: certainly not fun!
And I want to have fun!
The real problem is when I started as a content creator, I was creating for some imaginary audience.
I knew who I wanted to attract, and after nearly 3 years on YouTube, I drew a small number of people to my channel.
Of course, there was a time when I’d have killed for over 2K subscribers, but those days are behind me.
Growing on Medium is challenging.
It’s harder than growing on YouTube, as I came to realize.
So I thought, ok, I can keep playing safe and think about all of the topics my audience might want to read or watch, but…how much fun do I have doing it?
Here’s the thing.
If you’re a content creator with a small following, no one cares.
If you’re a content creator with a large following, everyone cares.
The conclusion?
Do you! Create whatever you want!
Create for your younger self.
Create articles, videos, and podcasts your younger self would’ve wanted to consume.
I realized I didn’t need to & I don’t want to play it safe.
What is it that I’m getting out of it? Maybe $50 a month? That’s really peanuts for the time I’m putting into my content.
I love Tim Denning’s Substack newsletter, Unfiltered.
It’s a damn good name, right?
He provides value with each of his articles, and I’m 100% sure he does it authentically. He’s not afraid of being messy or controversial. I get an unfiltered version of Tim.
One of my most provocative articles brought me hundreds of dollars. And it was all me.
I tried to submit it to UX Collective, but they didn’t take it saying it’s not for their audience (which I still doubt) and it’s a rehashed article (while it’s not). It’s an opinion piece with many references and did amazingly well in Prototypr.
After over 10 rejections from that publication, I realized I didn’t need them. Some pubs always find an excuse why they won’t publish your article. But if Zulie Rane, with over 150K followers, writes a story on fonts for them, magically, it is just a perfect fit!
Yeah, I’m being a bit bitter about the experience, but that’s the unfiltered version of me.
You probably noticed the same phenomenon if you’ve been around long enough.
Big accounts still get published in major publications even if their articles don’t follow the rules or have grammar & spelling mistakes or provide no real value.
It’s a bias!
If you become large enough on Medium, you can leverage that. But until then, you can just feel the unfairness of it.
There’s that age when people stop caring about what other people think. I mean, ‘screw that’ kind of not caring.
I don’t think Tim gives a flying F about whether he’s liked. It seems he’s been being his true self since the get-go, since he started writing addicted2success.com.
I adieu farewell to not being liked.
I accepted the fact that not everyone will like me and what I say because my unapologetic me is not everyone’s cup of tea.
And…I’m okay with that.