Many individuals want to be streamers and content creators with grand ambitions and goals they wish to achieve. I write this article to tell you not to give up and more importantly to plan your success.
Now as a note, before we dive into this, I am not sitting on a throne of success bellowing instructions on what to do, but rather like a psychologist, show you that you have the answers to these questions already. I just want to help you find them and avoid the mistakes I have made.
I get asked countless questions such as, “How do I get sponsored”, “What is the best way to succeed”, and “How long will it take to see results” To all of these people I always say that they are asking the wrong questions.
I love using movies as illustrations, so let me take you on a trip down memory lane to the Matrix 2 Revolutions: Neo is instructed by the Oracle to seek out the Merovingian in order to get the Keymaker. The Merovingian asks a simple question “Why are you here?” to which Morpheous in typical fashion says “We are looking for the Keymaker”. The Merovingian replies by saying “This is not a reason, this is not a why”, and that “the Keymaker is not an end, so to be looking for him is means to do what?”. This may not be the perfect example of what I am trying to explain, but many aspiring content creators get stuck thinking about all the wrong things rather than the most important aspect of actually creating captivating content.
Before we dive in, please rest assured that I will cover all the topics and guide you as best as I can, but content has to be built on the correct foundations.
Your Business Plan:
Any professional content creator is actually conducting a business. Do not fool yourself in naivety thinking that it will all work out by just making content, it won’t.
Aspiring content creators are going into probably the most competitive industry in the world! These days, anyone with a cellphone and an idea can be a content creator and right now you are just one in the masses.
The good news is that anyone, yes anyone can be successful if they follow a plan. There are content creators who gain overnight success, yes, but this is a case of the right content at the right time and the right people seeing it. For the rest of us, it’s a grind.
I always use the phrase “open your restaurant” and below you will understand why.
The Product
Now thinking about the context of a restaurant: Have you ever been to a restaurant that serves multiple dishes of Chinese, Italian, French, American, and so on? The answer is no. Every successful restaurant has a theme. That theme may be different cuisines from different lands but it would be focused and artisanal. This is your product.
You need to select the type of content you are going to create so that you grow an audience that enjoys your product. Please understand that variety can be your product but it needs to be specific. Using a restaurant again, Imagine you walk into a restaurant you have never been to before and you order a hamburger. This hamburger is the best hamburger you have ever had. A week later you look at the menu and see the same hamburger and because you enjoyed it so much you order it again! Now, when it arrives, it’s not beef this time, its plant-based meat, the lettuce has been substituted with cabbage and the bun is a bran muffin… You would be disappointed and chances are you would not go back.
You need to understand that your product defines whether people will come back or not. You can tweak and improve on an existing recipe but you can’t jumble it every time.
The Target Market
Now if you have an established product, you need to know who your target market or audience is. You cannot sell meat to a vegetarian. Get it cemented in your mind that not everyone is going to like your content and more importantly cement that this is NORMAL!
The reason the target market is so important is not to create a plan to reach them but rather to establish how important it is to not change your content to suit everyone because this is impossible.
As time passes your target market will find you (with a little advertising). If you have a good product, it will happen, just be patient.
The Consistency
Back to our restaurant… You went there on a Tuesday and when you go back in a few weeks on a Tuesday you are greeted by closed doors.
This is something even the biggest streamers have done incorrectly. You are a show, an act! You can’t just do it when it feels good or convenient. There have been countless times in my life when I have walked into a restaurant but it was completely empty, IT SUCKS! But the manager does not just say “whatever” and close early, he can’t.
One of the things that we will never be able to predict is universal chance. You could be streaming with 0 viewers and you get that one person who walks in and changes your life. It could be a raid, it could be that person who goes and promotes your channel which starts the pebble causing an avalanche.
I can promise you that if you are not alive, that is never going to happen.
The Avenues
Speaking a little bit more broadly, you need to choose the correct avenue for your content.
If you like making short videos, Twitch is not the best avenue no matter how much you want to be a streamer. Let me put it this way: As much as I would like to be a Victoria’s Secret Runway model, I need to face the fact that I’m not a woman amongst many other things.
Knowing your limitations is an advantage in being able to apply your energy to your strengths.
Align your product to the correct channel or avenue.
The Grind
To complete our first article in this series we need to talk about the grind. I love the grind because it is what separates those who desire success from those who find it too hard to continue.
This is going to sound horrible but nothing gives me greater pleasure than a content creator giving up. This is not because I want people to fail, it’s because it grants the opportunity to those who are prepared to make the sacrifice to make it happen. So many people want to be a content creator for all the wrong reasons and generally, that is money. Money is a byproduct of creating good content and sticking to it no matter what.
Giving up is easy, staying with it when the results are not coming is what separates us.
I hope this provided good insight and I will end with a question which you need only answer to yourself, you will find it will answer so many more questions than you realize.
Why do you want to make content?
