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Content creation can be hard
Isn't it ironic that we live in a time where technology is at its peak, people are way more connected than ever, opportunities are everywhere, and yet about 65% of workers face burnout?
Content creation is fun, but it can also be hard, just like any other job out there. I'm Shaun, the founder of thecreativepistachio.com and my goal in this article is to share some advise that I've learnt over my 5 years of experience creating content for myself and for brands, to help make the process easier and more enjoyable for you. Let's get started.
Summary
Who is this article for?
People who are already thinking about creating content for their personal brand or business but have not started yet.
People who have been creating content but find it difficult majority of the time.
People who get burnt out easily.
The 10 Habits
1. Delayed gratification
"We live in an era of instant gratification where we expect immediate results and instant rewards." - Emilio Justo, MD.
Emilio Justo explains in his recent Ted Talk that delayed gratification is "the practice of resisting the temptation for immediate rewards and instead choosing to invest time and effort into long term goals".
We can practise this in content creation by giving value for free without expecting anything in return for an indefinite period of time.
Why is this important? Most of us expect quick results, in some cases results is referred to as ROI (return of investment) and if you are in the digital marketing or business space you should be very familiar with that term.
If you fall victim to this, you shouldn't feel guilty about it because it's part of human nature to want satisfaction right away, especially when the resources used are precious, i.e. time and money. The more effort, time and money we put into something, we expect bigger results; A very commonly acceptable concept. But what if I told you that if you want to succeed in content creation and growing an audience, the more value you are able to provide your audience for free and the longer you are willing to wait to see results, the bigger your ROI will be? The result of delayed gratification is resilience, strengthening our abilities to overcome obstacles, as Gusto explained.
More on delayed gratification here.
2. Quantity over quality
That's not a typo. Quantity over quality, not the other way around. Mozart has over 600 music works. Van Gogh has over 2000 original paintings. People get good at their craft by repetition, very rarely, that it is from being good at the start. We've said this countless times in our free newsletter and social media postings and we will say it again (and keep saying it) because it is so so important. Most of us want to start creating content online, but are probably too afraid to start because we directly compare ourselves to creators we look up to who create incredible stuff today, but what we don't see is how many times they have failed at the beginning. If you only aim for quality, you are stopping yourself from creating content at a frequent pacing. Lower your barrier of entry, make use of what you have, and just start posting.
Austin Kleon, New York Times bestselling author of Steal Like an Artist, explains in the same book that when we focus on quantity, the process of creating, releasing, promoting, intaking feedback and improving, happens at a much faster pace, resulting in compounding improvement at your craft.
I recommend watching this video here which explains deeper on why quantity should be your priority.
3. Consuming with intention
You've probably heard about doom scrolling. It's the act of scrolling on social media for a long period of time, as opposed to doing what you're supposed to be doing at that time.
People typically demonise scrolling on your phone because it is seen as unproductive and a time waster. I agree to a certain extent, because you can quickly turn this around and I find that scrolling on social media can be beneficial if you are consuming content with intention.
The 'with intention' part is important. How do you do that? Whenever you come across something interesting that you want to take inspiration from for your own content, save that post immediately. Check out other similar accounts and get inspiration from them. You can even set a specific time in your calendar, like 15 to 30 minutes, just to scroll on TikTok. Scrolling can be beneficial not just for fresh ideas, but also analysing and learning what works and what doesn't for other accounts. We cannot create if we don't consume.
4. Choose wisely what to focus on
Laura Carstensen, a Stanford psychologist, conducted a rather interesting experiment by showing positive and negative imagery to young and old test subjects.
What she found was the amygdala (the part of the brain that is responsible for our emotions) of the elderly was active only for the positive images, whereas the younger participants' amygdala were active for both positive and negative images.
This concludes that the older subjects were mostly happier than the younger ones, but it's not because they had happier lives. It's because the older participants have developed a skill that younger people don't - they learned to rewire their brains to savour the positive and ignore the negative.
I first read about the experiment above from a book called Deep Work by Cal Newport (one that I highly recommend) and it made me realise how important our point of focus is and how it can dramatically impact our journey in whatever we do.
Why is this relevant?
Because content creation, regardless if you are creating for yourself or for a company you work at, is a tough ride. Hate comments, low engagement, negative feedback, lack of support, lack of ideas, etc. can drain our energy, fast. I find that focusing on enjoying the process of content creation itself as a whole helps a lot in getting through tough times. Content creation is a marathon, not a sprint. Instead of focusing on hate comments, celebrate your small wins like whenever someone likes your post.
Small mental shifts like this can drastically make anything more enjoyable.
5. Practice your writing
A quote from Dan Koe - "Writing is a meta skill." What he means is by being good at writing, you enable yourself to be good at, or start being good at multiple other skills too, which can build up over time.
For example, being good at writing online means you can write better captions, which means you will understand what hooks your audience, which means you can also create better video hooks, which means you can also sell better, which means you can communicate better... you see where this is going?
Platforms like LinkedIn and X are PERFECT places to start posting your writing work. In my opinion, X especially, is incredibly underrated in Malaysia, and it has tremendous marketing and audience building potential if you start taking it seriously.
You don't have to write a lot. You can just start by writing about your experiences, your mistakes, your highs and lows of running your business. Don't think too much about what your niche is at the start. Your niche grows an develops overtime. Trust me.
6. Focus
Success is not about waking up early and taking cold plunges. It's about choosing carefully and being intentional about where you direct your focus to. I think a lot of us don't feel productive as creatives because creative work feels very different from other work. How many times have you sit down at your desk with the intention of coming up with content ideas, or maybe you have a video to edit, and you find yourself staring at your screen jumping between the 20 tabs you have open? Happens more often than you think, which is why I recently realised how important focus can be. Here's something that I've been doing recently that helps with content creation. Find when you are the most creative and when you are the most productive.
Use the productive time for the more "boring" tasks.
Use the creative time for creative tasks.
Use the time in between to rest. For example, I find that I am the most creative during the evenings, so I will tend to edit videos, ideate, write video scripts, etc. during that creative slot. During my mornings, I try to get tasks like research, posting, meetings, client communications, etc. out of the way. Though of course this won't be perfect in the ideal world, because every day might be different and we will constantly be hit with other aspects of life, but this tiny tweak does wonders in helping me focus and get stuff done.
7. Make boring tasks fun
Most of us will eventually realise that content creation is not a one-skill job. It involves multiple skills. Here are just a few of them:
Ideation
Audience research
Competitor analysis
Marketing
Design
Videography
Photography
Copywriting
Photo editing
Video editing
SEO Optimisation
Advertising
Chances are, we don't enjoy doing all of them and we are not skilled at all of them. That's why a lot of us can get burnt out especially at the beginning stages when we are doing most, if not all of these ourselves. One way to avoid getting burnt out is to make the process fun. There's many ways you can do this, but one common method is to genuinely be excited about what you are doing. You didn't choose to create content to be miserable, at least that's what I hope.
Ali Abdaal has a book called Feel Good Productivity that I highly recommend to read further on this topic.
8. Grow your network
There's a common saying: "Your network is your net worth." This is true online and offline.
Never think that you can grow your company or personal brand online alone. It's called "social" media for a reason. Being online means we have the advantage of interacting with other people in and outside our niche, locally and even from other parts of the world.
Make it a habit to have an intention to check out other accounts, comment on their videos, send a friendly DM, share their videos to your followers, etc.
It has to be intentional and not just doing these for a "follow for follow" sake.
Alone you might grow fast, but together we can grow far.
LinkedIn and X are incredible platforms for growing your network, but other social media platforms should not be ignored.
9. Stop caring about numbers
I used to be obsessed with numbers. Every time I posted something, I would be on the app, refreshing every couple of seconds to see if I'm getting any new likes, and I would keep doing this for the first 30 minutes the post goes up.
This wasn't healthy for me, physically and mentally, and it applies to you too.
I know... I know... if you are managing social media content for a brand, your manager might not agree with this, but hey let's keep this between you and me, alright?
Social media is ever-changing, and it's not just the technology that's updating at a rapid pace. We are dealing with real humans behind the screen. People age, people grow, people switch interests and hobbies, some people move to different cities and change their identity and start a new life. The point I'm trying to make is, followers, likes, shares, comments, etc. should not directly correlate to your success online. Focus on the process instead. There's absolutely no point in doing something long term if you aim to achieve greatness at the very beginning. Your satisfaction from the followers and likes you get comes from that short term dopamine rush. Enjoying the process and focusing on building an audience organically and learning things along the way, is long term.
Just post some stuff. Double-down on what works and change or remove what doesn't.
10. Record a video version of your podcast
One common mistake for content creators is only relying on short form video content because Reels and TikToks are the hot thing right now. The truth is, long form video is not going anywhere. YouTube is still the 2nd most visited site in the world with over 122 million users per day. That's more than 2 times more than TikTok, as of May 2024. The main reason for this is because YouTube is not just a social media platform, it is a powerful search engine just like Google.
Instagram started as a photo sharing app, and now supports videos up to 60 minutes.
TikTok started off with only short form vertical videos, and just recently is highly considering 60 minute video uploads and is currently letting certain users test this feature. Therefore, if you have a podcast or are thinking of starting a podcast, we strongly suggest that you record and post two versions for each episode - an audio version and a video version.
The audio version can go to streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, etc. and the video version can be uploaded to YouTube.
The main reason here is to increase search engine discoverability.
Long form videos especially on YouTube, are way more discoverable than audio based media. For instance, when you Google something, you will be presented with websites and YouTube videos that are the most relevant, and most likely not podcast links to audio streaming platforms.
So fact that long form video content is way more SEO friendly than short form content and audio content, is important to keep in mind in your content creation journey.
The Creative Pistachio's mission
The Creative Pistachio was founded with a mission to help people like you share ideas online by creating valuable content for your audience. We are constantly finding ways to help you get creating, easier and happier. If this sounds like you and you found this article helpful, we want to connect with you and be friends.
Here's how you can be a part of our journey:
Like and share this blog on your socials, tag us and let us know what you learnt from it.
Follow @thecreativepistachio on Instagram.
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Follow @TCPistachio on X.
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Tell your friends about us.
And hey if you want to know why you should start creating a podcast and how you can do it with a minimal (or zero) budget, you can find out more here. Keep creating, friends.
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