Not everyday you have something to share!
Hey all, just wanted to put it the straight way I'm going through rn.
Everyone tells that you have to show up daily to gain some traction. Well, it seems all good & blue from a bird view.
If you're a designer or in a similar creative field, you may relate with me.
Not every day is filled with groundbreaking work or exciting updates to share online. There are days when inspiration may feel elusive, and it can be very sad to feel like you're falling short of the expectation to show up daily.
Have you ever gone through the same? How do you overcome this? Helpful comments are appreciated 🙏
everyone goes through this. if they say they don't, they're lying.
what i've found is that the mode that you operate in seems to be super important. always be in a long-game mindset, while maintaining that sense of urgency that got you started in the first place. it's a weird paradox where you need to stay focused on the now but also periodically and consistently zoom yourself out to the big picture.
is an off day here and there going to change your entire trajectory? of course not. give yourself full permission to have off days. but also don't just deny that they exist - find strategies and processes that get you back into your rhythm.
it's a tough thing that a lot of people don't really talk about, so just know you're not alone in this. hope that was helpful & happy buildin :)
I think if you keep working on your project daily but spent an hour a day doing nothing just to clear your mind. You will come up with something new. Also keep in mind that the quality content gains more engagement than a bunch of mediocre posts.
I initially struggled with this because i feel like i'm missing out when everyone publish their content and sharing thoughts everyday, but do not ignore the fact that it could take more than a day to create quality content to share with everyone. I would say it worth the effort you spend focusing on 1 thing than create a bunch of stuff and don't know which topic attracts the crowd
Oh absolutely. What works for me is consistency and trusting the process. There will be days where I will fully take an L. But I see those days as part of the process for the other times where you will be much more inspired and productive - they will feel much more intentional than just a waste :)
You are not alone. Everyone faces this quite often. I usually post about my day and the process or a meme may be.
It is totally okay to refrain from posting exciting updates or groundbreaking work.
There are many things you can post apart from the things mentioned above. Don't think of it as a status update but treat it as a life update.
So keep going and remember you are not alone. Everyone is in the same boat.
Thanks for your words, Utsav!
When I find myself in the same situation, I usually take 24h Internet detox, don't use any social media, don't consume any content.. In 24h you got magic – so many new ideas freshly generated. You are welcome
I think everybody goes through that. The best mindset could be to actually enjoy posting and not expect to get anything in return, that's not a cure, but I think it will be more bearable
This email-based tweeting daily challenge taught me a lot about sharing daily as a creator: https://hypefury.com/hypefury-daily/
Even if you don't have something to share that's a creation you can still post other types of posts however this depends on the type of account you want to run.
There's days when I go on Twitter and I bounce off because I don't feel like posting but I do my best to post at least 4-5 times a week even if it isn't always my best tweet ever or the best work I've made/worked on.
Tip: Ask your friends if you can share their work on your account and tag them. I do this for my personal account https://twitter.com/vintually with about 3-5 creators who I've worked with in the past and it helps drive a few visitors to the site I link.
Personally I've ran larger accounts https://twitter.com/ottojokes and once you reach a certain following size you don't need to post as much but instead engage with the people interacting with your content and making great content so people engage with it
Another Tip: Try to pick 2-3 days where you drop what you believe is really good content (and try to make these new pieces) then for the other 2-3 days you can focus on sharing thoughts, other peoples works, or just admit you don't have anything yet but something cool is coming
Hope this helps!
Quick Edit:
This also depends on your platform! If you're using Twitter it's more daily but being a creator on Instagram or visual platforms it can definitely take time creating the pieces of content without forming a content creation strategy (in general Twitter/Mastadon/Discord are more into works in progress than Instagram/TikTok)
Thank you so much for this detailed reply.
I'm a designer and mostly share my work and some inspiration and a few tutorials.
https://twitter.com/vansh_designs
Been lately hearing about HyperFury. Will try it now. Any tip for a new user like me?
I audit quite Twitter accounts (ran a free service doing this for indie game developers to help them get more followers) and even currently run some for the occasional client and I have to admit this is one of the hardest audits I've done XD
On the surface it seems like you're doing a lot correctly but as I dove in I think this may be just advanced Twitter use (like the threads, videos, etc).
As a content creator I think you're doing a lot of things right, BUT I think the problem is the positioning of the content and how your content appears over time.
When I mentor interns with Twitter marketing I have them focus on three things:
After doing a self audit of the account, I'd ask a few people directly who you know in person if they would follow your account to see what they think (doing this with people not in your industry helps you understand how easy the top level content is to understand and like).
Next you should focus on 3-5 core personas to see who resonates with your content.
As an example right now I'm growing this account https://twitter.com/taskslayerz
As we've been getting followers we dive into the follower list to see what people identify as. Recently we were shocked to see that VTubers were following us. After thinking about it we realized that VTubers were perfectly in (or maybe adjacent to) our target audience of "productive gamers". Doing this a few more times helped us to 3-5 times the number of hashtags we can use which makes our posts less spammy for Twitter's subcommunities.
Once you know who you want to follow your account and you understand the hashtags to use to find them you can join their communities and understand what they like, what times they are on social media, and how they talk. This will let you align your content to how they judge content (you still want to be unique however this can help you understand the initial value to provide).
Lastly, and this is most important
You have to understand the value that your providing to your followers.
Like newsletters, blogs, video games, and so many other forms of media...nobody wants to follow a social media account that doesn't provide some form of value. It's a bit raw but an entrepreneur I heard once said "People want to get paid, made, or laid" so you have to align your content to providing an outcome, transformation, or resource to people (there's certainly other forms of value like networks and entertainment).
By understand how you provide value with your content you'll be able to grow your audience on more than just Twitter (noticed you have two accounts so I also highly recommend this last point for the Strokes Studio account).
Yes, I agree that value providing is a must if you want to reach people.
My approach currently on the personal account is sharing a mix between thoughts, tutorials, and some design work. I reason I've made my agency account separate is so that content don't get derailed.
On my agency account (Strokes Studio), I mostly share the work done purely by me.
I'm now trying to provide value to the users in form of short tutorials, and some inspirations shared (Tweets like "5 spectacular website I've seen recently"). Whereas, on my agency account, I am not always working/designing something new everyday, so there's a gap of multiple days between new content (I would have to fix that gap)
As you suggested about newsletters, I was trying to put a design newsletter earlier on my agency account, but dropped the idea coz, it doesn't have so many followers and nobody will opt in seeing the account is new and no engagements. But I'll reconsider it now.
You also pointed out the content appearing over time. I have same views about it, my content is pretty much random, or maybe I'm misinterpreting your point.
Most people that follow me are designers/creators itself. So maybe I should keep posting more tuts, inspo related content would work?
Yeah I think you got what I mean! :)