What should official accounts do in 2023?

Should you give up your WeChat account? Maybe you can listen to his advice.

If you want to give up, just give up!

As long as you think about it, this is my answer.

Really, not only this year, but if you ask me next year or the year after, I will still recommend this article to you.

Although public accounts and self-media are not as popular as they were in the past, there are still a steady stream of new people starting to write public accounts, and you can often hear such voices: "I want to give up this public account."

Some people rush in, and some people give up. This is actually normal. Giving up a public account does not mean giving up life.

No matter what type of self-media you are doing, whether it is a public account, Xiaohongshu, Bilibili, Weibo, Video Account, Douyin or Kuaishou, the same applies.

If you want to give up, just give up.

Do you think I would say that you must persist and never give up when running your own media?

Forget it! Too many people have told you so.

I don’t firmly believe in the saying “persistence is victory”, and it’s quite irresponsible to single it out.

People need to persist, but they cannot be trapped in persistence. I don’t need to say much about the benefits of persistence. Quantitative changes will lead to qualitative changes. I used to think that people who insist on persistence are the best.

But looking back, it’s a bit tiger-like. Our persistence must also be scientific, planned and purposeful. If we only know how to persist, wouldn’t that make us a big fool?

There are many paths for people to take, not just one. The key is to find the one that suits you. Some should be persisted, while others can be given up. Some can be successful if you persist, while others will be dark all the way.

Moreover, it is really difficult for outsiders to directly tell you which path you should stick to. You have to keep trying and making choices yourself...

The sun may have risen early, you have to go out to see it.

Let’s go back to the issue of “giving up on being a self-media person”. I would like to briefly share a few small opinions that may make you persist or give up.

01

It is difficult to run a self-media business, very difficult. It is even more difficult to make yourself happy and make money, and it is even more difficult to do it now.

As for how difficult it is, those who have done it know it. Those who have not done it don’t need to know it, but if you want to do it, you will gradually know it.

But which job is easy? Each has its own difficulties.

Difficulty is never a problem. The most important thing is to understand the rules, pros and cons of each platform and match them to yourself.

If you give up just because it is difficult, you should do it as soon as possible. No success comes easily.

I think no one does self-media just for the sake of simplicity.

02

Pain is certain, anxiety is inevitable.

Some people say that if you really like doing something, you will become happier and happier as you do it, and there will be no pain.

Chicken soup. Pure chicken soup.

When we want to do anything well, we will experience pain and face anxiety. Perhaps the pain does not come from the thing itself, but from the various problems and confusions encountered in the process of doing it well.

It is right to be in pain. Only those who are not satisfied with the status quo will feel pain and have the potential motivation to change. It is also right to be anxious. You will have repeated anxiety only if you want to do this thing well.

These are a person's most real inner struggles, which are perfectly normal.

What is happiness? It is the small achievements after experiencing pain and anxiety.

03

When doing self-media on any platform, there should be an original intention.

What is the original intention? Is it to express yourself, make friends, create content, build IP, practice writing, or make stable money...

There's nothing wrong with these.

I have had the habit of writing posts and blogs to share my thoughts for a long time. I did not have a very planned operation when I started the public account. I just wanted to sort out my knowledge and experience on the public platform and express some of my own opinions, so as to force myself to keep learning and then feed back to my work.

It's that simple.

So I didn’t feel any pressure when I first started. I was happy when my followers and reading volume increased. It didn’t matter if the data was average, I was doing my own thing.

This was the biggest reason why I persisted at that time.

This original intention may change, and it can certainly change. There are certainly different ideas at different stages. But once it is determined, you must dive in and do it before giving up, rushing forward regardless of gains and losses.

I have met many people who made a lot of money from self-media and gave up and turned to other things. I also know many people who didn’t make money but are still continuing to write what they want to write.

So, figure out what you want to do?

Or, what do you want to do at this stage?

04

It is easy to get hurt if you start your own media with a grand vision.

The more beautiful you think before you do something, the more bleak the reality may be.

When you start your own media, don’t set a big goal for yourself right from the start and don’t insist on being like someone else.

I think it is more important to make corrections as you go. No one can predict where they will be in 10 years when they start working. No one is 100% sure which direction is right when they start working in self-media.

What we can do is to set our own short-term goals and constantly revise our plans based on actual conditions.

Moreover, the more painful and anxious you are, and the more likely you are to give up, the more you need to have short-term goals.

05

We media is not a place to make quick money.

Of course, if you start doing it before everyone else gets on board and harvest traffic savagely, you may make some money.

But obviously, the chances are slim.

If you want to make money quickly, you might as well do Taobao, cross-border e-commerce, or do part-time writing... These make money faster than self-media.

Even live streaming to sell goods, I think it makes money faster than running a self-media platform.

If you want to realize cash quickly, you can focus your main energy on doing these things, and you can play with self-media as a side job, right?

Wanting to cash in and wanting to cash in quickly are two completely different things.

06

Don't just start writing and writing without thinking.

Although writing is always better than doing nothing, many people just start writing on a whim, writing whatever they think of.

As a result, I don’t know what to say after writing for a few days, or I have no ideas after making a few videos, and no one watches them. Keep going in the face of difficulties, but don’t give up after continuing.

I haven’t thought about it yet.

You need to think more about whether you are ready to do it, what you want to do, what your positioning is, and who your target audience is...

Positioning is a must, at least you should have a general direction. The reason why many people are confused when doing self-media is that they have no positioning, don’t know the content direction, and don’t know what to do.

Moreover, if you want to be a self-media person, you need to absorb new knowledge for a long time. Without a positioning, it is difficult to learn in a targeted manner. Even if you are an entertainment anchor, you have to learn. Although it is always good to learn widely, if you want to be everything, you will end up being nothing.

Self-media is never just about writing and posting. A person who does not learn and has an empty mind cannot produce valuable content.

07

I used to say something like,

Don’t blindly engage in self-media!

There are many self-media platforms, and you don’t necessarily have to write. There are speaking platforms, video interpretation platforms, question-and-answer platforms, and you can also do live broadcasts, right?

It is true that some people are suitable for writing public accounts, while some people are not suitable, but they are suitable for Douyin, or Xiaohongshu, or Bilibili.

Each platform is like a different person, with its own characteristics and attributes. If you want to start your own media, you have to find a suitable platform.

Don't ask others which platform is suitable for you and what are the differences between each platform. If you don't want to understand these things yourself and don't want to spend time to find out the truth, then what's the point of doing P.

I'll give you a framework of ideas, please think about it carefully.

Self-media content forms: pictures, texts, short videos, audio, Q&A, live broadcasts, vlogs, etc.

Mainstream self-media platforms: official accounts, Douyin, Toutiao, Kuaishou, Himalaya, Penguin, Zhihu, Xiaohongshu, Bilibili, WeChat Video Account, etc.

Self-media monetization methods: advertising, selling products, building personal brands, knowledge payment, community payment, IP product development, earning royalties through submission of articles, consulting services, live streaming, original high-quality content rewards, traffic revenue + fan appreciation, etc.

By freely combining these three, you can come up with dozens of directions for creating your own media.

Instead of just one direction - writing articles for a public account. Isn't it?

08

If you want to give up, then just give up and try.

Simply stop opening your account for a month or two, stop worrying about topic selection, stop thinking about increasing followers, stop staying up late to work hard... stop everything.

Take a short vacation, give yourself a chance, and give your account a chance.

If you feel good after a month and don’t want to do it anymore, then give up. If you still want to write something here after a month, then accept the pain and be happy.

Okay, with all this nagging, I’m not trying to persuade you to give up, nor am I trying to persuade you not to give up.

Giving up and persisting are always active verbs, not passive verbs.

It's up to you to decide!!!

Author: Mumu Old Thief

Source: WeChat public account: "Mumu Laozei (ID: mumuseo)"