Symptoms of 99% of people doing self-media

Introduction: This article starts with the author's personal successful experience and shares with readers a series of step-by-step practices of contemporary Internet entrepreneurs. It helps new media people improve their knowledge in terms of mentality, content, and subsequent development, and provides contemporary "new" media practitioners with very practical "operation experience".

Hello, fellow villagers. I am the village chief.

In this era where everyone is a self-media, seeing others become internet celebrities or sales influencers through self-media, many people are also eager to try it.

The village chief himself is just a small author with only tens of thousands of fans, a typical grassroots creator.

I started writing articles with zero fans and zero readers, and the first dozen or so articles only had a hundred readers.

Then I persisted foolishly for three years. Both the number of fans and the number of readers increased. Some people even started to reprint and pirate my articles. I also earned some pocket money and made some good friends through self-media.

Therefore, the village chief has a deep understanding of the process of a novice doing self-media.

I’d like to share this with you today, hoping it will give some strength to those friends who want to do it or are currently doing it!

Because the results you are facing may not be good now, and the problems you are facing have all been experienced by the village chief.

01 Tangled

Many people are actually very conflicted when they are about to start their own media.

Is it better to shoot videos or write articles?

Is it a comedy, a romance, or a talent show?

Is it about finance? Or parenting? Or e-commerce?

Do you shoot in the city? Or do you go back to your hometown?

Should I use my phone to take photos? Or should I buy a DSLR?

Should I write one article a week? Or three articles a week?

In this process, self-confirmation and denial will be repeated.

02Fear

I secretly registered a public account, a video account, a Douyin account, a Kuaishou account, and a Bilibili account, but I was afraid that people around me would know.

Therefore, when publishing works, I will deliberately block some people around me.

But I still wonder, what if my classmates, colleagues, or relatives see it?

What if something you wrote is criticized by others?

It’s okay to write articles, after all, I can use a pen name.

However, friends who shoot videos worry that their appearance and expression will be denied by others.

03Excitement

I have just finished writing my first article and shooting my first video, and I am actually quite excited.

After all, I overcame so many inner obstacles and finally clicked publish.

Generally speaking, the author is still relatively optimistic about the first three or five updated contents.

It's like being injected with chicken blood, and it's as if I can see that I'm about to become famous and rich.

04Tense

But often the greater the expectations, the greater the disappointment.

After publishing their works, many people will check their phones at least a dozen times a day.

Check the number of views, whether there is an increase in fans, and whether there are any interactions, comments, and likes.

Especially on headlines, when the number of readers is linked to revenue, many people will care more.

To be honest, the village chief has been writing for three years now, and he still feels the same.

Especially sometimes, when I think I have written a particularly good article, I will keep reading it.

05 Tank

For start-ups, the first three months are the most difficult.

Because of this process, my writing ideas are not smooth yet. It may take me a long time to conceive an article, and another three or four hours to finish writing it.

It may take a whole day to shoot, edit and publish a short video of one or two minutes.

However, the content feedback is very average, with less than a hundred readings, less than ten interactive likes, and only a few cents of revenue.

Many people will begin to deny and question themselves.

I spent so much effort, time and money to shoot, but the data is so bad and I am laughed at. Is it really worth it? Is mine suitable?

Or just forget it and shoot it next year or the day after tomorrow.

Originally shooting five takes a week became three, one, or even one a month.

In fact, the more it is at this time, the more we have to hold on!

For many ordinary people, the payback period for short videos is 3-6 months before there are some results.

For example, traffic has started to stabilize, revenue has increased, some loyal fans have started to interact, and even live streaming is possible to sell goods.

Therefore, refuse to give up and keep shooting.

06 Anxiety

What to write today?

What to shoot tomorrow?

Are all 30 pieces of content for next month ready?

How many followers did you gain this month?

How many videos have had more than 100,000 views this month?

Is there any income from advertising this month?

Has the unit price of videos increased?

Is there any loss this month?

When can I sell the goods?

What can I sell?

Where can I find the source of goods? How can I ship the goods? How can I get after-sales service?

Questions like these will continue to haunt you.

Especially when you plan to do self-media full-time, money is the most important thing.

07Excitement

If you can successfully survive the account cultivation period, you will be excited for a long time.

For example, the video I posted today went viral and became popular again.

The amount of interaction is always 99+, and there are still many fans sending private messages asking to add WeChat, etc.

You can see your video income increasing every day, and there are even official teachers who will take the initiative to add you to the author group and give you traffic support plans.

At the same time, you also begin to gain recognition from some friends and peers, and some people ask you to promote products, advertise, and communicate offline.

08 Plain

It is normal to feel excited when seeing your investment paying off, and you have to get excited.

But this state will not last very long. No matter how good it is, it will only last three months at most.

After that, you won’t focus on whether what you wrote today will be a hit.

You start to think about and summarize the rules of writing and shooting videos, and how to cater to the needs of the platform and authors.

I started to focus on finding resources and connections, and began planning to create different content channels, including whether to create a matrix account, whether to recruit another employee, etc.

You will find that as you transition from an immature to a mature state, you begin to think about how to run an account, a field, or a product over the long term.

At this point, you find that you are no longer a content writer, but a business operator and manager.

Of course, achieving this goal will be difficult and may take three to five years.

I also hope that one day we can all reach this stage.

Today I want to share the difficult journey of a content creator with the purpose of telling you that most ordinary people are in the same situation.

When you see other people’s success, you actually realize that it is the result of a lot of hard work.

The test is whoever can come up with ways to deal with the situation at different stages will be able to get through it and gain something!

Author: The village chief lives in Shili Village

Source: WeChat public account "Shili Village"