Why am I not good at self-media?

Nowadays, many people's side jobs are to do self-media, hoping to build popularity through the Internet and gain both fame and fortune. But the reality is that after an article or video is posted, the total number of readings barely exceeds 100, and the number of likes is only in the single digit. Why can't we do self-media well? The author of this article summarizes some reasons based on his own experience and shares them with you.

Internet celebrities are everywhere, and they are worth a fortune. Successful cases one after another have made countless people move towards or think about becoming self-media. This is naturally a right given to everyone by the times, and it is also a driving force for people to keep moving forward. But when everyone wants to become a big V and stand out from the crowd of hundreds of millions, the results are bound to not always be satisfactory.

Take my own experience with Xiaohongshu as an example. The results were dismal. I have been doing it on and off for two years, and my fans are 470, not even 500. As someone who loves learning, experimenting, and reviewing, I naturally wonder: Why can't I do well in self-media? To put it simply, there are three main reasons for my failure in self-media.

1. Main reasons

1. Laziness

This is the most important reason why 99% of people fail to run self-media. Quantity does not mean quality, nor does it necessarily mean that it can bring better data. But planned and continuous content output is the most basic requirement for doing well in self-media.

When I was doing my own media, I was more casual. When I wanted to do something, I would record a few clips; when I didn’t want to do it, I would discard it. If I couldn’t form a sustainable content output and regular and effective columns, I naturally couldn’t bring good results.

2. Don’t bother to create content that is too basic

As any platform grows, its audience will inevitably change from a relatively niche track to a relatively popular track. Then, the most acceptable and collectible content becomes a very important content component.

So, what kind of content is more likely to be accepted by the widest range? Of course, it is not the professional, advanced and high-end content, but the most basic and fundamental ABC that does not require any thinking.

Therefore, you will find that there are a lot of high-traffic content on major self-media platforms that collect and summarize brain map information. In fact, this is the reason. This is a bit like the best-selling book in China, which you may not expect is actually the "Xinhua Dictionary".

For a lazy person like me, I am naturally unwilling and don't want to organize these most basic contents. I think highly of myself and am too proud.

3. Unconscionable content

There is no derogatory meaning here. For the audience, truth is unwelcome. Because I know the truth and I need justice, but these are the least valuable. Just like how to get good grades, the core and the most important thing is to spend more time on previewing, studying, practicing, reciting, etc. These are the simplest things.

But, isn’t this nonsense? So, what is really popular is something like this: Just study for one hour a day to improve your math score by 30 points, and learning these three methods will make you earn over 10,000 yuan a month, etc.

Of course, I also use these contents. But I still think they are meaningless. You can fool others, but you can never fool yourself.

4. All of the above reasons are wrong

Perhaps, I have felt this way for a long time. I am not good at self-media because of the above reasons. Self-media belongs to the media, and the core of the media is content, so I, like everyone else, will put the core of everything on the content. So, I studied various contents and looked for the reasons.

2. No goals are the reason why we cannot do well in self-media

But later, I found out that I was wrong. The reason why I failed to do self-media was not because of the above reasons, but because I missed the most core point when doing self-media - the goal. I think the reason why 99% of people fail to do self-media is the same.

Why is it a goal? Because when you do something, you have a goal, a sense of urgency and mission for the goal, which can motivate you to move towards the goal and work hard to achieve it. Just like the KPI in our workplace. Because you know that if you can't handle the KPI, you won't get a good result at the end of the year, and you may even be fired. So, you work hard to move towards the KPI.

When I was doing self-media, I didn't set a clear goal for myself. I just wanted to do it casually and feel the difference between various platforms. So, when it came to implementation, the result presented was what I said above, do it when I have time, and forget it when I don't have time.

The final result is no result. But if you have a goal, the result will be different. For example, for anyone who wants to do self-media, we set a 3-month time period and set the following 3 different indicators for each 3-month time period.

First month: Post content every day

In the first month, you should win by quantity. Don’t worry about anything. Just develop a habit and tell yourself to post one every day. Keep going. Keep going.

Second month: There is a hit

The second month is naturally to have quality functions. So, how to calculate quality? Let's set an indicator, there is a hit. What is a hit? We can set it ourselves, there is a video that has at least 5 people collected it.

Third month: at least 100 followers

As a self-media, fans are an extremely important criterion. Therefore, in the third month, you need to set a goal for fans.

Above, when you have a goal, you will move towards it. For example, we want to achieve the goal of 100 followers in the end. At first, you will definitely think about constantly posting content, adjusting content, improving the quality of content, etc. This is of course correct, content is always the first priority.

But after one month, you will find that no matter whether it is Xiaohongshu, Kuaishou, Douyin or Video Account, the logic of content recommendation is always a black box that no one can figure out. Even if you have a popular app, and you make a few more based on the same model, and the quality is higher than the popular one at that time, there will be no traffic.

Therefore, you should be clear about what is certain and what is uncertain when achieving your goals. For example, natural growth through content itself is certain, because the traffic logic of self-media is uncertain, or cannot be determined by you; but you will find that warming up and following other creators is relatively fixed, because everyone wants to increase their fans, even if everyone knows that the quality of fans is not high, but it doesn’t matter, just get the goal first.

So, mutual following groups came into being.

Of course, the above does not mean that you should abandon the quality of fans, but when we are doing something, we must have a strong sense of purpose. In this way, we can be closer to success.

So, how can we clarify the goal, break it down, and implement it step by step? Please go to "Operational Solution for the Big Bug of "Cannot Find Objects""

Author: Yang Jun