It's funny, a lot of kids growing up say that they want to be a firefighter or a doctor or a veterinarian or a marine biologist when they grow up. But ever since I was a surprisingly young age, I wanted to be a content creator.
Before there even really was a term for content creator or influencer, but I knew that I wanted to have a YouTube channel where people would watch my videos and I could meet other people online who shared the same passions as me and I could make videos that other people would appreciate.
I started my YouTube channel when I was 12 years old and a very cringey preteen talking about Harry Potter and how much I hated math class, but I knew just how much I loved creating videos and relating to other people outside of the little small town where I grew up.
But a lot has changed in the time that I have been a content creator, but I think there are also a lot of things that have stayed the same, particularly the mindset shifts that you need to take on if you want to have the confidence, the consistency, the motivation that you need in order to be successful at creating content and growing a community around that content.
So today we're going to talk about five mindset shifts that are going to be essential for you to make if you want to see success as a content creator in 2024. So let's get into it. Welcome to the creator club podcast, produced by creatorly media. I'm your host Katie. I'm a side hustle YouTuber, turned six figure entrepreneur who's obsessed with social media strategy and content creation.
From making YouTube videos in my bedroom as a very cringey 12 year old to building a social media marketing agency from the ground up in my early 20s, there have been a lot of struggles along my content creator journey. My mission with this podcast is to share the lessons that I've learned in the hopes that it will make your journey in growing as a creator a little easier and a lot more fun.
By the way, this club is open to everyone, whether you have one or one million followers, you have a seat at this table. So let's dive in. In addition to embracing the mindset of a successful content creator, it's also very important if you want to see success online that you have a good grasp on your social metrics.
Seriously, I think understanding your insights and your analytics as a content creator is a superpower because it unlocks this whole new space of strategy and truly understanding your audience. And I think the best way to do that is by using dash Hudson. Dash Hudson is my personal favorite social media metrics platform online. They're also the sponsor of this season of the creator club podcast. So shout out to dash Hudson. Thanks for your support.
Seriously, I love their platform because it is so visually based. It's all dashboards that are fully customizable so that you can have just the metrics that are most important to you available right away as soon as you log into the platform plus it connects to all of the platforms.
You can see your Instagram TikTok YouTube Pinterest Twitter and Facebook analytics all in one place, which is just so convenient because you don't have to be switching tabs and logging into all these different places. You can sync your accounts and see the trends, see the metrics, see your audiences preferences across platforms all in one place.
Plus with their awesome tools and features, you're able to do so much with your metrics. For example, their AI tool called vision allows you to upload a new piece of content that's never been seen by the internet before and vision will give you a prediction based on your past content performance.
Whether or not that piece of content is going to perform well when you do post it or you can even see how your own metrics measure up compared to your competitors, you can load in the different accounts that you want to track and you can see how your account or your brands results compared to other people in your industry or niche.
This information is super valuable to have, especially if you're a content creator, knowing your insights, knowing the performance of your content allows you to advocate better for yourself when it comes to securing brand deals and of course as a social media manager, it allows you to prove your worth show your results to your manager or your clients.
So if you're not on Dash Hudson as a total necessity for anybody working in the social media space and you can grab a free trial if you go to the link in the show notes. So make sure you check that out. I promise it is going to be a game changer for your workflow. And thanks again to Dash Hudson for being the sponsor of the creator club podcast mindset shift number one, you need to think of yourself as a business because you are.
And most of us when we are starting out, we become content creators as a hobby, we do it because it's fun because we just feel like it. And so for a long time, even as you start to think of this as a potential way to make money, you still kind of are in that mindset of being a hobbyist of just doing it for fun.
So this might kind of be out of habit that you're still in this hobby mindset, but it also might be because if you're honest with yourself, you might not be ready to admit to yourself, the people in your life that you really truly want to make content creation, your career. And that can be vulnerable that can feel scary to admit. And I think that really taps into a big part of why people have a hard time getting started with content creation because it is so public.
It's like this public admission of like I want to be a famous influencer, but clearly I'm not one yet. I think that's why so many people feel like the early stages of content creation feel so cringy feel so embarrassing. It's because it's that vulnerability of admitting, hey, I want to do this and I want to do this really well, but I'm not there yet.
There are so few other places in life where you have to be so public about something that you're actively trying to work on and improve, like for example, like if I really want to improve my Spanish skills, for example, this year I've been your girls been trying to learn Spanish a lot, almost as it doesn't have to be so public unless you make it by telling everybody on your podcast that you're trying to learn Spanish, but like, for example, like the people in my life don't necessarily know.
Like my family doesn't necessarily know that I've been taking Spanish lessons. It's funny like just the other day, like I like to practice Spanish by just talking to Dan, my husband in Spanish, even though he doesn't understand. He's like, when are you going to tell your parents that you speak Spanish now? So anyway, it's just like kind of this funny thing where you can take on new hobbies, you can take on, you know, trying a new sport or playing an instrument or like cooking a new recipe.
And you don't have to tell everybody in your life that you're trying to do something new and that, you know, you're not very good at it yet, obviously, because you just got started. It can be private. It doesn't feel so vulnerable. But the thing about being a content creator is that it's not like that. It is by its very nature, very public.
And so it can feel vulnerable to admit that to the world and fully embrace it and say, I am trying to make this a business. So I think for both of those reasons, kind of out of habit and out of that, that kind of fear of rejection or feel fear of failure. Often we kind of hold ourselves back from fully embracing the entrepreneur or business owner mindset, because yeah, it just feels scary to do so. You might not feel like you're ready for it yet.
And there is so much success to be found on the other side of deciding, knowing, being confident in the fact that you are a business owner, your small business owner, you're an entrepreneur, that is what content creation is. And when you embrace that, you can fully embrace the strategies that are going to allow you to be successful in that way.
For example, I think the biggest place that it really impacts the way you do this whole content creator thing is that you realize the content that you're making is an investment. It's a business investment. The time that you're spending on it is kind of like inexpensive your business in a way, even though you're not spending money on it, it's just your own time.
It's still something that you're investing in that business. And when you see it that way, then you realize that for that investment, you're hoping to find a return. Right. So you're hoping to actually monetize that in some way.
So it really helps you to start making strategic and intentional decisions about what kind of content is important to post and what's actually going to provide that ROI that return on investment for you. And I think that's really liberating because it helps you let go of certain kinds of content that you might just feel sort of pressured to post because it's like, well, everybody tells me that I need to post this type of real or everybody tells me that I need to be on LinkedIn or that I really should be posting on.
Twitter or like, whatever you've heard. And I think when you kind of take it back a step and you say, OK, I'm a business, my contents and investment in the growth of my business, what content is actually going to provide a return for me.
And then you start thinking through, OK, like what kind of monetization, what kind of revenue does my content actually result in is it's going to help me sell more of my digital products is it's going to help me send more traffic to my affiliate links is this going to kind of build up my authority and help to grow my audience in general so that I can one day get brand deals.
These are the things that you want to be thinking about so that you know that you're spending your time in the most strategic manner possible and this all stems back from knowing that you are a business owner, you're not just a tick tocker or somebody who's like growing a little Instagram.
This is a business it might not be generating revenue right now, but it will someday and it will generate revenue sooner if you start thinking of it as a business now. And also, crucially, another aspect of this mindset shift is that you start prioritizing content creation like a business because the other issue with continuing to feel like it's a hobby is that it will always end up being on the bottom of your to do list.
And honestly, like I feel that I have had some personal experience with this recently because obviously I'm at a point now where content creation here on the creator club podcast over on my Katie Stecley YouTube channel and Instagram. Those things are very much revenue generating for me so it's very easy for me to kind of say, okay, these are business things. This is my job.
I said that I was going to post this number of podcast episodes so I got to do it. I got to record it so it becomes top priority for me. But more recently, I've been working at growing another brand and it's my Katie and Dan in a van channel on YouTube, which talked about in past podcast episodes if you remember it showed up to you.
Basically, I do van life and do a travel part time and I've always kind of wanted to be a travel vlogger. It seemed fun to me. So I've started a new YouTube channel and a new Instagram and TikTok for the Katie and Dan in a van brand. And because it is a hobby for me right now, it's not making any money really well a little bit of ads and now that we're monetized. But not a lot.
And so because of that, I can see it myself that I'm deprioritizing it that I'm like, oh, well, I can't get that done. I'm going to get other stuff done first. I'll worry about that later. And so it's very, very easy to do that when something isn't making you money yet when you aren't on the hook to a brand sponsor or whoever to actually get something posted takes a lot of drive to do that.
And I need to try to categorize it in your mind as a business so that you actually start treating it like one. And that was a big deal for me. Number of years ago, probably like five, eight years ago, when I really started prioritizing my main channel, my Katie, Stekley brand. I had to start thinking of it as a business and hold myself really tightly to the deadlines of, you know, I was posting to YouTube videos a week and multiple times on Instagram and all that stuff.
And to really tell myself like, these are deadlines, you have to hit them because nobody else was making me do that yet because there wasn't money on the line yet. But you will start to have money on the line sooner if you treat it that way. So you really need to start thinking of it as a business if you want to see growth mindset shift. Number two, you're not just a fan girl. You're one of them.
I love this is going to hit that hard for all of you, but this is definitely one that's close to home for me as somebody who started on YouTube as a big fan. The reason why I ever started posting YouTube videos is because I was watching videos from creators that I really looked up to and I really admired their creativity.
The fact that they all had their little like YouTube friend groups and they would have like collab channels, put your hand up in the comments section. If you remember the era of collab channels on YouTube. I guess we sort of have that now. I mean, you see there are channels where it's a group of people like, yes, theory, that kind of thing.
But these are people that all had their own channels where they were posting and then they would have like one day a week where they would post anyway, we're getting on too much of a tangent now about collab channels and nostalgic YouTube stuff.
But the point is I had such a connection to like the identity of being a YouTuber and to me, I just associated with like cool people who were creative and like had friends and had all these people that were interested in their lives and like, you know, wanted to comment on their vlogs.
Like to me, it was just so aspirational and I have had different eras in my life of different content creators that I was just like really obsessed with where like they were like, like, and it's always been like women of course, they were my girl.
Okay, and I was like, she is so cool. I want to be like her when I grow up and I kind of like, I feel like people have that with celebrities. I had that with YouTubers. So because of all of this, I have always just been in such a fan mindset like for the longest time.
I really felt like I was a fan girl and I was not on the level of all these creators that I really looked up to and I've been really fortunate in like the past year or so where that mindset has really been flipped on its head for me because of different experiences that I've been really lucky to have. So back in March of 2023, I was invited to the Sony camera camp event and that was wild because I remember watching like Sony camera camp vlogs from years ago and thinking like that.
So cool. All these creators like I admire them so much and I ended up sitting at a lunch table with some of my favorite creators that I've been a fan of for like years. And that was huge for me. It's like a very much like I made it kind of a moment. But what I want to encourage you today in this point is you don't have to wait till you get invited to Sony camera camp and you end up at a table with your favorite creators to say I made it.
I'm one of them. I'm a content creator. You can embrace that right now because the truth is by just putting yourself out there by creating content on whatever platform you're on.
You are a content creator and you don't need to modify that by saying like, oh well, I'm just getting started or like I'm not full time yet like no girl, you are a content creator and you can embrace that. There are people that appreciate your content no matter how small of an audience you have you are among the contingent of content creators.
I think when you start embracing that, it'll make a big difference in how you see yourself and how you see the content that you're making. So don't hold yourself back by staying in that fan mindset truly embrace the fact that you are a content creator because it'll make a world of difference in your confidence mindset shift number three.
This one might be a little bit controversial. You can be your own manager. One of the largest and most common income streams for full time content creators is brand deals. It's definitely my biggest income stream by far and it's pretty much the first thing that most of us think of when we consider how you can be monetized as a content creator.
However, there is a dynamic at play in the influencer economy where many of us content creators feel that we need to have an intermediary, a manager to get us those brand deals to facilitate those brand deals and generally just to have a successful content creator business. Many people believe that you need a manager and today my friends, I actually want to introduce you to my manager, the manager who facilitated over $200,000 in brand deal contracts in 2023 for the Katie Stecley brand.
It's me, it's myself, I manage my own brand deals and I always have and today I want to make the argument for why you should consider that and why you should get out of the mindset of thinking that you need to find some manager out there to do it for you.
That's the thing, I think there is this prevailing narrative out there in the content creator world that getting a manager or starting to work with an agency is like the pinnacle of success that you've really made it as a creator once an agency or a manager approaches you to work with you. And I think that that is really something that we need to leave behind because I firmly believe that you can be very successful as a content creator managing yourself.
You don't need an agency or manager to step in and skim your revenue off the top because here's the thing if you're not familiar how it tends to work is most managers or agency will take anywhere from like 15 to 20% of the brand deal contract. In exchange for them facilitating it here's a thing I have nothing against investing in your business and outsourcing and paying people to do work that is going to make your life easier. That's not the problem with this.
The issue that I have with so many like agencies in particular is that there are a lot of large kind of influencer agencies out there that take on many, many influencers, especially ones that are earlier on in their career. Many of us like we would want to go to an agency because we think great this person is going to be able to get me more deals they're going to reach out to all my dream brands and acquire these brand deals for me.
But the reality of how it mostly works and I know this is a general statement there are definitely like unicorn agencies out there that are good. But most of them will just simply take over your inbox and facilitate the brand deals that were already inbound to you already that we're already coming to you wanting to work with you.
I have talked to so many creator friends and the overall theme that I have heard again and again with people's complaints with agencies and managers is that they promise they will do all these pitches and do all this outbound and reach out and bring you brand deals. But at the end of the day 99% of the brand deals you do are brands that came to you. And so the reality is I will show some sympathy and empathy for people working at these agencies because I really don't blame the individual people.
I'm more so blame the structure. I think a lot of influencer partnerships managers at agencies have been overloaded with way too many influencers in their portfolio and they are trying to manage like a lot of different stuff and they just don't simply have the time to do outbound pitching for you because their boss has given them way too many influencers to represent.
I think that is honestly chronic in the industry and so because of that unless you find a place that is like very boutique and very like independent and like has its own kind of specific mission to be a different sort of structure for creators. You're going to probably end up at an agency that sort of forgets about you and just simply does your emailing for you and then takes 20% of your brand deal. So what I would recommend instead is taking a page out of my book and managing yourself.
I'm personally at a stage where I still do all of my facilitation and all of my like email sending all of the contract creation, reviewing contracts sending invoices. I do that all for myself. However, you don't have to do that forever, especially if you're not a very organized person like I literally have spreadsheets to track all of this stuff to make sure I'm not forgetting.
Doing any of that I have the processes in place, but if you know yourself and you know that that's not your strong suit. What I would recommend over getting an agency that works on like a commission base like on that 20% or whatever. Instead, once you reach a certain threshold of income where you know you can afford this, I would get an assistant like potentially a virtual assistant or whatever at an hourly rate.
So I would say that you can contract to do this stuff and say, okay, you know, I'm going to need you to do five hours a week of invoicing and contract reviews and that kind of thing. I think that that is a little bit more of a known commodity and will probably end up costing you less, especially once you start doing larger brand deals than doing like the 20%.
So I think people go in thinking, oh, they're going to pitch for me, they're going to go and find me brand deals. Not as so often not the case. So you're kind of better off knowing like look, we're dealing with inbound here, but I've got somebody helping me with contracts and invoices. So it's all good. I'm not going to worry about the whole commission thing. So just want to put that on the table because I feel like not a lot of people are talking about it.
So I feel like it's a little bit of a hot take, but you can let me know I always love to hear your opinions. If you have an agency that you're obsessed with and like does a lot of outbound pitching for you. Or you know, if you've heard of ones that are like that, hit me up. My DMs are always open at Katie Stecle on Instagram or you can reach out at creator, podcast, but anyway, just a mindset shift that I want to suggest for you.
You don't need to wait around to have an agency or a manager approach you. You can manage your own self and do it well. If you're feeling overwhelmed with Instagram content creation or developing a strategy that makes sense for you or your audience, then I wanted to tell you about my agency creatorly media.
Over at creatorly media, we work with content creators and small business owners to develop Instagram strategies that authentically connect with their audiences. We have a couple different services to choose from whether you need help with just developing your strategy and then you create the content from there. Or if you'd like the full service option where we develop your content calendar and create your content for you, both are available and all of the details are over at creatorlymedia.com.
We know these services have been such a game changer for our clients in terms of helping them to stay consistent and connect with their audiences more often. And I know it just takes a big stress off their shoulders and allows them to focus on what they love doing most, which is running their business. So if that sounds like it would be helpful for you, check out all the details at creatorly media.com or head to the link in the show notes. Mindset shift number four.
You are allowed to keep some things to yourself. I think that there might be a little bit of a stigma out there online that content creators feel like they need to share every piece of their life in order to be authentic online. And I think the other side to that point is there are some viewers out there that feel like they are owed certain information about their favorite creators.
And because of that dynamic, a lot of creators end up feeling like they need to be really vulnerable and almost like arrow, they're dirty laundry in a sense in order to be fully authentic and real online. And I just want to tell you that is not the case. I fully believe that you can be authentic and real and approach content creation with integrity without needing to share every last little detail of your life.
Here's my advice to find the balance at this because I know it can be difficult. You obviously are going to be sharing some stuff, but where's the limit and like how much and what. This is the way that I would approach it. Think about your niche, your topic, like what you're sharing with your audience. And again, that goes back to what you care about sharing and what they are passionate about as well, like your overlap between your interest in your audience interest.
And take a few key areas in your life where you feel comfortable being really vulnerable and sharing those details of your thoughts, your thoughts and feelings in your personal development. And then identify the areas in your life that just simply aren't relevant that you don't need to share about because they maybe don't fall into that overlap between you and your audience.
Or it's just something that feels kind of too close to the heart for you to really want to share. So I can give a couple personal examples. So for me, I am an open book when it comes to stuff like my past experience with being a fan girl, like I was just sharing before about like being obsessed with YouTubers and like what it feels like when you sit down at that table with your favorite creator.
I've shared a lot about my like mental health struggles surrounding burnout and also struggling with kind of like confidence and like imposter syndrome. These are things that I think are very relevant to the content creator journey that I am happy to share about.
I'm also quite open when it comes to my finances, like how much my business makes and all that stuff, like I share my like brand deal rates, I share my media kit because I think that is something that doesn't have to be taboo and it's really valuable to share about. But on the other side of the coin, there's a lot of stuff that I don't talk about because honestly, you all probably wouldn't be that interested in it.
And also because I just don't feel like it's necessarily mine to share. So like I don't talk a lot about my family or even that much about like my close friends because that's their lives and it's not super relevant to what I'm doing here. I also don't really talk that much about my like religious experience and my own like you know spirituality or whatever like that's not very relevant to what we're talking about here. And it's very, very personal to me. So it's just not necessary to share.
So those are some examples of how you can see like there's areas that it's like it is quite vulnerable to share how much money you make or your your mental health struggles with regards to your career. But I do that because I know that it would be beneficial to the people that connect with my content. But then there's other stuff like family life, religious life, whatever it might be, maybe it's not relevant to what I talk about.
I can keep that to myself. So I think it's just important to understand you don't have to share everything. You don't have to feel this pressure to constantly share every aspect of your life. And in fact, you probably benefit from being specific about where do I feel comfortable being vulnerable and being an open book to my audience and where am I just going to like not mention it.
That's fair. That's like completely your right to do. And I think it helps you have a more healthy approach to being a content creator. The fifth mindset shift you need to make is that you do not have to post every day. There's a lot of conflicting sayings out there quality over quantity done is better than perfect consistency is key. But if you want to know the true secret a successful strategy is going to be a mix of all of those approaches.
It's important that you're consistent both in the quantity of what you're posting, but also in the quality of what you're posting. I think that's a key part that a lot of people miss out on when they think they just need to post as often as possible. It's never worth it to do that. If the quality of what you're posting is going to suffer. It's also never worth it to push yourself to post more and more content. If it means it's going to lead to burnout.
You also don't need to stick to the exact same schedule forever. You start by posting say two reels per week and eventually you get really confident and comfortable with that. And you realize like dang I actually have a lot of really great ideas. I want to start posting more often. You can always do that and make that increase.
There is no such thing as a perfect posting schedule. It's only the perfect posting schedule for you. You need to know yourself what's within your capacity. Also how often your followers want to hear from you. And what's reasonable for you to take on in terms of the workload. So I want you to shift away from thinking that there is some like end all be all perfect content calendar out there and instead try to think about what is going to work the best for you.
I really believe that if you focus on these five mindset shifts not only will you be more successful as a content creator. But I think you'll also have a better relationship with the career of being a content creator. You'll be in a better place in terms of your mental health. It's just all such a holistic thing being a content creator can be so challenging because it can be difficult to separate ourselves from our businesses.
These mindset shifts can help you get to that point. And of course, another aspect of being a successful content creator is having a good understanding of your metrics. So once again, if you want to check out dash Hudson, you can get a free trial. So go to the link in the show notes of today's episode to try out dash Hudson for free. And once again, thank you so much to dash Hudson for being the sponsor of this season of the creator club podcast.
As always, thank you so much for tuning in. I really appreciate you and I will catch you in next week's episode. Bye. Thanks so much for listening to the creator club podcast. This show is produced by creatorly media, a social media and content marketing agency by creators for creators. If you want professional help growing your social media platforms or creating your content, come visit us at creatorlymedia.com or at creatorly media on Instagram.
If you've listened this far into the episode, we want to know who you are. Seriously, thank you so much for listening. Screenshot your podcast app and share it to your Instagram story, tagging at creatorly media or at Katie Stecleed so that we can chat. Again, thanks for listening and remember to keep on creating. We'll catch you next time.