Social Media, Gurus to Truths

Have you ever come across a social media post that promises to teach you something that you’ve always wanted to achieve? Those ads that say “Get 10,000 views before the end of this month!” or “This is how I became truly independent, buy my course now and you too can become fully self-sufficient!”.

If you have, then you know exactly what I mean when you read the title. Or worse, you probably bought one of these courses only to never truly achieve what they promised. The truth is, none of these really work, they are all meant to earn the creator an income in some unique way.

Well, I say unique, but you already know what that way is. You. You are how they are going to be making money for the foreseeable future.

You see, the grand question you need to ask when you read these course titles is, if it is so successful, why aren’t you doing it? If what they say is such a good way to grow a following, such a great way to get more views, then why are these course makers selling their courses at all?

They always claim that they want to help you, the viewer, reader, and listener, to do what they have done. But the thing is, if that was true then they would not need to ask for money to take their course. I am not even joking here, there are so many social media gurus that seem to constantly need more money.

How they need more money I have no idea, but they do. Their courses are never affordable, or they are always on sale, starting anywhere from $20 or more. During the course, you’ll be told to buy more courses from them, or at the end of the course you may even be told to buy their very next course.

The reason it is so questionable why they are charging at all for their course is not because of the work they have put in. But it is the feverish intensity that they ask you to donate your money to them. Social media does a lot of things, but one thing it does consistently if you have the proclaimed millions of followers, is make you rich.

Markiplier, a gaming YouTuber who has over 20 million subscribers has said that after around 5 million he was unsure of what to do. He has described that he literally has so much money he does not know what to do with it. Many other famous influencers have said the same, that after around 2 million subscribers on YouTube, TikTok, or most others, they don’t know what to do.

The simple truth is, and marketing people will know this, that you can leverage an audience like that on almost every platform in almost every country to earn money. If you really have the secret sauce to getting millions of views per post, video, or ad, then you won’t be trying to get others to buy your courses.

No, instead you will be earning more money than you know what to do with. Which brings us to the problem at hand. There has been an increase in people across all social media, even LinkedIn, promising to get your content seen by more and more people.

The truth is that after a few basic SEO and marketing techniques it is heavily reliant on luck. Your post may get the views of millions within hours, or it may very well not be seen by anyone beyond your family. Trust me I know; Facebook and LinkedIn like to tell me that I never get more than a few hundred impressions.

But, depending on what you are doing it shouldn’t matter. And if you are a marketing employee you need to learn only one more thing. Consistency. This is something no guru can teach you. Something that every successful vlogger, blogger, writer, influencer, or whatever will repeat.

You need to be consistent. Post regularly, just be there. Comment on others' posts, collaborate with other brands, and create a footprint that gets seen by everyone. The irony of the situation is that those who fail at becoming something are the ones who give up mere moments away from becoming something.

Every single gaming YouTuber and Twitch streamer that I watch has a similar story, so very few only worked for a week or more before becoming famous. They all tell stories of the days when their videos had no viewers. When they struggled to get even themselves to show up to their streams, videos, posts, pictures, and artwork.

But they kept going, they learned from each mistake. They changed what they were doing until they found a friend, and then they kept going. This is the secret sauce, the creme de la creme of the marketing world that so very few are willing to accept.

Yes, marketing gurus, you can say what you want. But you know it is true. A company may market itself across the internet for years, and nothing will happen. Then one day, through sheer wisdom, luck, and perseverance their posts will start to grow. Gain views, followers, and people that want to see them.

And if you are reading this, a young creator or an old one, wishing that something would change. Thinking that your equipment sucks too much, that you need to be like others. That is not the answer. The very fact that you are not like others is what will help you to grow.

There is no one on the internet like Mr Beast because only the things that happened to Mr Beast could make him. Ludwig Ohgren, another American YouTuber, worked several jobs, one even in marketing where he got fired, while trying to make his YouTuber career work.

You know, CdawgVA, or Connor, as you may know him as, started with the weirdest, dumbest things you could think of. He prank-called actual establishments while sounding like an anime butler. He worked, he was consistent, and he eventually gained a following. For 2022 he won best charity streamer for his biking across Japan stream, last year he did the same challenge, getting more than $550 000 for the IDF. Immune Deficiency Foundation

I spend a lot of time watching these influencers as they are a constant companion while learning for new jobs, and you know, the whole jobless thing. What I have seen in all of them is something I know I lacked, faltered, and fumbled with for so many years.

The ability to see things through no matter what. That unwillingness to stop once they are going. Something I have recently found in myself through sheer will to let go of who and what I was.

And if you have found yourself reading a post about how your social media can grow if you just throw some money at the influencer that decided to appear. Please ignore them. Rather, find a free YouTube course that will teach you everything you need to know. Or even better, just go to Udemy and wait for a sale.

Seriously they sell their courses for next to nothing and teach you fifty times the things these supposed gurus can teach you.

If you are already sure about what you are doing and what you want, then please, keep going. Don’t stop. Create the content that you want to create, that makes you smile even when you know there isn’t a single person watching.

As they say, dance like nobody is watching.

What Does This Mean For Me?

My YouTube has been stagnant for a few months now. Partly because the end of 2023 came rushing towards me like a bullet train shooting through a piece of paper.

I wanted to make a video for rAge 2023, but then rAge just happened. That kinda blew my momentum for videos out of the water. There is also the studying I am doing, which is not something you’ll see me stopping anytime soon.

Yeah, I am deathly afraid of writing my first exams in a decade, but Azure and AWS are things I want to list on my CV as “Completed”.

So do them I will, even if it means failing another 100 times.

But in between it all, I have a few skills that I think need to be cleaned up, as they have become rusty. Chief among them is the ability to take pictures and videos. These are things that I fundamentally know how to do, like breathing, but like holding my breath underwater, I’ve allowed them to wither.

So along with the weekly exercises I now do to increase my lung capacity, I will be posting many more YouTube videos. These won’t be long, they won’t take too long to make, but they are meant to ensure my skills become as sharp as ever.

The first video will be about streaming and the basics thereof. Because, despite not being a big streamer, I know almost all that there is to know. No really, I usually play dumb when talking to people about these things specifically because I want to know more.

In fact, if you know me personally you may know that there are times when you talk to me, and I seem almost like all lights have switched off. Yeah, I do that on purpose, I want to hear what you are saying without hearing that I already know almost everything you can tell me.

Like today I talked to a friend about possibly working with the companies that he knows (yeah, I sent him my CV and he’s checking if I can get an IT internship somewhere) but when he described coding I had to actively go “Victor! You know that stuff, tell him what you know already!”

Which turned out great, you know, the whole he’s looking if there is a spot for me somewhere.

But that, I think, is enough about that.

The last bit of update is that TodayIWent.com is going to be live end of Feb. Since I am only choosing where I build that website end of Jan, I am giving myself a month to design, build, and populate that website. Should be loads of fun!