As the Content Creation profession expands multifold into an industry altogether, we see creators of various niches growing successfully. Although this career is not a cakewalk as it might seem to everyone, it is so appealing that even World’s first trillionaire Elon Musk was “thinking of quitting” his jobs to become a “full-time influencer”, let alone the general public. With an increase in work-from-home opportunities, the consumption of social media has peaked, as a result, people have become more aware and choosy of the content they are consuming. This has given a push to the creators to produce value-added content through infotainment.
As flashy as the social media life of these creators might look, producing their best is always a Challenge they love to embrace. But these challenges differ according to the platform they create on.
Challenges on Instagram –
Shortening long content-
With a time limit of 60 secs on reels, the attention span of average humans is now shorter than a goldfish’s. A recent report found that the average attention span of every human has decreased from 12 seconds in 2000 to 8 seconds today. Catering to this attention span means, not just coming up with an excellent hook, but also filtering out the important information. The hook becomes a differentiating factor as it demands the full exercise of your creativity.
And the filtering becomes an essential factor to maintain the same energy as the hook. If the content doesn’t match the energy or the expectations of the viewer, then be ready to be easily scrolled away.
Including entertainment in education-
The culture of infotainment is attributed to social media itself. After a long tiring day, who would like to watch a random person on the internet giving a bland lecture on why Index Funds are good investments? First, the jargon is a big NO. Second, what’s with this boring lecture? Third, why would I listen to you? So, to cut the boredom and inflict the dopamine hit for the average brain, pulling off both entertaining and Educational content in a go is a challenge. An act that Finfluencers like Sharan Hegde, Anushka Rathod does so well. Using props, fictional movie characters, popular OTT references, catchy songs, great editing, makes a hell of a difference.
Time-consuming-
Value-based content creation demands a ton of research. You cannot deliver half-baked content to the audience just for the sake of it. To make sure that the audiences learn something new and interesting by the end of the 60 secs, a typical finance reel can take at least 4 hours. This is important because that piece of content stays on the internet permanently, catering to lakhs of followers, who trust your word. Hence, no room for micromanaging your way through it.
Dumbing it down-
This one decides whether the follower will hit the follow button after watching that reel of yours. There are typically two types of people on the internet- ones who do their own research and the others who don’t. The share of the former is much smaller. People would follow your content only when they connect with it. Would they allow you on their feed? every day? Would you provide them with any value? Would they learn something new from you daily? Do they relate to you? Hence, dumbing down your content, and using minimum jargon is important.
Sharability-
If your content is precise, entertaining yet informative, and relatable, it is probably not enough. You will mostly meet a roadblock if no one shares your content. And considering the amount of effort you put into it, you definitely want it to blow up. Hence, it needs to be sharable too! A piece that people would love to have on their Stories, or share to their college meme group, or their closest circle of friends- that’s when the algorithm starts working in your favor and the views keep on compounding. But, cracking that isn’t an easy task.
Challenges on YouTube:
Retention-
Long format content platform like YouTube is mainly used to produce in-depth content, unlike Instagram. YT content is made by targeting an audience with considerably more attention span or an audience that is keen on knowing the topic in-depth. Hence, you can allow yourself to be less quirky and aggressively entertaining on these long formats. But, one needs to understand the fine line between information that is important for the viewers and information that the viewer is “looking for”. When you figure out the latter, half your job is done. Hence, retention becomes a cakewalk for creators who focus more on the “how-tos” of things.
In-depth research-
For creators making value-based content that is information-driven, deep research is the most challenging part. Especially, deep researching on less explored topics, reading blogs, verifying the sources of their research, hunting down the specifics, reading books if the internet isn’t enough, and so on. Creators might spend days on even 10 mins content. And only investigative research and diving into the topic can produce a retaining 10 mins infotainment content.
Inserting the fun-
A plain video on why Nykaa IPO is much awaited can possibly keep you hooked, but it can’t always be the best of all the videos on the same topic. A creator needs to stand out with the graphics, the editing, the attitude, the flow and so much more! Your YouTube style has to be ingrained in the mind of the audience so that the next time he looks up for something, he clicks on yours right away. Inserting the subtle style, hooks, tactics, can build your long-term brand!
In short, the challenges are many but the creator industry is just starting off- the returns can be unimaginable and endless. All it takes is treating this just like any other profession with utmost discipline and purpose in mind. The ones who make it large, grow with the audience, make mistakes, experiment with new things, and flourish, but most importantly, they hate to pause.
