What's Driving Creators' Growth?

(6 minute read) A dozen Creators open up about what's contributing most to their success, from going outside the box to putting systems in place to reinvesting in the business.

I’m in the mountains with my family, for both the July 4th holiday and my upcoming birthday, so I’m doing something different this week.

I’ve compiled the responses (including some as-yet-unpublished) to a question I’ve asked every Creator Logic guest so far:

What’s contributing most to your growth?

Their responses reflect a variety of creative and business mindsets and strategies, highlighting just how diverse the Creator Economy really is.

We’ll return next week with another Creator interview. Until then…

Let’s get into it!

Quick plug - I recently appeared on leading Creator Economy investor Li Jin’s podcast, and our discussion went deep on everything from social algorithms as digital Gods to how Creators can truly achieve freedom. Enjoy!

What’s contributing most to your growth?

I would say I've been pushing myself outside of the box, really thinking of unique ways to engage my audience in specific campaigns. The work I'm doing revolves around this.

For instance, I just got diagnosed with endometriosis and I did a couple of posts about it. We're doing a video series about it, and it's not only re-engaged a part of my community, but it's also brought new people in.

There are going to be other things that I'm doing that aren't health-related. I'm going to do campaigns about the creator fund, about motivation, and the podcasts that are going to be reinvented, constantly reinvigorating my community.

It's like not reinventing the wheel, but creating a new version - a 2.0 version of the wheel. That's what I would say I've been doing and it's been a whirlwind, in true Gen Z fashion.

Gigi Robinson

I would say I'm growing fastest on Instagram right now.

I think a lot of it is due to staying relevant and posting in line with current events, which has been helpful. For example, in response to recent instances of police brutality or gun violence, I've curated collections that serve as resources for parents and teachers to discuss these situations with kids.

Those posts have attracted a lot of attention and views. I also try to post according to what's currently happening, like the upcoming Valentine's Day, and what people are in need of most.

Maya Le Espiritu aka MaiStoryBook

Currently, LinkedIn is proving pretty good for organic growth and finding new viewers, finding new customers….I believe it's the result of really honing, defining, and understanding my business - what it offers, who my target customer is, and really nailing down my messaging to appeal to the goals I want to achieve.

Greg Preece

Overlooking everything else, [Taz] has put all the systems in place for this to become so streamlined.

Her knowledge, acquired from her previous employer, has been instrumental in implementing a lot of things into this business….

A massive strategy for us has been repurposing content on different platforms. I believe people seeing you everywhere almost creates a hype in itself, and it drives growth.

So, I think that's been a big player for us, just appearing on every feed you go on.

Taz and Alessia

Being able to cringe at myself, month over month.

If I don't, then I know I haven't done enough - whether that's improving at storytelling, refining my branding, or coming up with new ideas.

I realize that's not a great answer, but I think that's what's helped me grow.

Tejas Hullur

Our advertising system is second to none.

That's where all the people come from.

Bryce Adams

I spent some time really focusing more on the quality of my work as opposed to volume. So just like writing better threads, writing better essays, making better episodes, making better videos - even if it came at the expense of making fewer of those things. And once I improved the quality of my work, now I can spend a season going the opposite direction to say “okay, how can I now take this level of quality and try to toggle up the volume.”

Because now, when somebody discovers really any part of my platform, any part of my my world, the feedback I get constantly is “I can't believe I didn't find your stuff sooner. This is so good.”

That's what I'm trying to get because to me, the highest returns are at the very top end of the spectrum - like the number one result is twice as much traffic as the number 2 result on Google, the number one result is 3 times as much traffic as the number 3 result on Google - that type of power law applies to a lot of things in the attention economy. So I really try to be at the top end of things, because the better my work is, the more remarkable it is, the more you get word of mouth and sharing with an increase in content.

It's not really enough to be good, you have to be the favorite of a lot of people. You need people who legitimately look at your work and say “This is my favorite creator. This is my favorite, most trusted source of this type of thing,” and if you're not that, you're going to become irrelevant.

So I think it's that mixture of really focusing in on the quality of the work and now building systems that support a higher volume on these discovery platforms.

Jay Clouse

The ability to step back from each channel and then make a new one because I have time.

Oliver Gilpin

In this moment, it’s being willing to reinvest everything that comes in.

Last year, I paid myself a bunch of money, like a lot of money. I made more money last year than I ever made by a factor of 2 when I was running professionally…And I felt sad that I robbed my business of what it needed, which was cash.

…so I said “Okay, in 2023 I'm going to pay myself the absolute minimum I need to pay all my bills, and then every single penny is going to go into growing the business.”

And that's really what's driving our growth right now.

It's scary and this whole thing could come crashing down tomorrow…but I think that if you really want to build a solid base, a solid business with multiple revenue streams, you got to take chances and you’ve got to plow a bunch of money into something like Fit App, and then you plow a bunch of money into merch, and then you plow a bunch of money into building out a fantasy factory… and then three years later, two of those have failed, but one of those is gone to the moon, and you're like “Oh my gosh, I'm so glad I invested all that money there.”

It's kind of how I felt about YouTube early on - my channel lost a lot of money in the first two years, but then it just turned profitable, and we reinvested some of it, and now it drives everything.

So you really do have to be willing to reinvest to to grow.

Nick Symmonds

Our success history. I mean, you can’t visit our community or our website without seeing we’re the real deal.

Amanda Rose

Having an SEO-first strategy for an owned media channel is the number one.

Cynthia Ruff

Chris's brain and my brain learning how to talk to each other.

Focusing on our ability to communicate the ideas and thoughts that we have relative to the business has been the largest contributor being able to make more decisions together effectively.

It’s a massive contributor and I would say it's led us to where we are now and it's going to lead us where we want to go.

The Credit Brothers

Thanks for reading!

My mission is to enable millions of people to benefit from the Creator Economy.

Follow me on LinkedIn for actionable insights on the Creator Economy.

Reach out anytime - [email protected].

See you next week!

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