CONTENT SLAVES

There is an interesting quote from one of the best social media influencers in the world, Gary Vee, which I read in his post, Coach Arisdiansah. Let read with focus

"Being a slave to engagement is a super sad existence"

 (GaryVee)

More or less the free translation of being a slave to engagement is a very sad existence

What is the engagement slave like?

If we post something with fear or insecurity reasons

If I don't post content, it won't engage with my account later.  There is no interaction

Nobody likes, comments let alone share

It doesn't stop there

When he looks at the stats on the engagement score of his posts he gets anxious

The more days I like the fewer the likes

The comments are getting lonely

There are hardly any who share

So he began to improve the intensity of his posts

From the initial two or three times a day, it immediately increased dramatically 9-10 times a day

In short, his daily life is only spent creating content and is busy looking for answers, why is the AQ content's engagement decreasing?

Psychological "insecure" situations like this are signs of a psychic illness called Content Slaves

We can easily see this kind of phenomenon on social media.

One of them is YouTube

Instagram is just as bad

Like soap operas catching up with broadcasts, so as not to lose viewers and ratings, their posts are released brutally

hey post almost every hour

You could say they are all victims of social media algorithms

Social media is more in favor of the creators who are most diligent in creating content

But because of his excess, the authenticity, idealism and quality of the content are increasingly being questioned

Many creators are bored with this algorithm.

Call it Skinny Indonesian 24, Agung Hapsah, Bayu Skak and many other creator content that is starting to break with the YouTube algorithm

The contents of their idealism, which they make wholeheartedly, are drowned by content that is catching up with TV celebrities who YouTube

Many also flocked to TikTok.  The one who succeeded in emigrating was Edhozell

Sometimes we ourselves as entrepreneurs who need social media as a medium of liaison with our audience think too

Should we really follow the social media algorithm brutally, to the point of ignoring our ideals?

If posting 2-3 times is not enough, do you still have to increase your posting intensity up to 9-10 times a day to pursue this engagement?

No need

Stop being a slave to engagement

Social media does require consistent posting

But we must be able to distinguish between consistency and insecurity

Consistency is needed so that the audience can read our patterns

By showing a consistent and steady pattern of posting, we will be easier for the audience to detect and recognize

So that the audience will adjust to our pattern

In the human brain, something that is patterned and recognized easily, will easily generate the name "TRUST"

Next question ..

What about the social media algorithm

Should we ignore it?

We still have to pay attention because we have to be aware because they also run a business, not a foundation

This means that they are also looking for profit

Take an example like YouTube

YouTube now manages 1.9 billion subscribers from around the world

An average of 500 hours of video is uploaded every minute by its users

Imagine how much server capacity is needed by YouTube to store these files

How much electricity is needed

The cooling system is needed to keep the server from going down

The cost of paying thousands of employees

It takes money

So it is only natural that YouTube ends up siding with content creators who are diligent in uploading with quality content that meets its standards, including duration.

Because it is in this content that YouTube places its ads

The more content that can be boarded, the more people watch the content, the more comfortable the user is, the more YouTube earnings will flow too.

Because YouTube earns the most from advertisers

That's what he shares with creator content

So it is natural that the content for nickels, pranks is not clear, the duration is quite long, it often really dominates YouTube trending

For us, maybe it's not quality content

But for many people, whether it's children or the lower middle class, the content is interesting

And the viewers are high

Those who watch are also at home

YouTube rated him as "quality" because it was able to bring him money

If we want to be a content creator, just find the optimal point, adjust it to our capacity

If you can upload content once a day, do it

If you can afford it once a week, but the content is very high quality because it makes it difficult, OK

But there is no need to be hurt if our engagement is not as good as nickel content

As long as our content has value, there will be super loyal viewers who continue to chase down our content

And they are what our audience really is

What is not allowed is ... if the posting schedule is not clear and the value of the content is not clear either

Social media algorithms, of course, vary according to the difficulty level of creating the content

Facebook, IG, TikTok for example

Posting 1-3 videos per day is still OK

For YouTube, once a day, a short video or once a week, a long video is still OK

We can deal with it multiplatform

Make content on TikTok, after that we also upload it to IG and Facebook

We can put the compilation on YouTube

Or vice versa, we upload long videos to YouTube, we share the best moments on TikTok, IG and Facebook

The point of this paper is ..

Paying attention to social media algorithms is important

But don't let it become an engagement slave, aka a content slave

Improve the quality of our content as consistency increases and we spend hours creating content

If our content value makes the audience "comfortable", we don't need to worry about engagement

Because the audience will need and look for our content, even turning on the content so you don't miss it

As long as we are consistent in making content that our audience really needs, there is no need to worry about becoming content slaves

Don't be intent on hunting for engagement.
But intend to spread value
Believe that engagement will grow by itself

YESS YOU CAN DO IT BETTER