New Year Resolution for Influencers

_{Written by: John Chua}

This article is aimed towards creators who have survived the past decade; you know who you are. Maybe for you, it started with blogs, but the world kept progressing and progressing, and now it’s a totally different landscape than the one you began in. Some social media apps have risen to the top, but as quickly as they rise, they fall back down while other social media apps have become a bastion of consistency for creators worldwide. In a world where the only constant is change, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed. And as a result, your decision making falters, and you’re stuck planning and planning while the rest of the world moves forward. 

What’s next for you? Have you reflected upon the past year and thought about what you’re going to do in 2022 to stay afloat amidst the tide of change? Here are some options that you might find interesting.

1. Be a creator on TikTok

TikTok has risen to the apex of popularity, it’s user base surpassing the 1 billion mark in 2021 ⁽¹⁾. Using TikTok as an avenue for your content can potentially open up large markets to show your content to. With a user base this high, it’s likely that you’ll find people who like the content you create, no matter how small the niche. In addition, retention rate on TikTok is remarkably high as well, with around 75% of its monthly active users accounting for daily active users of its app, which likely means that most of the people who’ll consume your content will keep consuming it.

2. Be a live streamer

Another option that you can consider would be to become a live streamer. Although this might not seem like the best option due to the content that’s popularly streamed, live streaming is still the best way for you to engage with your audience. As you go live and more and more people jump in to watch your stream, you create multiple potential pathways between you and the person who’s currently watching you stream. There is an intimacy to live streaming that isn’t exactly there with other avenues of content creation. 

Twitch is the most popular site for live streaming, logging in an average of around 2.78 million concurrent viewers in 2021 ⁽²⁾. Big social media apps have live options that you can use too, such as Instagram Live, Facebook Live, and even Tik Tok Live. 

3. Create NFTs 

NFTs are a recent development in the blockchain world, as they boomed in 2021. Controversial as they are, thousands of NFTs are sold with every day that passes. You might be lost on what NFTs are and why they’re so controversial. In short, NFTs are non-fungible tokens that are unique and non-interchangeable units of data stored on a blockchain, a form of digital ledger ⁽³⁾. These tokens can be associated with digital files, such as images and videos, and this has opened up a whole new world for creators, like digital artists. 

After reading this, it’s possible you might find yourself considering the prospect of selling your creations by making them NFTs. And for that purpose, marketplaces exist, such as Opensea.io and rarible. However, they are just marketplaces; you’ll still have to find your audience and consumers. 

4. Stay in control of your finances - pay your taxes! See this article 

Controlling your personal finance sounds a lot easier than it actually is. It’s pretty easy to comprehend; just don’t spend more than what you’re earning, and you’re good. But then sudden work demands that appear out of the blue come into play, and boom some money’s gone. Add impulse purchases and overspending into the mix and you’re in a situation where talk is ironically, cheap. 

Maybe you read the last paragraph and you’ve realized that you can relate; perhaps making better finance control a goal in 2022 for you is the goal to make. Finance is important, as it basically determines the options that you can take in creation; the more finance you have access to, the more options you can take. You’ll need finance for emergency management too. 

And don’t neglect your taxes! Multiple businessmen and influencers have found themselves spending millions on paying tax evasion fines. Not only is tax evasion illegal, evading tax also means you’re directly evading your responsibility to the government. So please, pay your taxes!

5. Start reading stuff that can help you improve your game 

Learning never stops. It never stops after you finish primary school. It never stops after you finish high school. It never stops, even after you’ve finished your Masters. Learning, like change, is consistent. And if you want to keep up with change, I believe you’ll have to keep learning and learning so that you’re prepared to adapt, no matter what change awaits. 

What better way to learn than with reading? The best books that you can learn from have been written by people who are educated enough on the topic to write about it and sell it. Thus, by reading, you’ll essentially learn from the best and most educated people about the topic that you’ve decided to read about. 

Here are some recommendations ; Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, by Simon Sinek. This book goes in depth about the motivations that drive leaders, and it motivates you to find out why you do what you do. Other recommendations include Leaders Eat Last and Ego Is the Enemy. No matter what you create and what you do, there will always be books that can scratch your learning itch. 

6. Start networking again

You’ve probably heard the phrase “no man is an island”, and it’s most certainly true. By networking, you can get different, fresh perspectives on the ideas you have in mind as you share ideas with the people you network with. Not only do you get their perspective, they will be able to see your perspective on ideas too. It becomes a two-way learning process. Not to mention, networking might open up new opportunities for you as a creator. Other creators might find it opportune to work with you and create something together, which potentially brings the best out of all of the involved. 

These options aren’t the only options for you to pursue, rather these are just ideas for you to express your creative groove in new ways while improving with every step you take. Hopefully these ideas are ones you’ll take into consideration. May 2022 be a fruitful and opportune year for you!