The truth about the streaming industry by Allcreate

It almost seems like everyone is a content creator now. We have many people writing blogs, making Tiktoks, and delivering all kinds of content all over the Internet. It’s all fun for a lot of people but a good number have begun to take this path seriously and are going full-time. You might be one of those people, which it’s why it’s important that you read this before you make your final decision.

The content creation industry (and we’re talking about those in the monetization sector) looks like a hit right now. With its value expected to triple within the next decade, it’s understandable why you would consider dropping your resignation letter in the coming weeks to pursue a full-time job as a content creator. More so when you see it thriving for every kind of person, creating wealth and brand endorsements from all angles. Fenty recently launched in some African countries like Nigeria, and they used content creators to influence the brand’s launch. The market is growing and isn’t stopping soon, but it isn’t for everyone and let’s get to why this is so.

Truth 1

🤑 Money May Not Come At You Fast

If you think content creation is a get-rich-quick scheme, then you are sorely mistaken. For a job that you can consider leaving your regular paycheck for, content creation wouldn’t bring you wealth as fast as you would think. In fact, you could go as long as months without making a cent before your first payday. When it comes to monetization, there are steps and structures you have to put in place before you start getting paid big time. There are platforms where you can get earlier chances at monetization like the streaming communication service Allcreate, but a lot of patience is required to make the big bucks that you probably desire. 

More to this, you would find yourself doing a lot of things for free in the early days. Yes, for FREE! So, if you think you would be quitting one paycheck just to get into another, you probably should hold on to the one you have. In this industry, you have to do a lot of early work for your portfolio, prove yourself in the market, and gain engagements. The Tiktok Creator Fund requires you to have 100,000 video views in the last 30 days and at least 10,000 followers before you can monetize your content, and this is a common standard of what you must have to achieve before you can get paid. That means there will be no monthly stipends, no salaries and probably no income in the beginning, just work, work, and more work. That takes us to the next point.

Truth 2

🤯 You Have To Create Content Endlessly

Your first reaction might be “Duh, that’s what I came to do” but what you don’t know is that you will be creating content that you wouldn’t put out. Once you decide to take on content creation as an occupation, to be honest, it takes away some fun out of it. You have to practice a lot and create a lot of content from every idea. This is because you start out as an amateur. The amateur content creators constitute 92% of the creator economy, and this isn’t where you want to be. You want to be among the, somewhat, 4 million professional content creators who have made a name for themselves. 

The competition between amateurs is very tight, which is why you have to consistently churn out quality content to both gain recognition and stay relevant. To do this, you will have to closely follow the trend tables, and create content in line with trends, requests, holidays, and many more as is called for. At this stage, you would risk having a burnout which could be detrimental to your productivity as well as your mental health. So technically, you risk having disrupted episodes if you are already emotionally unstable. To make things even more stressful, the audience might not be considerate as well.

Truth 3

😓 Get Ready for A Lot of Criticism 

You need to be strong-willed to stay in this game. By putting yourself in the public eye, you open yourself to many kinds of reactions on Allcreate or other platforms. People can be really toxic and inconsiderate about your work. It feels worse when you realise how much work you put into it. You must be prepared for compliments, constructive criticism, and also very harsh criticism. As you grow, this is a part that you can get used to and build a mental wall against but it could be a rough couple of months at the beginning, a time which you would spend absorbing so much information.

Truth 4

🤓 You Need To Learn A Whole Lot 

The array of things you need to be informed about to be a content creator is another work entirely. You will need to learn about platforms like Allcreate and others, tools, and many things to add to the delivery of your content. You have to be committed to learning best practices and also keeping up with changes to these same practices. There are no standard guidelines for being a content creator, but there are a lot of resources online that have different approaches from which you can make your pick.

You will need to have basic knowledge about branding, copywriting, social media listening,  SEO, public speaking and so much more. In the area of tools, you will be making use of several tools from planning to editing tools, AI tools, and a bunch of analytics. Depending on what format your content will be produced in  (text, audio, infographics, videos), there would also be additional training you would have to take to better optimise your delivery.  You definitely do not want to dive into this path fully if you are not ready to learn every step of the way.

In Conclusion…

This article is not to discourage you from whatever dream or aspirations you have as regards content creation. Contrary, it is to help you make the right decision. The content creators you see all around smiling and delivering their ideas with joy are just portraying the branding they have set for themselves. There is a lot that goes on behind the scenes that they won’t show you (or they might, if that’s also part of their brand).

If you went through all the listed points, and you are still confident that none of those listed points will limit you in any way and you are ready to take it on full-time, then we can happily tell you that content creation might be your path and we wish you best of luck on the journey.

We also encourage you to visit Allcreate and see for yourself what you can get from the content creation game. 🤩