Being different will be what attracts your audience
Photos: Marius Sperlich
Over 300 YouTube accounts hit 10,000 followers every day. At least 3,600 Instagram accounts have over a million followers, and 566 people have the coveted Diamond Play Button from YouTube, awarded to accounts with 10 million subscribers. The content creator space is crowded, and it can often feel like there’s not much room at the top. However, new accounts and creators make it big all the time, with some newer accounts experiencing much more rapid growth than more established creators could have ever dreamed of. More of us use social media than ever before, and with more eyes on all these platforms, there’s a growing desire for more content from more creators. Here’s how to stand out from the crowd…
Identify your USP
Ask yourself what made you want to start being a beauty creator in the first place. Did you struggle to find skincare for your sensitive skin? Did you love chemistry in school and not want to stop tinkering? Are you a budding make-up artist, or did you find make-up to be a transformative force in your life? Whatever it is that propelled you to start creating can be your unique selling point, whether it’s your own personal journey to find solutions or you’ve got some select expertise to share.
Maybe you’re passionate about cruelty-free beauty, on a mission to teach the world how to do a cut crease or maybe you feel like a beginner and want to learn along with your audience. Find your thing, and make sure all your content is grounded in that message.
Crucially, only make content you yourself would want to watch and engage with – if there’s nothing new or personal or authoritative about it, it’ll be hard to win people over.
Experiment with formats
Once you’ve figured out what makes your content unique, it’s time to play around with different formats until you find something that works. It might be that your viewers crave in-depth tutorials or reviews that they can pore over on a night in, or maybe you’ve got a playful touch better suited to TikTok, or even getting community discussions going on Instagram Live. Be prepared to be flexible – and to be surprised by what resonates with your audience. You might plan for one thing, but suddenly find people actually want much longer content, for example, or prefer maybe shorter, Story-style daily updates. Give yourself time to try a few different things, and keep an eye on your analytics to see what’s performing best for you, content-wise and timing-wise.
Don’t fall into the clickbait trap
It’s certainly tempting to throw every buzzword going into your video titles or thumbnails in the hopes that casting a wide net will generate clicks. It might work in the short term – but people will tap away when they realise it’s not what they expected, which will hurt you in the long term, as the partially-viewed content doesn’t sit well with any algorithm.
If there’s a trend going around and you don’t have anything to add to it? Don’t feel you have to comment. Likewise, for any industry controversy or hacks – if you’re not bringing something entertaining or educational to the table, sit that one out. Use the time to work on your next great idea, instead.
Use caution with viral challenges
Don’t feel that you need to try every challenge that sweeps the beauty industry. Think about it this way: Chanel will never discontinue Chanel No.5 because it’s an iconic legacy product, and neither would they dilute it by bringing out Chanel No.5 “Spicy Twist’ or “Fresh Breeze”, even if other brands were.
You have to stay true to yourself and your message, and scrambling things by jumping on every viral challenge might feel like a good idea at the time, but when you’re done, you may well wish you hadn’t because you don’t have that USP anymore.
