Introductions and how both hosts ended up in content creation

Rob: Welcome to the National Virtual Expo and this session on becoming a content creator. I'm your host for this session, Rob Malicki. I'm coming to you today from Garigal land in Sydney. Super pumped with my guest who's joining us today. Thanks for joining me at the National Virtual Expo.

Guest: Of course, it's great to be here. It's great to catch up. We filmed quite a while ago, but it's good to see you again. Good to be here.

Rob: It's really good to have you here, mate. I was super pumped when you accepted my invitation to come to this event, because I think there's a lot of myths around content creation and influencers, but it's also such an awesome, exciting space to operate in. I thought you and I could get into some of those myths, what content creation is all about, and give people some ideas about how to get started. Maybe just to kick us off: do you get paid for what you do?

Guest: I get paid for what I do. I love doing the content creation thing. There's a certain point where I just can't keep uploading videos without getting some pay, obviously. I do content for Instagram, where I'll either pitch ideas to the team or they'll ask me to do things, and I'll make those videos. But I'm also part of a student committee called Venture, which is about entrepreneurship and startup culture, and those videos are unpaid because I'm their marketing manager and it's a student club at the end of the day. Anything on Instagram, though, and I've been paid in the past for videos as UGC content.

Rob: This is the thing. I think most people, when they hear about influencers and content creation, they picture Mr Beast, you know, wanting a billion views. But the reality is you can make a good amount of money while you're working your way through uni, or even build a whole career in that micro-influencer or micro-content-creator space, can't you?

Guest: You really can. People underestimate it. There are layers to it. Obviously you have your micro influencers and your macro influencers, and they're generally determined by how many followers you have. But I reached out to this content creator Emily, who's really popular in Perth, and she does collabs all the time. Even if you don't make a career out of it, being a micro influencer means you get a bunch of free stuff. You can literally walk into a restaurant, give them promotion, give them some value, and get value back. It's really easy to get paid deals, and you don't even need a high follower count because user-generated content is such a big thing. Goldman Sachs estimated it would be like a $2 trillion industry within the next five to ten years.

Rob: It really is true. I ended up in this whole video content creation space by accident. I was on a university campus one day when I was running another company, and I did this crappy little YouTube video a long time ago, threw it up on YouTube, forgot about it. Maybe 18 months later, I stumbled across that video again and it literally had thousands and thousands of views on it. I thought, why did that happen? That was a crap video. What was actually the case back then was that nobody had done independent content on Australian universities. You'd go to YouTube, look it up, and every single video on every uni was pretty much done by the university themselves. I thought, if someone's trying to decide where to go to uni, how can they compare when all the content is just done by the uni itself? So that's why I started doing university videos. They started getting traction, getting tens of thousands of views, and suddenly I thought, okay, that's a thing. It became the whole Choosing Your Uni channel, and that was basically just an accident because I'd done something I wanted to do.

Guest: You'll never know if it's going to work until you find out.

Rob: How did you end up in it?

Guest: I wasn't even trying to get into content at the time. I had a vague idea because in high school I was a media student, but, by the way, you really don't need that experience: editing is such a small part of making videos. When I got hired by UWA as a student ambassador, I networked with some of the people on the social media and marketing team, and then they brought me on and just started asking me to do videos because I'm a student and I can give something a bit more authentic than what a staff member could when they haven't been at uni for a while.

The importance of storytelling and the hook in short-form video

Rob: Let's play a couple of your clips. There's one that really stands out in my mind, and that's the uni at 5 p.m. one. Let's play this.

Guest: Oh man, a bit embarrassing. Let's play it.

Rob: I love that clip. One of the things that jumps out, which we need to talk about for people who are interested in content, is storytelling. Whether you're a writer, you do podcasts, or you create video, it's all about the story, isn't it?

Guest: It is. You could tell the same thing over and over, but the way you say it is like 90% of it. And you only have a minute to two minutes to capture someone's attention, so you really have to make it worth it.

Rob: I think it's even less than that. If we look at that video, the way you've done the thumbnail and those first seconds as you come into it, talking about uni at 5 p.m., straight away you're telling people what the content is going to be about, but you're also hooking them. In content we talk about the hook. Most people, even if they've been to uni, are like, well, I haven't been there on a weekend at 5 p.m. It starts to tell a story that introduces some curiosity: what is this place actually going to be like at that time?

Guest: Literally. And that content was really nice to make. Those videos are actually done on my personal Instagram. It actually started from one video I did called "8 a.m. Monday." It got like 20K, which isn't a lot in the grand scheme of things, but I saw a bunch of people from UWA keeping up with it. We were singing happy birthday to some random person in the video for like 20 seconds, and I don't know how people watched that for 20 seconds, but she was walking down the street and people kept saying happy birthday to her for three days after. It was hilarious.

Rob: It is fun to do. Can I play one of your campus environment clips? The UWA campus is just magnificent. Let me drop in that video about the UWA environment, because that obviously plays a role.

Guest: Yeah, absolutely.

Rob: You can see in that video it's such a beautiful space to work in as a content creator. How important do you think that is, the visual element of where you're working?

Guest: The visuals are so important. UWA has such great scenery that they push it, and there are a lot of posts about certain locations, which is great. One of the videos I did was a take on the "performative male study spots" trend, and we got to show off some cool spots while turning it into a fun format, because not everyone wants to just look at a slideshow of all the locations on campus. They want a little bit of humour involved.

Why virality is not the only path: micro-creators, brand deals, and UGC

Rob: You mentioned that video got 20,000 views. Can we talk about that for a moment? Because I think there's a misunderstanding: everyone thinks that to be a content creator you have to go viral and get millions of views. But that's just absolutely not the case, is it?

Guest: It really isn't. There are so many routes you can go with content creation. If you want to be an influencer, sure, virality is important, but being an influencer doesn't mean you're going to make a living. I think it's less than 5% of content creators that even make a living off it. And most content creators don't make their money off Instagram or TikTok: they make their money off brand deals and UGC. The biggest shift recently is from creators becoming business owners, building a brand that they can advertise for free. You don't need a big following at all. One example that came to mind was this event directory account. They had thousands of followers, then they put on a massive event, and a lot of that marketing was just on Instagram.

Rob: One of the things that's really critical for people to think about is what they actually want to talk about. If you want to become a traditional influencer, a famous kind of face, and make money that way, maybe you're doing makeup and getting paid to promote products. But at the end of the day, if someone's paying you, you are literally putting your face and your identity on that product. So that thing had better be good, because it might not be a great experience for the people who end up buying it. Do you want that associated with you?

Guest: Yeah, exactly. The association has actually been really important in my thinking, because I still don't know which direction I fully want to go in. At the end of the day I think I'm a business student at heart and a media student second, so I'd want to create a nice channel and eventually sell something. One of my friends, Devina, has got about 3,000 on her personal Instagram, and she was telling me about this philosophy where you have multiple content pillars. All her videos, you can just tell what she's doing, whether that's hair, makeup, nails, that kind of stuff. She got so many brand deals. If you know where you're going and brands like you, they're just going to give you deals and give you money. It takes time to get there, and I still don't know exactly what I want to post. I've done content that's done decently well and gotten me followers, but then I don't know if I want to be known for that. It's a hard balance.

Rob: That is the key thing. If you're just thinking about money, or you create a piece of content and it works and so you do more of that, to some extent you become what you create. If you're doing something that isn't really you and you keep doing more and more of it, you got to be careful, because you actually don't want to become something that you're not.

Guest: You really have to stay in your own shoes. I've posted so much content, and my personal-account content doesn't get as many followers because the view count is lower. But when it's personal, it's getting a minimum of 30,000 people watching it. When that happens, I had two people run up to me on our uni's open day asking for my autograph because I was on the content. There's also Jesse, one of the biggest content creators on our campus, who's risen up to around 20,000 followers and gets recognised all the time for his Indonesian skit videos. You get recognised for what you post. Your followers are going to look at it and think, wow, this person is making content.

Rob: That kind of recognition is appealing. It happens to me too: any time I go to a uni campus, people stop me. Part of your ego goes, "oh, that feels special." But that's also because I do what I believe in. I'm creating content about something I believe in. If you're thinking about going into this space, do something that you care about: it has to be natural. It's a labour of love. There's a lot of content creation that isn't paid. I'm in a lucky situation as an ambassador, but if you're not, and you're studying and you want to start out, there are a lot of hours involved. I remember editing till midnight trying to get a video out every night because I was so into it. It was a big enjoyment. But if you're not into it, you're going to burn out so quickly.

Guest: You really have to enjoy what you're doing, otherwise it's just going to kill you. I've burnt out twice and I haven't even been posting on my personal account for long.

Rob: And people have to understand there is a lot of work involved. To edit a good video can take a couple of hours: getting the fonts right, the positioning, the timing. It's quite time consuming. So if you're creating content you don't care about, it shows. You wouldn't believe the number of DMs I've had from brands offering me watches and shirts. You could pay me $500 for that stuff and I just don't want to spend the time creating a nice piece of content about something I don't care about. You've got to be really careful about getting sucked into that world, because when you do the stuff that you care about, you're happy to spend time on it. Talking about something you care about is just critical.

Guest: Of course. And there's a lot of proactivity involved, because when you start out it's a big slope, and then it gets easier. You need to learn how to record good videos for starters: angling, rule of thirds, where people's eyes are placed. Then you learn a bunch of things like transitions. I watched a video that completely changed my psychology on how sound effects work in a video. The first 15 or so videos you make are a bit scary, but then it just becomes streamlined. You need to have that passion to get past that point.

Building a distinctive personal brand

Rob: Let's talk about getting started in just a moment, because we've been talking about doing things you care about, and obviously you and I might have something distinctive about us. For you, the glasses: that's kind of your look right now. For me, obviously the hat, and the fact that normally you've got a bit more volume in your hair. What's going on today?

Guest: I usually do! I've had it tied up. I've been a bit busy over the last three days and I wanted to do it up for today but still didn't have the time. It's a lot of work.

Rob: But that is who you are, isn't it.

Guest: Yeah. I think you have to have something distinctive about you. It's going to sound brutal, but if people can't recognise you for something, you're just going to be forgotten. I usually have a mullet, and, believe it or not, it looks all right, and people recognise me for it. If you don't have something to stand out, you're just going to be another person that's forgotten.

Rob: I've been wearing my hat for 30 years: I'm an Akubra guy long before I created content. It's who I am. For the first 10 or 15 years of my career, well before content was a thing, I still wore my hat everywhere. It was just who I was. Now it's funny that after all this time, this has become the personal brand. Whether I'm going to a professional conference with industry peers or doing content, people see it and they know who it is. So however you want to present yourself, it's got to be authentic to who you are. And when I say you've got to have something distinctive, it could just be your colours: these are our brand colours, you see them throughout all our content. It could be something you wear, a mannerism, something you repeat. It's got to be distinctive, but something that is genuinely who you are, not just something you put on.

Guest: You're right. And it doesn't even need to be your looks. It can be your mannerisms. If you're always recording in the same place, that consistency becomes your background. Yeah, and it makes it sticky. In content there's a lot of psychology: we're trying to invoke curiosity, invoke feelings in people, because when you make people feel something, they connect not only with you but with your content.

How to actually get started: student ambassador roles, clubs, and just posting

Rob: Let's come back to getting started. Where do people start?

Guest: Ideally, if you can, I love being a student ambassador. I get to do campus tours for high school kids because I was a high school kid once. Through that I got to make content, and the social media team taught me a lot. They let me use their microphones and would help me film. If you can get into a role like that with your uni, I actually think it's very beginner friendly, and a lot of people don't do it because they're not proactive enough. You're already getting paid to do content straight away, which not a lot of people can say for themselves. If you can do that, perfect. But honestly, just post, because the difference between someone who's successful at posting and someone who isn't isn't about fancy editing or psychology per se: it's the knowledge and experience you build with reels. Eventually you find out what works, what a good hook structure looks like, what your outliers are, and how to keep your retention going from A to B: how many people are watching your video all the way through. You just need to keep trying. It's so much repetition. And then there's the analysis as well: you analyse your graphs and everything.

Rob: There's a lot of truth in that. And backing up to what you said about starting with your uni, I've met content creators at unis all across Australia and the story can be similar. It can be somebody who's already been learning the craft and steps into that university space to continue developing. But I've also met content creators who started from absolute zero as student ambassadors and are now doing really well. It's a totally legitimate pathway.

Guest: It is. And for all the high schoolers watching: clubs are such an easy way to get a somewhat qualified job. I mean, you're working for free, so not many people will do it. But it's a really good chance to get your foot in the door. I'm the marketing manager for my club. I got to learn how to do content through them, and I literally delegate to a team to make content for the club. If you just find the right people and the right club, you can just fall into it accidentally.

Rob: Let's drop in a clip from your work with Venture.

Guest: Sure.

Rob: That is such a great example. You've gotten into content creation working for a university, and literally any business needs to be doing more content: everyone from the cafe at the end of the street through to mega businesses. Everybody needs to be creating more content because it's how we communicate these days. There's a massive opportunity for literally anyone watching to become a creator, whether it's under their own brand or actually doing it for an organisation. When you put a piece of content up and 30,000 people see it, that's massive.

Guest: There are so many people posting. There's this person I'm watching grow: he just hit a thousand followers and he's a Perth content creator going to restaurants and cafes and just reviewing their food. I think he's even started doing collab posts now. All you need to do is show that the need is there, because most people don't know that content can help them out. You just start doing random videos and eventually people are going to be like, wow, can I pay you to do this? Can I pay you to bring publicity to where I work? It's literally just about doing more.

Overcoming fear of judgement and dealing with feedback

Rob: When you're hesitating about putting something out, I've put out content that is just so terrible, it gets literally ten views. And then I've had content that's been viewed hundreds of thousands of times. The number doesn't really matter. What matters is that you're constantly learning, and the only way to learn is to make mistakes: to make a piece of content, post it, watch it tank, and not care, because the world moves on.

Guest: Can I add to that? I've posted videos that looked so horrible, and I'll delete them. Instagram has actually made it really easy now. There's this thing called trial reels, and I've been using the heck out of that to test things, because trial reels are only shown to non-followers. You can post one when the Americans are awake, so no Australians are going to see it until you post it back onto your main account, and there's no embarrassment because you're showing it to people who will never meet you in person. It's great.

Rob: I like that, because fear of judgement really holds people back. And it's not just fear of judgement about content: it's fear of judgement in our lives generally. The amount of things we don't do simply because we're too afraid that someone we know is going to take the piss out of us. It's just not a great way to live.

Guest: The judgement is a two-sided coin. I get judged all the time now, but I get judged for the best things. People come up to me like, wow, you're on all this content, you're working five different jobs at the same time, you're all over uni, you're doing all this cool stuff. Not many people can say that. And you might not realise, but you're probably in the top five to ten percent of people putting in effort just by being on a webinar like this. Just keep posting and people are going to judge you and be like, wow, this person is putting themselves out there. Once you start being successful, it's a complete turnaround.

Rob: I think you've actually got to tune out both: you've got to tune out the negativity, but you also have to be careful about the positive feedback, because that can feed your ego, and that's not a healthy thing either. To some extent, you've got to do the thing you care about, deliver your value, and just let it go. I've done content that I didn't think was my best, and it hasn't gotten a lot of views, but I'll still get DMs about that piece months later because someone has stumbled across it and it helped them make a decision. You never know what's going to work, and as long as you stay true to yourself, you've got nothing to be ashamed of.

Guest: Literally. And I think you put in a good ethos when you said to tune out the positive feedback too, because that goes everywhere without saying. It's great to do things for other people and feel admired. But I'm actually having this problem now. I'm in my final year of uni. My first two years I was relentless: every night I was up till midnight on different projects, not just content but internships. I'd done three internships by second year. But then in my third year, people started recognising me and I became somewhat of an authority, and I just clung to the peak and sat there. I'm not as productive as I used to be. You have to realise that you're doing it for yourself, not for other people's admiration, and it doesn't stop at their admiration. You just keep rising, keep getting better.

Rob: I love that. It's about patience, isn't it? You're not going to post your first video and get a million views, chances are it gets a handful or a couple of hundred, but you've just got to be in it, be patient, and wait for the results to come over time while you keep learning and improving.

Guest: Yeah.

Wrapping up: where to find the guest and a shoutout to UWA

Rob: It's been super nice chatting with you here at the National Virtual Expo. Where do people find you if they want to look you up?

Guest: I'm on my personal Instagram, I'm still trying to grow it. And I'm also at the University of Western Australia, so you'll see some of my content there. I've actually got a collab coming up next week where our Electronic Music Appreciation Society is going to teach me how to DJ. That should be pretty cool.

Rob: Oh nice! Just want to shout out the University of Western Australia: awesome institution, but also literally the most beautiful campus in Australia in my view. If you're out west and looking to study, it's a great choice. I'll put all the descriptions and links down in the description below. Many thanks for joining me at the National Virtual Expo.

Guest: Thank you so much. It's been amazing to be here, and I hope everyone watching got some benefit out of this.

Rob: And can people reach out to you if they've got questions about getting into content creation?

Guest: Yeah, of course. Hit me up, give me a message. I'd love to help out if I can.

Rob: Thanks, mate. I hope you got something out of this session, and if you have any questions at all, drop them below.