Why I'm Starting A Youtube Channel
If you’d told to me a year or two ago to start a Youtube channel, I would have laughed at you. Me, the awkward, introverted Swede with an accent I felt self-conscious about? On Youtube, where I never really felt at home? No no, I would have waved you away and went on with my life.
But things change, and here we are. My first video is up and I’m excited to say hello, hi, I’m Elin and I’m on Youtube. And today I want to share why I’ve decided to start the channel, because it’s not as simple as “it felt fun”, though there’s that too. I hope it can spark some thoughts about your own creative life, if you share your work online.
The Instagram hegemony
This story begins on Instagram. I have been on Insta since I started my blog back in 2016, and over the years I have relied a lot on it for reaching and communicating with my people. It has been my biggest source of traffic to the blog, it has been how I meet new people online, my primary channel for marketing and making announcements. Apart from my email letters, Instagram has been pretty much the only way I reach people directly. There’s this blog of course, but how many go here to check if a new post is up by their own accord, really? (Not very many.)
The word hegemony is used to describe a dominating country, culture or ideology, and that’s what Instagram has felt like in my online presence. It’s like everything I’ve done has circled around Instagram. I have learned how to take photos - and primarily photos that work on Instagram. I have compared my work with others on Instagram. I have found my inspiration on Instagram.
I feel like I’ve been part of an Instagram cult. It’s a lovely cult - perhaps you’re in it too. It’s a wonderful, supportive community, but I believe some of us have become overly reliant on Instagram in our creative work. Me included.
In the beginning of this year, I saw my reach and growth on Instagram starting to drop. First, I felt betrayed. (Yes, I know it’s silly.) I had put in all this work to pleasing Instagram and its algorithm, and I had been rewarded until I suddenly wasn’t on the algorithm’s good side anymore and was unceremoniously dropped. When I had gotten over myself, it was a wake up call. I’ve always been aware of not putting all my eggs in a social media platform and have encouraged people to subscribe to my email letters, but the truth is that I was still putting many of my eggs in the Instagram basket.
The second wake up call was when I realised that none of my paying coaching clients so far have found me through Instagram. The third wake up call was when I figured out that I got more traffic to my blog through Pinterest by putting in a fraction of the time I spend on Instagram.
I started to realise this: Instagram is great and I love Instagram. But it’s not the best for everything, and it’s not made for everything. What Instagram is really good at is building connection and checking in regularly with each other. Bite sized, everyday interaction. Driving traffic, building deeper connections and really communicating your ideas in a deeper way? Not as good. I think it’s great to start with one channel and hone that for a while. But after 4,5 years with Instagram as my hegemony, I was ready to branch out.
Adding more long form content
Sometimes, I think we get the idea that everything on the internet should be short and snappy. That our attention spans are so short, people grow bored after a minute (or second). However, I don’t think that’s true. If you’ve gotten this far down this blog post, you’re an excellent example. The era of podcasts is another one. Kayte Ferris has talked about this recently on her podcast Grow With Soul, in this episode for example.
Currently, my blog is the only long form content I create. It’s where I have enough room to fully explain my thoughts and ideas. I love to write blog posts, but I know that we don’t always get around to reading blogs as much as we might like. I wanted a different form of long form content, to complement the blog.
If you follow me on Instagram, you might have seen me talk to the camera in my Instagram stories. I always try to keep them to max four parts - that’s one minute in total. Do you know how hard it is to say something meaningful and interesting in one minute? I feel terribly rushed and like I can’t express what I really want to say, because there’s not enough time. I’ve been craving a space to be able to follow the thought to its end, yes, I’m saying it - ramble a little. I think the ramble gets a bad rep.
The point of long form content is that we can get into the good stuff. The complex, complicated things we need many words to explain. We can communicate a perspective much better in a longer piece than in a short Instagram caption. If you want to help or inspire people, you’re more likely to do so in longer content. And I want more of that.
A channel for authentic connections
Thus far, I’ve communicated primarily through writing in my creative work. For a good reason - I’m a writer, I love to write, and others tend to enjoy my writing as well. Words are powerful but they do have their limitations. For a while now, I’ve wanted a medium where I’m talking rather than writing, because it creates a different kind of connection. A relaxed, authentic and intimate connection. The combination of pretty pictures and writing can give the impression of a polished surface, and I’ve always wanted to show up authentically.
From a marketing perspective, this felt especially important since I coach one to one by video call, and it can feel like a bit of a leap to pay someone to talk with you for hours if you’ve never heard them talk before. So I want to give people a sense of what it’s like to have me as their coach as well.
But primarily, I want to build stronger connections with people, and talking felt like the best tool to do that. The two alternatives I could imagine was to start a podcast or to create videos. Starting a podcast felt like the safe option, it was the one I saw many of my peers opt for. But something drew me towards video.
Following my joy and inspiration
All of the above would have been moot if there hadn’t been this simple fact: video felt fun. Scary? Heck yeah. But also fun.
I have been passionate about photography for years now and video started to feel like a natural next step. I’m not a film nerd, but I watch a lot of tv series and I find filmmaking fascinating. As I’ve started to practice video, I get the feeling that it’s like combining writing and photography - storytelling and visuals - which blows my mind since those are the two crafts I love the most.
I also have some experience with public speaking, which I’ve enjoyed and been told I’m good at it. I’ve wanted to do something with that in my creative work and video feels like the closest online version of public speaking.
When I began thinking of video, I wrote off Youtube as too scary and thought I might do IGTV on Instagram. But as I started to question my Instagram hegemony and finding more Youtube channels I enjoyed, I felt more and more drawn there. What I like about Youtube as it compares to Instagram is that it really is a platform for content, not a social media platform. People come there to consume content, you don’t have to convince people to do it. And while Instagram is primarily made for connecting with friends and family, Youtube is made for creators. That’s a BIG difference.
So after some initial doubts, my inspiration pointed towards Youtube and I decided to listen. Will it be long or short lived? A big or small part of what I create? Who knows. At this point, I’m just excited to find out.
If you’re thinking of adding a new medium of communication to your creative work, whether that’s a blog, podcast, Instagram account, Youtube channel or something completely different, I encourage you to ask yourself this. What’s the purpose? What role do you want it to play in your little creative universe? What holes can it fill? And finally, does it feel fun?
If you want to check out my Youtube channel here’s the link for you.
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