Reinvent yourself to stay relevant: Content creators tell aspirants

In the content creation space, one must constantly reinvent themselves to stay relevant, sustain audience interest, and set themselves apart from the rest, concurred content creators, at TechSparks in Mumbai.

Speaking at YourStory’s flagship tech startup event, content creators RJ Princy Parikh, Anshuman Sharma, Ayush Shukla, and Rohit Shroff, shared their insights and experiences in the ever-evolving landscape of content creation.

They spoke about a range of issues–the challenges in the content creation business, the complexity of monetisation, the need for reinvention to connect with the audience, and the importance of brand partnerships.

With recording equipment becoming cheaper and post-production software becoming easier to use, everyone desires to be a content creator today. As the field of content creation gets increasingly democratised, creators must look for different ways to relate with the audience.

Surprise the audience

RJ Princy Parikh, a content creator with 1.3 million followers on Instagram and 1.79 million subscribers on YouTube, said that even if a certain kind of content has fetched you popularity, it is important to experiment with something new and surprise the audience.

“I took the risk of stopping the thing which made me popular, and the audience demanded, to give them something I wanted to make. And then eventually they also started liking that,” said Parikh.

“Audience preference must be understood, but ultimately it should not rule over your content,” she added.

Relate with the audience

Relatability is another factor that can help one’s content stand apart.

Anshuman Sharma, who creates content related to personal finance and financial literacy on his channel Fix Your Finance, said the audience likes to listen to someone who leads a life that’s similar to theirs, someone they can relate to at some level. It could be someone who is in the same salary bracket as they are or someone who lives in their city, he said.

And once there is an audience that relates with the creator’s content, monetisation avenues can be created.

Brand partnerships and monetisation

Content creators today are trying to find a niche for themselves–an area of speciality with a large enough advertisable audience. And brands are increasingly realising the potential of partnering with such niche content creators.

Contrary to the perception that fashion brands partner only with fashion influencers and finance content creators can associate only with a mutual fund or a stock broker, newer partnerships are also being forged.

Ayush Shukla, Founder and CEO of Finnet Media, a content strategy startup, illustrates this with an example. He was engaged in a campaign for lifestyle brand Bewakoof wherein he worked with finance influencers to market the brand’s products.

According to Shukla, this “unlikely partnership” worked because people consuming financial content have a higher propensity to pay for such products than the audience consuming lifestyle content.

Content creation is a relatively new line of work and is a volatile field. Content creators can see their “hard engineered” engagement taper, and with it their revenues too, when the times are tough.

Rohit Shroff, Founder and CEO of adtech platform Aflog.in, which helps brands connect with content creators, said it is important that content creators do not fold when the times are tough.

“If you are on the table, you must keep playing,” he said.