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Hassassin

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There’s less than half a year left (currently 167 days) until 2021 comes to a close and I’ve accomplished nothing.

Sure, I’ve made some progress in my day job (content marketer), but apart from that?

Nada.

That’s the harsh truth. And the primary cause is a lack of focus on one thing and a sinister case of Shiny Object Syndrome.

I’ve fluttered from freelance writing to YouTube videos to flipping items, and it’s clear that this scatter-brained short-term-focused approach is a treadmill to nowhere—serious growth requires committed action. In light of this personal “revelation” I’m making an iron-clad commitment to one goal:

Becoming a TikTok influencer!

Just kidding…my REAL goal for the next year:

1) Use my experiences as a freelance content writer to help beginners who are entering the content writing world and build an audience through YouTube and my own website.

I’m officially locking myself into the plan below for an entire year:

YouTube: Post at least one informative video about freelance writing per week on my channel

Subscriber count: 16
Videos: 4

Definitely not the best at speaking to a camera, and I'm more comfortable tapping away at a keyboard as opposed to speaking to a camera lense, but I've actually enjoyed the challenge that comes with learning how to improve verbal communication and clarity. Editing is also a steep (but fun) learning curve.

Website: Post one article per week related to freelance writing.

Email list: 0
Posts: 0 (that are actually valuable)

I’ll be writing articles myself if they draw from personal experiences. If they are general listicles and tips, I’ll be hiring writers to help me or pay for guest post submissions as I don’t have the time especially when recording and editing YouTube videos.

Lead magnet: Mini-course for the website/ebook

I also need to flesh out content for a drip-feed email course that will act as my opt-in. At this stage, I’m still unsure of whether an ebook or mini-course will have stronger conversions.

I like what Elna Cain has done here in this niche, however, the main goal for me is to build an audience and exercise my ability to go all-in. I’m not thinking of monetization just yet.

(Fyi—I’m starting from zero, there’s barely any content on my blog and 4-5 videos on my YouTube channel.)

With the explanations out the way, it’s time to roll up my sleeves!

I’ll be posting weekly updates on my progress and goals for the upcoming week. Stay tuned.

Goals for week 1:

  • Create a buyer persona of my audience and assess the competition
  • Sort out my messy website. This includes addressing some design issues and technical stuff on the back-end for tracking and analytics. I haven’t even accessed Google Analytics!
  • Generate keywords and plan the editorial content for my site so I can identify low-comp keywords, create content briefs, and hire out what’s necessary
  • Publish my next video
 
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MotionDesign

Contributor
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Jul 1, 2019
36
48
There’s less than half a year left (currently 167 days) until 2021 comes to a close and I’ve accomplished nothing.

Sure, I’ve made some progress in my day job (content marketer), but apart from that?

Nada.

That’s the harsh truth. And the primary cause is a lack of focus on one thing and a sinister case of Shiny Object Syndrome.

I’ve fluttered from freelance writing to YouTube videos to flipping items, and it’s clear that this scatter-brained short-term-focused approach is a treadmill to nowhere—serious growth requires committed action. In light of this personal “revelation” I’m making an iron-clad commitment to one goal:

Becoming a TikTok influencer!

Just kidding…my REAL goal for the next year:

1) Use my experiences as a freelance content writer to help beginners who are entering the content writing world and build an audience through YouTube and my own website.

I’m officially locking myself into the plan below for an entire year:

YouTube: Post at least one informative video about freelance writing per week on my channel

Subscriber count: 16
Videos: 4

Definitely not the best at speaking to a camera, and I'm more comfortable tapping away at a keyboard as opposed to speaking to a camera lense, but I've actually enjoyed the challenge that comes with learning how to improve verbal communication and clarity. Editing is also a steep (but fun) learning curve.

Website: Post one article per week related to freelance writing.

Email list: 0
Posts: 0 (that are actually valuable)

I’ll be writing articles myself if they draw from personal experiences. If they are general listicles and tips, I’ll be hiring writers to help me or pay for guest post submissions as I don’t have the time especially when recording and editing YouTube videos.

Lead magnet: Mini-course for the website/ebook

I also need to flesh out content for a drip-feed email course that will act as my opt-in. At this stage, I’m still unsure of whether an ebook or mini-course will have stronger conversions.

I like what Elna Cain has done here in this niche, however, the main goal for me is to build an audience and exercise my ability to go all-in. I’m not thinking of monetization just yet.

(Fyi—I’m starting from zero, there’s barely any content on my blog and 4-5 videos on my YouTube channel.)

With the explanations out the way, it’s time to roll up my sleeves!

I’ll be posting weekly updates on my progress and goals for the upcoming week. Stay tuned.

Goals for week 1:

  • Create a buyer persona of my audience and assess the competition
  • Sort out my messy website. This includes addressing some design issues and technical stuff on the back-end for tracking and analytics. I haven’t even accessed Google Analytics!
  • Generate keywords and plan the editorial content for my site so I can identify low-comp keywords, create content briefs, and hire out what’s necessary
  • Publish my next video
Sounds exciting! Looking forward to seeing this thread and the progress. Feel like we are trying to do pretty much the same thing but in different niches.

By the way, will you be posting your channel here or will you keep it hidden for now?

Good luck :)!
 

lowtek

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Oct 3, 2015
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Good luck. YouTube is a grind.

To achieve rapid success, you need one or more of the following:
1) Be female catering to a mostly male audience (you strike out on this one, it seems)
2) Be charismatic and authentic on camera
3) Have exceptionally high production value
4) produce multiple videos (3+) a week while you improve on traits 2 and 3

There are plenty of little hacks you can do to generate incremental boosts to your growth, for instance:
  • make the content of the channel obvious from the name, i.e. "Content creation with Hassan"
  • Drop positive comments on large channels the minute they release a new video. Like your comment with as many accounts as you can (3 - 4). This boosts your comment up, and combined with point above will get people to click through to your channel and (hopefully) watch / subscribe
  • Hang out on reddit (gag) and post your content there. You typically have to participate in discussions outside of your own content, so it's not just shameless self promotion
You've been around long enough that I think it'd be fine for you to publish your content here. I'm sure other people would love to see what you're doing; provide feedback and support.
 

Raoul Duke

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Good luck. YouTube is a grind.

To achieve rapid success, you need one or more of the following:
1) Be female catering to a mostly male audience (you strike out on this one, it seems)

He could transition.
 
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steelandchrome

Author of The Retail Leader Book.
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Goodyear Az
Youtube is definitely a grind. I started in February and am just hitting 650 subs with 3 videos a week. Not selling anything, just teaching and entertainment value. Just stay consistent even when you have no or little views and engage with your audience and you'll do better than most. Best wishes!
 

Hassassin

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Oct 14, 2012
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Sounds exciting! Looking forward to seeing this thread and the progress. Feel like we are trying to do pretty much the same thing but in different niches.

By the way, will you be posting your channel here or will you keep it hidden for now?

Good luck :)!

Definitely looks like we're on the same path!

I'm not all that enthused about my channel just yet, but it's a work in progress. Here's the link:
 

Hassassin

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
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Oct 14, 2012
216
272
Good luck. YouTube is a grind.

To achieve rapid success, you need one or more of the following:
1) Be female catering to a mostly male audience (you strike out on this one, it seems)
2) Be charismatic and authentic on camera
3) Have exceptionally high production value
4) produce multiple videos (3+) a week while you improve on traits 2 and 3

Thank you @lowtek. Everything seems to be a grind these days, so I just might as well pick one that has plenty of positive upsides and get grinding away!

There are plenty of little hacks you can do to generate incremental boosts to your growth, for instance:
  • make the content of the channel obvious from the name, i.e. "Content creation with Hassan"
  • Drop positive comments on large channels the minute they release a new video. Like your comment with as many accounts as you can (3 - 4). This boosts your comment up, and combined with point above will get people to click through to your channel and (hopefully) watch / subscribe
  • Hang out on reddit (gag) and post your content there. You typically have to participate in discussions outside of your own content, so it's not just shameless self promotion

I actually hadn't thought of or heard about any of these mini growth hacks. For now, I just want to get a body of solid content uploaded to YouTube. Aiming for 1-2 videos per week. Just recorded my first video of the week this morning and will be editing it tomorrow.
 
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steelandchrome

Author of The Retail Leader Book.
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Nov 6, 2016
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Goodyear Az

OllieAstra

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Jul 11, 2021
5
9
There’s less than half a year left (currently 167 days) until 2021 comes to a close and I’ve accomplished nothing.

Sure, I’ve made some progress in my day job (content marketer), but apart from that?

Nada.

That’s the harsh truth. And the primary cause is a lack of focus on one thing and a sinister case of Shiny Object Syndrome.

I’ve fluttered from freelance writing to YouTube videos to flipping items, and it’s clear that this scatter-brained short-term-focused approach is a treadmill to nowhere—serious growth requires committed action. In light of this personal “revelation” I’m making an iron-clad commitment to one goal:

Becoming a TikTok influencer!

Just kidding…my REAL goal for the next year:

1) Use my experiences as a freelance content writer to help beginners who are entering the content writing world and build an audience through YouTube and my own website.

I’m officially locking myself into the plan below for an entire year:

YouTube: Post at least one informative video about freelance writing per week on my channel

Subscriber count: 16
Videos: 4

Definitely not the best at speaking to a camera, and I'm more comfortable tapping away at a keyboard as opposed to speaking to a camera lense, but I've actually enjoyed the challenge that comes with learning how to improve verbal communication and clarity. Editing is also a steep (but fun) learning curve.

Website: Post one article per week related to freelance writing.

Email list: 0
Posts: 0 (that are actually valuable)

I’ll be writing articles myself if they draw from personal experiences. If they are general listicles and tips, I’ll be hiring writers to help me or pay for guest post submissions as I don’t have the time especially when recording and editing YouTube videos.

Lead magnet: Mini-course for the website/ebook

I also need to flesh out content for a drip-feed email course that will act as my opt-in. At this stage, I’m still unsure of whether an ebook or mini-course will have stronger conversions.

I like what Elna Cain has done here in this niche, however, the main goal for me is to build an audience and exercise my ability to go all-in. I’m not thinking of monetization just yet.

(Fyi—I’m starting from zero, there’s barely any content on my blog and 4-5 videos on my YouTube channel.)

With the explanations out the way, it’s time to roll up my sleeves!

I’ll be posting weekly updates on my progress and goals for the upcoming week. Stay tuned.

Goals for week 1:

  • Create a buyer persona of my audience and assess the competition
  • Sort out my messy website. This includes addressing some design issues and technical stuff on the back-end for tracking and analytics. I haven’t even accessed Google Analytics!
  • Generate keywords and plan the editorial content for my site so I can identify low-comp keywords, create content briefs, and hire out what’s necessary
  • Publish my next video
Just from this post alone, it’s clear you are a talented writer. Your TikTok comment make me chuckle. I do a lot of learning through LinkedIn Learning and the short form video content is very easy to digest to learn new concepts. I noticed on your channel that the first video I came across was approximately 13 mins. Have you considered :15 to :30 snippets of content instead? I work in marketing and we only produce :7, :15, and :30 spots and get the best engagement through shorter content.
 

MotionDesign

Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
133%
Jul 1, 2019
36
48
Definitely looks like we're on the same path!

I'm not all that enthused about my channel just yet, but it's a work in progress. Here's the link:

You seem very natural in front of the camera. Liked it!

Also, I really like the quick tip short videos.
I recommend using this site for finding good color combinations for your thumbnails Coolors - The super fast color schemes generator!.
 
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Hassassin

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
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Oct 14, 2012
216
272
Just from this post alone, it’s clear you are a talented writer. Your TikTok comment make me chuckle. I do a lot of learning through LinkedIn Learning and the short form video content is very easy to digest to learn new concepts. I noticed on your channel that the first video I came across was approximately 13 mins. Have you considered :15 to :30 snippets of content instead? I work in marketing and we only produce :7, :15, and :30 spots and get the best engagement through shorter content.
Thanks @OllieAstra! Great suggestion with the shorts.

I know it's something I should be doing and will probably double down on it.

In fact, I'll dedicate one day/recording session to TikTok style shorts - I think the key to being memorable is 1) leaping out the gate with value while 2) maintaining engagement and 3) pumping out a ton of content so people recognize me.

I think I'll take inspiration from one of my favorite channels who recently started doing shorts. It's quite entertaining and educational for the intended audience (yes, I'm a short dude)!

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ78Xrxht4A&ab_channel=PrecisionStriking
 

Hassassin

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
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Oct 14, 2012
216
272
You seem very natural in front of the camera. Liked it!

Also, I really like the quick tip short videos.
I recommend using this site for finding good color combinations for your thumbnails Coolors - The super fast color schemes generator!.
Oh, this is a great tool. I've actually been wondering how to improve the coloring of my thumbnails, cheers for that!

Note to me: FIX UP THAT UGLY LIGHT SWITCH BEFORE RECORDING YOUR NEXT VIDEO :rofl:
 
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Hassassin

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Time for a progress update. It's been a productive week!

Website:

Still working on building a solid foundation before throwing up a ton of content and gunning for keywords — the site has been neglected ever since I used it to host my writing portfolio. That's got to change if I'm going to rank for freelance writing-related keywords in the future.

I've fixed a few SEO issues, connected the site to both Google Search Console & Analytics (conversions will need to be setup once I have a proper opt-in), and fixed some back-end issues on the site.

This includes setting up a monthly backup schedule, adding Yoast SEO so I can actually manipulate metadata, using the WProcket plugin to minimize CSS&JAVA files, improve image compression, and implement a host of other improvements to boost site performance.

Today, I'm going to focus on rewriting my home + about page copy.

Next week's website to-do's:

  1. Finalizing the homepage copy and tweaking my homepage design. I'm good at many things, but design definitely is not one of them! I'll be going for a minimum viable approach with regards to everything design as it can lead me down a deep rabbit hole of tweaking and testing things.
  2. Setting up the blog archive pages + blog post template using Elementor Pro (currently on the free version) so content users can easily consume & navigate around content
  3. Write the content for a free email mini-course sequence to capture leads. Once this mini-course is live, I'll at least have a gated resource to link to from videos and posts!
YouTube:

I published two new videos this week which is a new record for me!

#1
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHDvKoIr38s&ab_channel=HassanUddeen


#2
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lOMbzTXlM4&t=64s&ab_channel=HassanUddeen


(Had a blast recording the second video, but I also messed it up by enabling the AutoFocus setting on my camera. Never again.)

I doubted my ability to publish two videos in a week, but I found extra time to edit as I was on sick leave with a stomach bug. I've also temporarily cut out any kind of fancy edits, on-screen animations, etc. to speed up the publishing process. I need to rely on my camera presence and the quality of my content more than anything.

Next week's YouTube to-do's:
  1. Spice up my background - I've bought light strips and will add wallpaper over my ugly switch
  2. Wrap up the buyer persona(s). I should have done this by now, but I didn't get around to it this week.
  3. Plan a month of content in advance - I'm currently winging it.
  4. Publish the next two videos.
That's all for this week.

Observation: Consistency is everything. To remain consistent, I'll need to dial in my sleeping and waking habits to stick to this schedule while juggling family responsibilities and my day job.

See you on the next update and thank you for reading!
 

Hassassin

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Oct 14, 2012
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01/08/2021: Another week's whizzed by!

I'm not that satisfied with this week's progress, but slow-motion beats no-motion I guess.

Only produced one video this week (also managed to finally touch up my background) because of family obligations and I butchered some things on my site by trying to make certain elements fancy. It took me a while to rectify the issues I created.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvPJdHg8bQE&t=223s&ab_channel=HassanUddeen


Finally upgraded to Elementor Pro, should have done this sooner - would've saved a ton of time. With that said, I did manage to set up a template for blog posts and update my about and homepage copy.

I'm also noticing that when viewed on a desktop, my videos appear to have a blur, not sure why that is as they seem pretty crisp whilst recording and editing. Might be a setting issue in Davinci Resolve.

Next week's website tasks:

  • Have the blog archive template ready to go
  • Update my dodgy portfolio section using Elementor Pro
  • Sort out the footer and legal pages needed for the site
Next week's YouTube tasks:

  • Upload my next video to YouTube. (Doubt I'll have time for two videos as I'll be repairing my garden gym, but I'm aiming to pick a topic that's valuable to my audience and isn't too competitive based on the persona I developed)
 

Wiggly0607

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Youtube is definitely a grind. I started in February and am just hitting 650 subs with 3 videos a week. Not selling anything, just teaching and entertainment value. Just stay consistent even when you have no or little views and engage with your audience and you'll do better than most. Best wishes!
that's not bad, though! 650 since February, nice work
 
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