Creators, stop thinking short term

Creators, stop thinking short term.

Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes, 45 seconds

Hello there. Welcome to the Curious Creator.

The real ones will notice this is a day late. They are right.

Was I having too much of a chilled Sunday? Maybe.

Am I permanently switching the publish day to Monday? Yes.

I'm stepping up to the plate and making sure your week starts right. How am I going to do that this Monday? Here's how...

1/ Creator Quote - (yep, I've renamed this section) This week, Seth Godin.

2/ Bangers of the Week - Featuring South Park, Ali Abdaal and a book.

3/ Weekly Ramble - Too many creators are obsessed with the short-term. Stop.

Go, go, go...

Creator Quote

My first Creator Quote was Seth Godin. Here’s another one (I’m a big fan):

I think "creativity" is better described as failing repeatedly until you get something right.

There are a lot of YouTubers out there that are playing safe, repeating what’s worked.

Don’t be one of them. Take some risks, don’t be afraid to fail and you might just get rewarded for it.

Bangers of the Week

While South Park might not be for everyone, its writer's ability to tell a story should be.

This short clip got sent to me a while back and I rewatch it regularly. One simple bit of advice that will completely transform your storytelling.

So simple. So effective.

I recently shared a thread about how to think of better video ideas.

But don’t worry, this section isn’t about me - at the end of the thread I linked to a very short, but very useful book called ‘A Technique for Producing Ideas’.

Ideas are probably the most important component of succeeding on YouTube and this book is a must-read for exactly that reason.

Ali Abdaal recently opened up his Part-Time YouTuber Academy for another cohort (and made $400k in a single day but that’s for another time).

I was busy looking at the curriculum and realised the basic structure is very similar to a video on his channel, How To Start a YouTube Channel.

While built for beginners, it’s still a really great video that discusses a lot of things all YouTubers struggle with.

Weekly Ramble

Most YouTubers think short-term. They want results and they want them now.

But there’s a problem.

While certain strategies improve your chances of succeeding in the short term, they always come at a cost.

And that cost is often your chances of succeeding over the long term.

You could keep slightly exaggerating your thumbnails to maximise CTR but what is that doing to your viewer's trust?

You could keep focusing on retention-hacking rather than compelling ideas and stories but what is that doing to viewer satisfaction?

You could keep obsessing over the views, rather than the viewers but what impact is that having on your audience?

Success on YouTube takes time and there’s no way around it.

Going viral might feel good in the moment but what about building a loyal community of people that will be interested in your stuff for years?

The latter is much harder but the results are exponentially better. Start focusing on the long term.

Thanks for reading. Jay Alto

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