Afrigather In only one 12 months, Ima remodeled from being a lawyer right into a profitable life-style content material creator. With 144K followers on TikTok, 32K on Instagram, and 14K on YouTube, she is on high of the creator platform trifecta —YouTube, Instagram and TikTok —that’s dominating the video content material panorama.
Her journey started in 2021 when she beat procrastination and began her YouTube channel: one thing she’d needed to do since her college days. Like many different life-style content material creators, the COVID-19 lockdown offered an important alternative to begin a profession in content material creation. There’s a big viewers throughout the continent and nearly all of creators wish to goal completely different sorts of audiences – as many as they’ll – on these three platforms.
Regardless of beginning on YouTube, it was its newer competitor that carried her to social media recognition. Lower than a 12 months after she started posting constantly on the app, her chaotic vlogs and hilarious storytimes drew the eye of a predominantly Gen Z viewers, incomes her over 100K followers in a matter of months. Whereas TikTok’s demographic ranges from people between the ages of 10 and 50, the best proportion of customers on the app are between ages 10 and 19. Ninety-five p.c of YouTube customers, alternatively, are between the ages of 19 to 29.
Social media is advanced, and every platform requires a singular course of for creators seeking to navigate and construct an viewers. Whereas having an viewers on TikTok has been helpful in serving to Ima develop her different platforms like YouTube and Instagram, she believes that constructing area of interest audiences for these platforms nonetheless requires quite a lot of work. Whereas storytelling thrives on TikTok, its competitor, Instagram, prefers extra fast-paced content material.
“In my private expertise, Instagram prefers content material that’s extra curated because the app continues to be barely extra formal than TikTok,” she shared. “TikTok, alternatively, prefers extra natural content material with quite a lot of face time.
Ima believes that to achieve success on TikTok, one will need to have consistency and supply worth, much more than different vital traits like authenticity.
“Irrespective of how genuine you’re, or how nice and fascinating your tales are, if you’re not displaying up every single day, it doesn’t matter,” she mentioned. “Additionally, it’s important to offer worth to individuals. Being constant and providing worth in your distinctive method is what individuals see as genuine.”
Crafting tales that resonate as a way of life content material creator
Hamda Koya was working at an advert company in 2021 the place she steadily collaborated with many digital creators for advertising campaigns. As somebody who beloved to discover locations and doc these by way of footage and movies, she discovered the idea of being a creator fascinating and determined in the future to attempt her palms at turning into one. This spontaneous experiment led to the beginning of The Lagos Tourist, Hamda’s Instagram web page. Her content material, which is upbeat and blissful — a attribute she says stems from her character, has attracted 62,000 followers on the app.
In keeping with Hamda, the key to being a profitable life-style content material creator is crafting compelling tales that seize the viewers’s consideration within the first three seconds — a common fact on this planet of promoting. Whether or not it’s sharing spontaneous adventures or scripted rants, her final content material creation technique is spinning participating narratives that maintain her viewers hooked from the start.
“Your video modifying abilities is perhaps nice, and your movies is perhaps good, but when they’ll’t discover a method to attract consideration within the first two or three seconds, you’ll lose the viewers,” she mentioned.
Whereas she shares that she’s not so organised when it comes to sticking to schedules and calendars, she makes use of content material buckets that assist with an total sense of course in regard to what she’s seeking to share.
“I sit and consider what can be humorous, relatable and fascinating, after which write the script for it.”
In November 2023, Hamda moved to Canada and has been extra strategic concerning the sort of content material she places out. She goals to collaborate with Canadian life-style content material creators as a technique to break into the Canadian creator scene and diversify her viewers, which presently consists predominantly of individuals in Lagos.
Neighborhood is the bedrock of making
For Amaka Amaku, who has about 20K followers on Instagram, creating content material means sharing her on a regular basis life with individuals on-line—one thing she does with an uninhibited aptitude. She has at all times posted content material on her Instagram for the aim of sharing, which finally helped her join with individuals and construct a neighborhood there. It wasn’t till 2019 that she realised that she had constructed a profession out of it. Within the 12 months that adopted, she received her first model deal. Past publishing photographs and movies on her account, your complete idea of making is one which she enjoys because it permits her to view her on a regular basis life by way of extra curious and fascinating lenses.
Amaka additionally has a TikTok, and whereas she believes which you can share the identical content material to each platforms, you continue to have to optimise for every.
“Instagram began as a photo-sharing app, and whereas we now have reels, the eye span of quite a lot of the viewers continues to be brief,” she shared. In keeping with her, the movies on Instagram must be shorter, have a catchy sound, and be extra fast-paced to achieve traction
Then again, TikTok loves storytelling, in her expertise. “If you wish to do properly; simply inform tales. Individuals love listening to what you probably did, how you probably did it, and the place you probably did it.”
Whether or not on Instagram or TikTok, she tailors her content material for every platform’s distinctive viewers, understanding the necessity for brevity on Instagram and the love for storytelling on TikTok.
Amaka’s content material is charming, and he or she shares that quite a lot of it stems from her resolve to create content material from a spot of ease and authenticity. This influences her collaborations, as she prefers to companion with manufacturers that enable her to create thrilling, natural content material that aligns together with her model.
“The notion I hope individuals have of me and my content material is of a lady simply dwelling her life and having fun with it,” she shared with TechCabal.
From creator to influencer
Social media advertising has turn out to be one of the crucial efficient methods for manufacturers to succeed in newer markets, and digital creators who can lend their platforms are in excessive demand. Being an influencer or life-style content material creator in a market like Nigeria is unpredictable, as there’s not quite a lot of construction. Not like mega influencers and celebrities who receives a commission a ton of cash to advertise on their accounts, micro and mid-tier influencers generally must grapple with honest compensation and unreasonable calls for from manufacturers. For brand spanking new life-style content material creators, this could be a drawback.
“Some individuals imagine content material creation is simple and assume you don’t need to be paid lots,” Ima shared. “No matter how straightforward or easy it seems, quite a lot of effort and time goes into creating and modifying content material. There’s additionally been lots that’s spent on constructing the neighborhood these manufacturers to benefit from.”
For Hamda, working with manufacturers as an early creator was clean as she had already understood the surroundings and had constructed relationships with quite a lot of different entrepreneurs. A number of model collaborations got here from her inside her current community, and attending varied occasions throughout the niches she was serious about.
