I've been creating content consistently since around August 17th, posting roughly 1–2 times a day across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube Shorts.
I'm still very much a small creator, but I've had some early success, and I'm struggling to figure out what direction I should take.
A little background:
My current follower counts are approximately:
- TikTok: 250
- Instagram: 110
- YouTube: 140
I originally started making "day in the life" or "little moments in my life" videos. Eventually, I got bored with that format and wasn't convinced it was what I wanted my entire account to revolve around.
So I started experimenting with other things. Movies, gaming, funny observations, random thoughts, parenthood, personal experiences, and whatever else I felt like talking about.
And surprisingly, some of it has worked.
Here's a breakdown of my better-performing videos:
Instagram:
- 47k views: An enthusiastic talking-head video about how much I love a particular '90s movie. Still getting views and has brought in around 35 followers.
- 11k views: Talking-head listicle about five things I don't understand the hype around.
- 9k views: An 11-second silly video about having a bunch of hobbies in your 30s but never having time to actually enjoy them.
- 5k+ views: Talking-head video about a movie character.
- Other videos: Quite a few in the 2–3k range, mostly movie opinions, hot takes, listicles, and occasional lifestyle content.
TikTok:
- 23k views: Talking-head listicle.
- 13.5k views: Same '90s movie video that did 47k on Instagram.
- 8k views: An 8-second B-roll video with text overlay.
- 4.5k views: Talking-head video about a personal injury and my recovery.
One important detail:
I also created a four-part series about a pretty debilitating back injury I experienced, how much it affected my life, and my eventual recovery.
That series has probably been responsible for roughly half of my followers across TikTok and Instagram.
Clearly, there's an audience for that content. But here's where things get complicated.
I really, REALLY don't want to niche down.
I've tried it before, and I get bored incredibly quickly.
I don't want to become exclusively a movie guy, a gaming guy, a dad-content guy, or the guy who talks about his back injury in every single video.
I genuinely enjoy talking about all of those things. Some days I want to enthusiastically explain why a movie from 25 years ago is a masterpiece. Other days I want to make a stupid joke, talk about fatherhood, share something I've learned, or just document a little moment from my life.
The common thread I want to be connecting all of this is my personality.
I've tried organizing my content around three general ideas:
- Feeling understood: Relatable experiences, parenthood, life in your 30s, personal struggles, etc.
- A little escape: Movies, gaming, hobbies, everyday moments, and things people can get excited about.
- Humor and enthusiasm: Silly observations, hot takes, and genuinely enjoying the things I'm talking about.
My long-term goal is to build an audience that follows me because they enjoy me, rather than because they're only interested in one specific topic.
And that's where I'm struggling.
Growth has been slow, especially considering some of the views and engagement I've gotten. I'll have a video perform really well, pick up a handful of followers, and then go right back to videos that barely move the needle.
I'm undeniably further along than I was a month ago, and I'm proud of that. But I keep wondering whether I'm making things unnecessarily difficult for myself.
I understand that having a consistent niche makes it easier for people to know what they're following you for. I also understand that I need to keep improving my content, regardless of what I'm posting.
But I don't want to spend months building an audience around something I'm eventually going to resent making.
And while my injury-related content has brought me some of my strongest engagement, I really don't want to become someone who somehow relates every single topic back to their injury and recovery.
So I guess my questions are:
- Has anyone here successfully grown an audience around their personality rather than one specific niche?
- If you make content across multiple unrelated topics, how do you give people a reason to follow you?
- Am I being completely unrealistic trying to grow this way, or is this just a slower, more difficult path?
I'm not expecting some magic formula. I'd genuinely love to hear from creators who've dealt with this, especially anyone who started small and eventually figured out how to make variety content work.
Because right now, I feel like I'm constantly fighting between making the content I actually enjoy and making the content I think I'm supposed to make.