As a creator, are you aware of your growth?
Looking at growth numbers as a habit is not something most creators want to do. They want to focus on their content and craft. But looked at in the right way, measuring growth can bring a lot of clarity and freedom
A creator’s dilemma
As a creator who didn’t identify with the socially omnipresent creatures we’re supposed to be today, I struggled with how to deal with my growth, specially on social. I kept moving across the spectrum of:
- Actively avoiding thinking about growth numbers to the extent of despising it even. True genius, of course, does not need validation!
- Knowing that I should at least be aware of where I am (status) and what more could I be doing (actions) to get where I want to be (goals). This needs a little bit of acknowledgement of my fallibility so not something for the weaker moments.
- Actively analysing my numbers to see what can I do differently. This being a rather rare state that occurred on those few days when I was really open and optimistic about my growth, usually due to an unexpected compliment or moment of clarity (creators will know what I mean).
On balance, I did not want numbers to bother me and get in the way of my artistic spirit.
However, on recent reflection I realised this was more a way of not taking my work seriously and keeping it in the domain of low expectations while I could still afford the luxury of calling myself a real creator.
How to think about looking at numbers
For early creators, being aware of your growth numbers is not about treating your artwork at a more unimaginative plane than it should be. Rather it’s about having a broader world view of where you could be lacking and taking it higher.
It is about building a habit of being informed, and having the driving wheel in your hands. You can relax when you want to or turn it in a particular direction when you see fit.
Rather than seeing it as being judged, it’s about being open to learning from your peers and being brave enough to not let external judgments define you.
Being a creator or an artist is a tremendous journey of self-discovery on an often treacherous terrain and measuring important bits of it is like having more side and rear view mirrors so you can be more assured on the way.
Building ‘Nudges’ for creators
At Ylytic, our focus is on building unobtrusive, uncomplicated, short and focused byte-sized reports called ‘Nudges’ for creators (for YouTube currently).
The goal is simply of keeping YouTubers informed and focussed on the right actions without the hassle of dealing with a lot of data.
We are still building our product and are in our early beta phase. Any ideas or participation from creators who think this is of value are welcome to try these out and share their feedback.
This is a new journey for us. We hope some of you would like to be a part of it :-)
(If you have any questions or challenges related to YouTube Analytics we could help you with, please tell us in comments below or write to us at help@ylytic.com)
