In my role at Hired, diving into the world of hiring trends and career advice directly fed the content I created. I was constantly surrounded by insights from industry experts, which made it easy to generate relevant and impactful content.

Creating content, in turn, has significantly enriched my professional life. It has deepened my understanding of social media strategies beyond what my role would traditionally offer, making me a more well-rounded marketer. I've learned to craft creative cross-channel campaigns and gained a deeper industry expertise, particularly by keeping up with hiring news and job-seeker challenges.

For anyone interested in leveraging content creation to advance their professional career, I say go for it, because the benefits feel endless. Regularly creating content acts like an in-depth course on your career field, increasing your value within your company and industry. Sharing your expertise publicly boosts your visibility, establishing you as an authority figure and making you more attractive to potential employers or clients. Essentially, your content becomes a dynamic extension of your resume, leading to better opportunities and an additional income stream that provides financial security beyond a corporate salary.

I advocate on my channel for what I call the 'corporate creator' approach — leveraging personal branding to advance one's professional career. It's an investment of time that, in my experience, pays dividends in enhancing your career and financial resilience.

I never could have guessed how influential content creation would become in my life, but it was no joke to get to this point. It is essentially my '5 to 9' after my '9 to 5.' I recognize that this was only possible for me because I’m in a phase of my life where I work remotely and don’t have any caretaking responsibilities.

I approached content creation with the seriousness of a job from the start, dedicating 10-20 hours a week to it (more when working on brand partnerships or content strategy, and less when focusing on content creation alone). My strategy involves batching tasks — researching, scripting, filming, and editing in separate sittings — to align with my creative energy levels, which vary throughout the day.

For those looking to balance content creation with a full-time job, finding a workflow that suits you is critical for maintaining consistency, which is key for growth. It's also vital to have a clear understanding of your content creation goals, both broad and tactical.

For me, I have a broader mission (I want to help people build careers that don’t suck) and a more tactical goal (I want to build a full-time income stream while working for myself in a creative role).

Clarity on your goal will keep you coming back week, after week, after week, after week. Trust that growth takes time and requires sustained effort, and you will see results if you commit to learning and trying to improve little by little.

Remember, everyone's journey in content creation is unique. Allow yourself grace, and remember that content creation should ultimately be a fun and fulfilling outlet for self-expression.

For me, it really came down to personal timing and ambitions. I reached a unique inflection point this year after my partner was laid off that ended in a decision to live abroad and both our pursue entrepreneurial goals. I haven’t fully replaced my corporate income yet with social media, but I’m on a path to do so this year, and for me, leaving my job meant going after a big hairy audacious goal of mine and traveling abroad while betting on myself to build my own creator business.

I’d advise somebody else thinking about making the transition like I’d advise anyone thinking about a career move. Consider:

Finances: Compare your current earnings from social media to your potential earnings if you went full-time, against your cost of living and your level of savings. If there is a gap between the two, how do you plan to close that?

Risk level: What happens if something doesn’t go according to plan? Do you have a fallback option? Do you need one? This definitely relates to savings — what if it takes you longer to reach the full-time creator income level you anticipated?

Current set of skills: What are you already great at, and what will you need to learn in order to do content creation full-time? Will you need to expand? If so, how?

Future goals: What do you want to do long-term in your career or life, and will going full-time as a creator move you towards them?

Needs in life: Understand that our goals and needs in life change as we go through phases of our life. Consider how content creation fits into different life stages, from family life to potential relocations, acknowledging the need for adaptability in your content strategy.

Regardless of the impending ban, diversified social reach and income is a smart strategy. I’m working right now on growing on Instagram and LinkedIn, and will be differentiating the social strategies for each to build unique followings.

I’m interested in exploring YouTube, too. I’ll also focus on growing my email list through lead magnets, low ticket products, and newsletters. As the TikTok conversation evolves, I’ll continue talking about it with my existing audience and encouraging them to find me on my other channels. Of course, building additional income streams is top of mind, to lessen my reliance on brand deals should the influencer marketing industry waver. 

Build relationships with other creators. It can get isolating quickly when your friends don’t understand what you’re dealing with. And talk about money!

Nothing goes viral without negativity, and so many people on the internet have some weird obsession with bringing other people down. For every negative comment, there will be so many more people that appreciate what you’re doing.

Develop content creation systems as early as you can and refine them as your workflows refine. Keeping yourself organized and making creation as EASY as possible will help you keep going.

Experiment with topics, content styles, and platforms, especially when you’re early. Pay attention to analytics to figure out what works and what your audience likes, look for opportunities to create repeatable series, and most importantly pay attention to what you enjoy!!

Build across multiple platforms early on to increase your monetization opportunities and to reduce your risk of reliance on a single platform. Learn from me. 🥲