The Pointy Flat Cast By cover art

The Pointy Flat Cast

By: Ducky Obrien
Listen for free

  • Summary

  • I go over what it's like being a very small content creator and the lessons I'm learning as I try my best to succeed. Hopefully it helps someone out there!
    Copyright 2024
    Show more Show less
Episodes
  • Pointy Flat Cast 028 - Perceived Value

    Pointy Flat Cast 028 - Perceived Value
    May 16 2020
    Episode Notes Hi there. Ducky Obrien chilling like a fruit drop in a tin can. Today we go over the two most important questions in life: 1. Perception? 2. Something about DMT Show Notes Link: https://duckyobrien.com/2020/05/16/the-importance-of-perceived-value/ Show Notes Short: It's more important what people think of your content rather than the actual quality of your content. This means that marketing your content is more important to growth than actually creating content. Networking with other content creators is the fastest and most reliable path for growth. Show Notes Long: I don’t know about you but when I go shopping online, at a retailer such as Amazon, the first thing I check to help me make my purchasing decisions are the customer reviews. I’m sure most people probably do the same thing and check for the item with the most positive reviews for any product before making a purchase. This behavior deals with the concept known as perceived value. Perceived value is the customer’s evaluation of the value and ability of the product or service to meet their needs compared to other similar products or services. And in the present world where online shopping is prevalent, a customer is not able to observe the product in person for themselves. This in turn, lead to the growth of customer reviews having a huge influence on the perceived value of the product, especially for products from companies with weaker brand recognition. If you don’t believe me, this shift in purchases having a heavy reliance on customer reviews have created the problem of a massive flood of fake reviews from less then scrupulous companies taking advantage of this purchasing behavior. Fake reviews have become such a problem that sites like Fakespot are solely dedicated to determining the reliability of reviews. I won’t get into the details about how this works but generally speaking it analyzes the reviews to see if there are accounts spamming similar products from related companies and analyzing the text of the reviews to see if they are generated from bots. A surprising number of products listed on Amazon right now, that are best sellers, are products with fake reviews. So how does this concept tie in with the world of content creation? Content is a product. And the people who consume the content are your customers. Perceived value is especially important because without it, there is no reason for someone to check out your content over someone else’s. The world of content creation is very competitive because the barrier to entry is very low. Anyone with a computer or even a smart phone, an internet connection, some software, and an idea can create content for any of the existing platforms such as YouTube, Twitch, etc. Since these platforms are so saturated with content creators, people consuming content rely on perceived value to choose the creators they will want to support. I want take an aside here to note that some content creation “gurus” have this absurd notion that there is unlimited potential growth for every single content creator. This is a flat out lie. Just as people have limited incomes and they cannot purchase everything they want to, people also have limited time and cannot consume all the content they would like to, whether it be games, movies, music, books, etc. What this boils down to, is the fact that your content needs to have more perceived value over someone else’s for you to experience growth. This begs the question then, how do you increase the perceived value of your content? The sad reality is that perceived value is not necessarily tied to the actual value of your content. The old adage of “make quality content” has absolutely no correlation to growth. There are so many content creators out there, making content with either no originality and blatantly copying other people’s ideas or trends, poorly produced, lacking any artistic or academic value, and etc. that have a massive following. Whereas incredibly talented creators with well thought out, original, and well produced content are constantly passed over. This is due to the criteria that people have come to use to determine the perceived value of content. The bad news is that it is very similar to the criteria most people use to judge the perceived value of a product sold online, positive reviews. By positive reviews, I simply mean the number of followers, subscribers, views, likes, comments, favorites, etc. that you have for your content on that specific platform. This is more true than you realize. Many of the larger streamers on Twitch are actually not that great at playing games. They don’t really offer more insight, or a higher level of skill than most other streamers. There is no academic value whatsoever as watching these people will not make you better at playing the games. So then people might argue that they offer more entertainment or are more engaging than other streamers. This is not even true as well. You ...
    Show more Show less
    14 mins
  • Pointy Flat Cast 027 - Don't Wait for Success

    Pointy Flat Cast 027 - Don't Wait for Success
    Apr 24 2020
    Episode Notes Hi there. Ducky Obrien chilling like a banana in a bunch. Today we go over the two most important questions in life: 1. Scorpion? 2. Something about DMT Show Notes Link: https://duckyobrien.com/2020/04/24/this-week-in-content-creation-dont-wait-for-success/ Show Video Link: https://youtu.be/KKvQ28r9OKA Show Sources: https://www.businessofapps.com/data/twitch-statistics/ Show Notes Short: This week we go over how to not just sit around and wait for success. You need to go out and actively chase down avenues that promote growth. You can make all the content you want and not grow at all. It's vital to spend just as much effort on increasing exposure and discoverability of your content. It doesn't happen overnight, you need to put in some elbow grease to make it happen. Show Notes Long: For today’s episode, I wanted to go over something that happened to me that made me think quite a bit about how I’m approaching content creation. I’m always a firm believer of working hard and working smart but that’s not always a recipe for success. Let’s take streaming for example. The vast majority of people can stream regularly for many hours every day and still not find an increase in viewership many years later. The same goes for YouTube as well. You can be uploading videos regularly and still not find an increase in subscribers. There are people who manage to find success just by working hard but they are far fewer in number than the people who do not. Here are some facts to show you the reality of the situation. In February of 2020, there were 3.8 million unique broadcasters on Twitch. As of March 2020, there were 41,100 Partners. 1.08% of the broadcaster base made partner. The literal 1%. If anything, that number should be a little bit lower because there will have been an increase to the number of unique broadcasters by March. To make partner, one of the toughest requirements to meet is to have 75 average concurrent viewers. So even if you did barely manage to make partner, there’s no guarantee for growth or a reliable income at those numbers. The reality is, it is very hard to find success as a content creator. It can seem a bit daunting when faced with how hard it is to actually find success. So the question remains, what can I do to increase my chances of finding success? Enter this week’s epiphany moment. I’ll start by telling you what happened to me earlier this week that got my brain working, where I saw a glimpse of light and had brief moment of clarity. As most people would probably not know, I am the host of four podcasts and I post regularly on the podcast subreddit on the weekly submission thread to see if I can get any more exposure. What happened instead, was a user contacted me to see if I was interested in doing a review swap. I told him, honestly, that I was more interested in getting reviews from actual listeners and that I would want to earn every positive review I received. We then went on to have a pleasant conversation, I checked out his podcast, and left it a positive review. I checked his show out later and it jumped from 2 positive reviews to 28 on the first week of releasing the show. I don’t even have one review! And there it was, the road to success opening up in front of me. This man had figured it out. The key to success for podcasting wasn’t in creating good content (although this definitely does help). The key to success was in increasing exposure for your show and getting enough views and reviews to make it to new and noteworthy on Apple Podcasts. This will net you even more views because of the increased exposure and discoverability due to being on the list. I had devoted all my time to making my podcasts, spending at least 3 hours editing every episode, and thinking of new shows to create. I used to even spend 3 hours or so making each episode’s album art. All of this, to no avail. I could spend years doing this and end up with the same result. Where as this guy, he spent a lot of his time (after making the show), in reaching out to others directly, making use of Reddit to target a specific audience group that would probably be open to leaving a review, and making sure his podcast was discoverable. He achieved a higher level of success in that one week, than I did in entire months. The key here, was that you have to go after success. You can’t just sit around and wait there for it to come to you. That happens very infrequently. I’m not saying it’s impossible, I’m just saying it’s highly unlikely. You can keep grinding, keep making content, and keep doing your thing but nothing may ever change. You have to go out there and chase after success. That means for whatever it is you are doing, you need to spend just as much time and effort on being discoverable and getting exposure. On Twitch, you need to spend just as much time streaming, as you do building a community. You need to go watch and network with other streamers, join discords, ...
    Show more Show less
    8 mins
  • Pointy Flat Cast 026 - How to Avoid Burning Out

    Pointy Flat Cast 026 - How to Avoid Burning Out
    Mar 27 2020
    Episode Notes Hi there. Ducky Obrien chilling like a cookie in a tin. Today we go over the two most important questions in life: 1. Fire? 2. Something about DMT Show Notes Link: https://duckyobrien.com/2020/03/27/this-week-in-content-creation-how-to-avoid-burning-out/ Show Video Link: https://youtu.be/AYNhkuCcYkM Show Notes Short: To avoid burning out, fight negative thoughts by comparing yourself with yourself only. Stop comparing yourself against other people! Also keep in mind growth and improvement come with time. Secondly, keep doing what you're doing but always be willing to try out new things, to always keep you learning and changing. Finally, don't be always chasing that view and sub count and focus instead on making content that would make you happy. Show Notes Long: These past two weeks have been rough, as I am sure almost everyone else out there is having a rough time as well. Despite current circumstances, I’ve been churning out content nonstop, spending around seventeen straight hours a day. Some days, I even managed to work thirty hours at a time. And I’ve taken no breaks, no vacations, just the grind and the grind on my mind twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. But I’m slowly starting to burn out. Sometimes negative thoughts haunt me at the back of my mind, making me doubt why I’m putting in all this work. Maybe this is all for naught, maybe my time is better spent elsewhere. Maybe it’s time to get a more stable job. Why bother, I won’t make a difference anyways. I get no views, I see no growth, maybe I’m just a failure. Sometimes the repetition of what I’m doing gets to me. Making the same videos on the same topics and games. Spending so much time editing podcasts and videos everyday for an audience that doesn’t seem to care or notice the amount of effort put in. The sameness of it all, day after day, leaves me wanting something new. And then there’s always the fear of trying something new because that means you lose your primary audience group. The fear of losing relevancy, the fear of losing those view counts. Every small content creator knows that if you change the game or topic or tone of your content, you lose a large number of views, primarily because people want to see the same type of content from you. Even most of the largest content creators are subject to this. Maybe you guys can relate to what I’m going through, maybe you can’t. Either way, I’ll record my thoughts and experiences here in how I’m doing my best to overcome these obstacles in my journey as a content creator, in the hopes that it may be of some use to someone out there. First of all, in dealing negative thoughts, there’s really no easy way out. It’ll always be a fight. They will always come back to haunt you throughout your life. The key here, is to be able to live with them without it affecting your outlook on life. Start by focusing on the facts. Stop comparing yourself to other people and start comparing yourself, to well, yourself. Here’s what I mean by this. The data does not lie. It can be incorrectly interpreted and that will be a topic for another day. As long as you see growth, no matter how small, that is always a positive thing. That means you are doing better! You are getting better at making whatever content it is you set your sights on, whether it be music, videos, art, etc. Look at what you made, see if you improved from where you started. Use the facts, look at the data available, compare yourself to yourself. Be honest. Be patient. Growth and improvement does not happen immediately, it always takes time. There are no shortcuts. Always try to improve on one small skill at a time. You have an abundance of high quality resources on almost every topic available on the internet nowadays and most of it is available for free! Always be learning, always be improving, failing is part of the process. Don’t ignore the things you are doing well in either! Everyone has something they alone can do, some unique quality that can’t be replicated exactly. The reality is that no one is great at doing something when they first start out. Sure, there may be a handful of people in the entire world that are natural geniuses, but 99.99% of the world is in the same boat as you. It takes time, it takes practice, it takes effort to learn and refine skills, and it takes blood, sweat, and tears to create something beautiful. If the negative thoughts come, let them and face them head on. See if they are true. Use the data, not your emotions. Sometimes they are. It’s true, I’m not the best at making content. I’m very limited in the skillset I have now. My podcasts aren’t the best, my videos aren’t either, and so are my articles on my blog. But that’s ok. I can improve. With each piece of content I make, I can see myself improving a little bit at a time. And with time, you gain something important, perseverance. The ability to withstand and survive, and even thrive ...
    Show more Show less
    11 mins
Science Fiction
Show more Show less

What listeners say about The Pointy Flat Cast

Average customer ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Audible.com reviews

Amazon reviews
No Reviews are Available