The Astukari Newsletter #99
Weekly Update #003
(Taken from IndieHackers)
Hello all,
The good news is that, this week, things have gone back to a regular schedule. The bad news is that, since it's same old same old, I don't really have too much to write here.
The main thing I have been thinking of this week, I suppose, is how to approach content on various different platforms. Preferably you want to post widely and consistently, but at the same time you don't want to post anything that's going to take too much time or lead to a detraction (e.g. posting too often and saturating people's timelines). You kind of figure this out on a case-by-case basis. For example, given my growth rate on Wordpress, Substack, Quora, and Pinterest, I'd say these are channels I have down pat. Twitter and Instagram, on the other hand, I have been trying and failing to figure out for years.
This leads me to this week, where something interesting happened. On happenstance, I decided to use my second Youtube channel (which contains content a bit too "casual" for LinkedIn, so I will not be posting it here ;) ) to throw up some quick videos and highlights I had made that I wanted to have saved somewhere. Usually I would just keep these on a private Google Drive, but I thought it might be fun to convert them into YouTube videos since they were nothing personal and I figured other people might get some enjoyment out of them too.
After I posted the first video, I forgot about it and went to edit the second. When I came back, however, I noticed something interesting -- the video had gotten a ton of views in a very short time. I uploaded the second video, which was the same editing structure but completely different content from the first. This one, too, got a ton of views. Baffled, I made my third -- this time designing it for a public audience, just in case -- and published it. What ended up happening is that all 3 got a thousand views in a span of three days. This was bizarre, speaking that it was a channel I never advertised, and all other videos had 10 views maximum.
Clearly, I had instigated the YT algorithm in some way, but I wasn't sure how. Then, after some thinking, I had realized something I never thought of before. Remember the four "successful" social media channels I mentioned? All four of them contain one pattern: it's all content made for me, not for other people. The Wordpress contains ideas I find interesting, the Substack are updates for me to keep track of, the Quora is for me to think about questions relevant to my field, and the Pinterest is for me to save art pieces to come back to later. For this second YT channel, up until this point, I hadn't made content for me. I made content I thought OTHER people would enjoy. Then, the second I flipped the script (threw on videos for my own purpose), it suddenly blew up.
To be fair, I am not saying I found the secret to internet influencer clout success. Otherwise, I would be driving a Lambo, eating fruit bowls, and would absolutely not be posting on LinkedIn or IndieHackers. But perhaps its a sign that things I find interesting are more likely to be interesting to other people, rather than if I just guessed what other people wanted.
New Releases
Blog posts: My Daily Routine & The Curse of The Conqueror
Monday Morning Coffee: Writing About Stuff You Care About & Experiments in Virality
IGRU: Charlie's Dress Up, Flipnaut, and more - Indie Game Roundup #14
Astukario: Jerma Clips That Make Me Feel Like I'm Huffing A Gallon Of Acetone & Incel Arc & Professional Women Respecter & Jerma Clips That Influenced My Anarcho-Capitalist Worldview
Podcast: Taste is Not Tech (btw realized I posted the wrong link for the podcast last biweek, sorry!)
Instagram: Check out new Stable Diffusion art, 5x a week.
Other links: Pinterest, Quora, JBR Subreddit, JBR Tumblr
Updates
Creative Focus: Chugging along on B&G Part I editing. I am now done with 25 of 44 chapters. Also worth noting that I’ve completed concept art of all the characters now (with the help of AI of course) and will be posting them on the B&G page and wiki in the coming days (on occasion replacing the old SD art that honestly is not very good by comparison).
JBR Focus: We’re beginning to wind down on our “Twitter scouting” for JBR, though the actual Twitter posts will continued to be published. I see it being out main channel for awhile, beyond IGRU posted on YT. I’ve also set up some ads for the communities so we get the Discord comfortably above 100 members.
Astukari Focus: This week saw the release of the first “Magical Reality” article, a series I was hyping up in a previous MMC. There is a LOT of these in the queue, but since they do require some research on my part I’m trying to even them out with normal, shorter posts.
Other Stuff
Currently Reading: Reached the final piece of the LOTR trilogy, Return of the King. Honestly did not like The Two Towers as much as Fellowship, mostly because I don’t really care about the Frodo/Sam plotline and the entire second half of the book is loaded with it. Think if the book alternated between the two plotlines I would have enjoyed it a lot more.
Currently Watching: Jerma clips, for the Jerma compilation. If all goes right my compilations will allow me to never have to watch other Jerma videos again.
Currently Listening: Gundam Build Fighters soundtrack. Surprisingly fire, and I really don’t know anything about Gundam at all.
Currently Playing: Fallout 76. Yes, I know, I KNOW. But it had a free weekend, I played it out of curiosity, realized it was one of those “number go up” games (which I am dangerously addicted to) and decided to buy it and play it more. Don’t judge me.