Shimmer Face Beauty Time

I hate the sound of my own voice. I hate public speaking. I find my facial expressions quite annoying. My little ticks and quirks, the involuntary way I make weird noises with my mouth. Yuck. The amount of times I say “Um”, “Uh, or “like” is horrible. I’m a terrible public speaker. I hate playing back my videos and seeing all these things. I edit them out. These are the things I look for before finalizing my posts.

I had to learn to embrace that feeling of embarrassment I got in the pit of my stomach every time I would post.I have to force myself to do it everyday. It took several posts to gain confidence in what I was doing and this took time. I wasn’t ever going to get any better if I didn’t learn to speak in my videos. It was a very hard thing for me to get use to. How was I ever going to get any better unless I practiced?

November 2022 marks 1 year since I started creating beauty content for TikTok. I started out thinking I was only going to post non-speaking videos. I was trying my hardest not to say anything and editing my actions to go along with music and trending sounds. It’s a common thing to do starting out on TikTok. Even though there have been several successful creators who have done this, even ones that don’t show their faces, eventually I decided to speak.

I couldn’t hold it in, I guess. I have seen some many quiet accounts with millions of followers. For example, there is this one account that just does TikTok Lives of peeling a raw egg with tweezers without breaking the membrane. How this is so interesting I’ll never know. But did I watch longer than I wanted to? Why yes I did. It was fascinating to see what would happen. Also, who knew watching lip syncing and dancing videos for hours on end would become a favorite past time? I blame Covid.

During our confinement to our homes in 2020, social media was our only source of connection to the world, to each other. Having lost my job, my mother and dealing with chronic illness during a global pandemic, that sense of isolation hit me pretty hard.

Working on content creation made me feel sane and whole again.

I knew nothing when I started. I didn’t even know there was a word for it! And just like that… I started to call myself a “Content Creator”. According to Adobe Express in an article written by Erika Lankert in 2020,

“A content creator is someone who creates entertaining or educational material to be expressed through any medium or channel”

You don’t have to be an expert marketer to be a content creator, you just have to know your niche and be confident about what you know. Funnily enough, I do have quite a bit of marketing experience. I don’t have a degree in marketing, but I was self-taught and built a career around the hard and soft skills I learned.

I started out doing basic graphic design work and the company that employed me paid for me to take a few classes in order to learn how to use Adobe Creative Suite. I learned about the many sides of print production when I coordinated the in-house publishing of a medical journal and marketing brochures. As the internet grew, I eventually learned to create email newsletters as well.

As my career advanced, I learned to analyze marketing data and create strategies and schedules for the year. I coordinated large scale mailings and worked with print shops. I created ads for a National magazine. I used to be in charge of marketing campaigns that brought in millions in revenue for a non-profit. I wrote copy and created graphics for digital newsletters and social media posts. I produced PowerPoints and event schedules.

This experience paired with expert knowledge in my niche made content creation easy and fun.

I chose my niche in the beauty industry for a reason. For 13 years, I was a makeup artist. I didn’t go to school for this either, other than the trainings I received from the luxury brands I worked for. I learned by doing. I learned from each face I touched, from each global artist I worked with, from each fellow artist I watched and from every trainer who taught me. I watched and I learned. There was no YouTube or Instagram tutorials to teach me these skills at the time.

I did so much more than I gave myself credit for. Especially for someone who only had a Bachelor’s in English Literature. Either way, I knew a thing or two about marketing, but social media is such a different animal. Learning how to comply to a company’s branding guidelines was easy in comparison to learning how to create a brand for myself.

When YouTube makeup videos and Instagram beauty influencing were on the rise, I was working as a marketing professional. I watched many videos in passing. I loved learning about new products and keeping up with makeup trends. Then when Covid hit and I lost a lot of things including my job. I had more time to pay attention to the climate of social media.

I thought to myself, I like that, I could do that. So I bought myself a $20 ring light and started creating. I leveled up to speaking in my videos because I read you get more views, likes and followers that way. Even though I really hate the way my voice sounds.

I had to embrace the cringe.

So far, I really like what I am doing. I am learning as I go. Putting myself out there for the world to see, knowing people will criticize me and cringe when they see my content is a hard thing to do. I am also at the age where I’m just old enough not to really care. But hey, I’ve gotten a bunch of cool free stuff in exchange for the hard work I’ve done. I’ve even gotten paid! I’ll take those wins for now.

It’s been an interesting journey and I am looking forward to what the new year brings.

If you are a content creator, blogger, YouTuber, let me know how you started and why you love doing what you do! I’d love to hear your story.