The future of this...
As I sit at my computer to write this I still haven’t got a clue what this post is going to be about, but I was watching a video by Ali Abdaal in which he said:
Write about whatever you want - whatever interests you!
He said a lot more in the video, but, y’know, that was like the takeaway quote for me.
I do like writing. Back in the day I used to write for a car website here in the UK. It wasn’t a paid gig but I loved it - not because I had the opportunity to throw a brand new car around Millbrook Proving Ground a couple of times a year (although that was kind of cool). No, I liked it because I do have a genuine passion for cars.
I guess in current times, though, I’ve been writing about and making videos about Squarespace for so long, the inspiration to come up with new ideas has been wearing thin - there’s only so much you can do with Squarespace after all.
Same over on YouTube. When I started my channel I wanted it to be sort of like a Sara Dietschy, Tyler Stalman or BYOL kind of thing - a little bit of this and a little bit of that, but I fell into the Rabbit hole of just making Squarespace content because it was getting views, and I started to feel uncomfortable about trying something different.
Plus, at that time I was subscribed to one of these platforms (that I won’t name) which looks at your channel and tries to predict how your next video will perform based on your video research. All of the signs were telling me to carry on making Squarespace videos because that was my ‘niche’, and anything other than that would bomb. But ideas were becoming harder to come by.
Then one day I had a “F**k it!” moment. I made a Final Cut Pro tutorial (which did ok) followed by a few After Effects tutorials which was liberating. I didn’t care how they performed I just wanted to try something different, but just for the record the After Effects videos have outperformed nearly everything else on the channel.
It’s not about the figures though, it’s about what I enjoy making. I love bringing things to life in After Effects. I could happily spend all day editing vids in Final Cut and I like picking apart different software to see how good it is, or isn’t.
But I guess what I’m getting at is, and going back to Ali Abdaal’s quote, I’m going to start using this platform to write about what I want, and use my YouTube channel to make videos about what I want.
It’s something I feel like I need to do to balance work and creativity, but it’s also a scary feeling. I know a lot of you have subscribed purely for Squarespace content and I totally respect that. My love of Squarespace slightly diminished over the past year or so, so I think mixing up my content will give me the break to start enjoying the platform again.
You’ll still get Squarespace tips and tutorials when I stumble across something that both excites me, and gives value back to you. Same with Webflow and Adobe, but there will be other stuff thrown in the mix too …bit of tech, maybe some reviews, a bit of general nonsense. Who knows? Stick around to find out.
Anyway, until the next post 👋