Hall of Fame panels aim to provide Full Sail students with tips and tricks to help them succeed, and the Become a Content-Creating Machine session was no exception. Hall of Fame 12 inductee and Entertainment Business master’s grad Phil Pallen brought his experience as a brand strategist to the panel. He was joined by his collaborator Lauren Moore as well as Media Communications grad Iván Emilio, who works as a Video Producer at BuzzFeed. The panelists shared insights on turning your passions into compelling online content, creating content for platforms like YouTube, and making a living with your finished product.

Focusing Your Passion

Following your interests is integral to figuring out what kind of content you’d like to publish, but you’ll only grow your brand if you focus those interests into content that other people want to see. By choosing a content niche that’s centered on your passions, you’ll have an established knowledge base that will earn your audience’s trust. Once you’ve committed to a niche, you should also commit to which platforms you’d like to put your content on. The panelists agreed that the pressure to be on every platform at once isn’t realistic — aspiring creators should focus on the platforms that bring them the most joy.

“I used to say rather than being average on ten platforms, be a rock star on three. Now I’d even change that to being a superstar on one platform,” says Phil.

Content Creation on YouTube

As an example of how to focus your creativity on a single platform, the panelists talked about how they make YouTube work for them. Figuring out how to get eyes on your YouTube videos can be as simple as using the platform’s search bar: Typing in a phrase or keyword that’s related to your niche will yield autofill suggestions that reveal the platform’s in-demand topics. Inexpensive tools like TubeBuddy can also help you optimize your content with keyword suggestions and other features. In terms of video creation, writing a script to read from as you film will help you get the results you want in as few takes as possible. After your video is edited and ready to upload, you’ll want to choose an eye-catching thumbnail image and write a keyword-rich title and description to help your audience find you.

Repurposing Content

Becoming a superstar on one platform doesn’t mean you should ignore others. Developing a content-repurposing strategy can help you expand your reach without spreading your creativity too thin. Phil and Lauren have a weekly podcast about personal branding that serves as the foundation for their content repurposing strategy.

“We started structuring the recording of that podcast so it would give us little nuggets that we can chop up later,” Lauren explains. “First is talking about why this topic is important, then examples of that topic done well, then tools you might use and the next steps you want to get started. We go through that very subtly throughout our podcast; we’re setting the stage to chop that up later [for a blog post, published YouTube scripts, or Instagram carousels].”

Turning Content into Cash

You don’t need to have hundreds of thousands of followers to earn money from sponsored posts on your chosen platform. Interacting with brands that you have a genuine interest in can start a lucrative relationship. Iván shared his story about starting a sponsored relationship with clothing brand Uniqlo.

“I got my first sponsorship when I had about 7,000 followers. I’m a big fan of Uniqlo and I would buy their clothes and tag [the company] on Instagram. All of a sudden, they were in my DMs. And then I was in a whole campaign for them, and they were using my photo everywhere, and I was sponsoring them… Go after the brands you like and be authentic on social media.”

For more advice on how to regularly build and publish your content, check out the rest of the panel below.