Next up, social media in 2021. I tried this year to execute on a strategy set one year ago and I don’t know if I have the bandwidth to continue everything I took on. I’ll summarize the larger plan keeping in mind that my goal here is not to make money or get famous but to provide value for free to people who want to consume it.
- YouTube - Two videos per week on average (I posted 125 videos in 2021)
- ADVRider - Maintain my Ride Reports, Build Threads and be available once a day to answer questions people have about bikes or rides I have direct knowledge of
- Instagram - Post one photo every weekday that I took (I posted 250 images in 2021 about 10 short of my goal)
- Newsletter - Post one edition twice a month (I posted 24 issues in 2021)
- Podcast - Post one episode per month (I posted 7 episodes by July 1st and stopped. I was on track but abandoned it half way through the year)
That’s it for outreach or various channels of communication. I know other mediums exist like Facebook, SnapChat and TikTok but I have no interest and no one is asking for them. My year-end review YouTube video will be out in a week or two and I’ll talk about how my videos had about 1.3 million views in 2021, earning me $4900 in revenue with only 10,500 subscribers. I’ll talk about the 300 or so Instagram followers, 26 subscribers to this newsletter and 1500 listens to my podcast. Amazon Affiliates sent me about $150-$200 a month on average or roughly $2100 for the year in affiliates revenue. It was a pretty solid year but nothing worth quitting your day job over! I produce the kind of content I like and am happy with the result. If people want to follow along, contribute, donate and watch then I welcome it and appreciate it.
There are now 5 humans contributing $1-$5 every single month across different mediums. That’s huge and I appreciate it. Closing out 2022 with 10 people doing this would be a win! You can subscribe here, via Patreon, YouTube and BuyMeACoffee.
I’m going to keep everything listed above going but I really want to take a bit more ownership of my produced content in 2022 which means posting ride-reports to my personal blog instead of ADVRider. Other than syndication and page views, I gain nothing by publishing to ADVRider except they get to monetize my content. After receiving my first temporary ban in December for “talking about myself too much”, I realize how using someone else’s server to publish is not the best long term plan for ride reports that I spend weeks of time preparing and publishing so I’ll publish them here and on my blog. The podcast will remain up and I’ll publish to it when I can but it’s not going away so stay subscribed please if that’s your thing. Goals for 2022 are more of the same but slightly less work as I anticipate this year being busier professionally with more irons in the fire so 100 Instagram posts, 50 YouTube videos, 12 Newsletters and 4 podcasts. I’m cutting everything in half.