‍What you need to know

It seems like creators are being pulled in all directions. Staying relevant in a cut-throat, ever-expanding, ever-changing space is challenging—burnout is real. Creators are expected to span multiple platforms, providing content to please the algorithms on all of them, all while managing their growing business (before they become established enough to seek professional representation).

BeReal’s arrival was the latest example of another platform that creators are expected to post on—or at least carefully consider—for fear of missing out on a major movement that could help grow and potentially monetize their audience.

BeReal has registered 53 million downloads worldwide since the start of the year. The app has also gained plenty of media coverage that would suggest creators should consider it… but less than one in 10 users open the app daily, according to estimates.

Yet its arrival spooked competitors. TikTok launched its own version of BeReal in the form of TikTok Now, which prompts creators to share unfiltered photos in response to periodic push notifications.

Embracing these new features not only helps creators please ever-changing algorithms, it also helps them appease the humans behind them. Exuberant creator partnership teams are known to add “close” creators to guest lists at events, to priority spots on the For You Page, and to journalists seeking representative creators on their platform—that you’re all-in in supporting their goals. But it also takes time.

To dive in or not?

“There's so many platforms and within each there are countless features to use,” says Brendan Gahan, partner and chief social officer at Mekanism, a creative advertising agency. Gahan also creates his own content about social media platforms on TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, and other platforms.

He regularly conducts a cost-benefit analysis when each platform offers a new way to connect with audiences—and a new way to plow time into a hobby. “I try to ask myself: What is worth my time and what can I actually do well?” he says.

For Gahan, that means doing far less live content, and avoiding the always-on, ad hoc posts that apps like BeReal require. “Instead, I focus on formats I can create once and distribute everywhere,” he says. The short-form vertical videos he shoots for TikTok can be reused and posted onto YouTube Shorts or Instagram Reels.

Both those formats are getting as big a push on YouTube and Instagram as TikTok’s BeReal carbon copy is on TikTok. Which makes it tempting for creators to start shooting content for those formats, alongside their normal ones in order to capture the zeitgeist.

“A lot of platforms are dangling a lot of sausages in front of creators to make short-form content,” says Leena Norms, who has been producing content on YouTube and Instagram for 15 years. “But my hesitation in making it is that I grew really slowly into my career.” It took her a dozen years to build her audience to a scale where she could quit her day job. “The pressure has definitely gotten worse,” she says, highlighting the range of formats creators are expected to generate daily.

“As somebody who knows how hard it is to learn a skill like video creation, I know short-form video is a completely different skill I haven’t built up yet,” Norms adds. And learning takes time away from her already busy schedule.

Be true to yourself

“I think sometimes creators forget that audiences respond to what you’re best at, and what you’re really enjoying,” Norms says. One example: Olga Kay, an early YouTuber who used to produced 20 videos a week at one point and eventually realized it was unsustainable. “They can really tell if you’re not enjoying it,” says Norms.

Norms also points out that the new, shorter forms of video content are presented in a way that doesn’t engender as close a connection to your audience—spending too much time on videos that present you as just another face among a thousand in an endless scroll can be self-defeating.

You might be asked to generate a multitude of different content formats as part of a commercial agreement—which is fine—but don’t let it dominate your content calendar. “When I’ve been doing sponsorships, they’ve really wanted Reels, and I’ve been happy to make them,” Norms says. “But sponsors come and go.”

It’s all about drawing your own lines, and figuring out what you’re comfortable with. “Being a creator is like getting in shape,” says Gahan. “You never arrive at your destination. You constantly have to show up each day and put in the effort.” But that effort shouldn’t be at the expense of your health—or the quality of the content that brought you your name in the first place. “You need to make tradeoffs and figure out what is sustainable,” he says. “You need days off—you can't spend all day trying new things. Figure out what is repeatable and then let that work compound day over day.”