This is the best little video I know of on this idea. Gary Vaynerchuk is an entrepreneur, social media marketing expert, and now owner of VaynerMedia, a $130 million dollar a year digital agency that he started about a year before he made this video in 2013. Gary now tells people to put out 100 pieces of content a day. Really. 100 pieces a day.
Last week, I looked up my old blogs, and surprised myself by learning that I've pulled in over 438,000 page views on my blogs over the last 12 years. I put the details in this post. While my physical situation is sketchy still, the blogging and social media has done well. My main issue is that I've been selling drawings that take a ridiculously long time to draw, and sell for $150-$200. I'd have to sell them for about $1,500 each to make a decent living. Needless to say I'm not there yet. I'm in the middle of pivoting back to doing more writing, and getting an online store going, and doing less Sharpie art. I love drawing, but making an actual living is cool, too.
So after adding up 12 years of blog stats, I went down to Costa Mesa to hang out and shoot photos at Boozer Jam 2021 at Sheep Hills. The jam is held on honor of Mike "Boozer" Brown, a longtime BMX racer and jumper, and Sheep Hills local, who died in 2019.
I hung out in this weird chunk of trash land that is home to some of the most famous dirt jumps in the world. Somehow, the jumps are not only still there after 30 years, but it's an official park area now. I talked to a bunch of old BMX friends, met a couple new ones, and shot photos of riders tearing it up, like this one.
I wasn't thinking about blogging or social media all day. I was just having fun hanging out, and Jonesin' to get a bike and get riding again. In the last month, I've begun to focus this blog more on blogging, writing, and creativity itself. But I still want to go into things I've learned from my own blogging, and promoting my artwork. There are thousands and thousands of good artists and writers out there these days. But if you want to actually sell your art, or make a living as writer of some sort, you need to either do your own promotion, or get someone to do it for you.
But that day hanging out at Sheep Hills, I realized that action sports athletes also need to do the same types of promotion that artists, writers, small businesses, and other creative people do. The more I've looked into how creative people and small businesses use social media, the more I've realized how much more they could be doing. There are so many platforms to promote yourself, your work, and your ideas these days, and yet most people don't use them to anywhere near their full potential.
After a little research this morning, looking into the Instagram and online presence of several of the athletes there last weekend, and a few of the very top action sports names, I realized the same is true of them. Yeah, even the very best action sports athletes could do a lot more with social media, blogs, and other online platforms and apps. After all, your job as a sponsored athlete is to promote your sponsor's products. If you do a really good job promoting yourself online and on social media, then you're doing a better job promoting your sponsors, and whatever it is that they sell. That's why they sponsor you.
So now I'm going to add action sports athletes into these blog posts about promoting and marketing yourself. Artist, writer, blogger, or athlete, in today's media environment, you can basically promote yourself as much as you want to. And you control the content, you can do what you think is cool, and avoid things you think are lame. Yes, I know that every athlete, and most artists and writers are on social media. But most of them, even top action sports athletes, use it like a consumer, like everyday people who don't have anything to promote. But just like riding or writing, it you want to be a pro, you need ot step up your game.
So here's the first concept to begin stepping up your game. Here's the main pointGary Vaynerchuk makes in the video above:
"You are a media company."
-Gary Vaynerchuk, 2013
You're not just a novelist, photographer, artist or blogger or BMXer or skateboarder. You are also a media company. With your phone or tablet or laptop, you can make several different kinds of media, any time you want to. and you can put it on worldwide platforms where potentially millions of people can see, hear, or read it. Let that sink it.
After all, look at me, I'm an old dork... but I'm a dork whose blogs have been looked at 438,000 times in 12 years. You all are much cooler than I am, I'm just pretty good at writing cool little stories about BMX and other weird things I've seen or done. You can do a lot more than I can with your particular talents. So let that idea sink in... no matter what you do, you are also a media company. Gary V. was trying to drill this idea into corporate executives 7-8 years ago, when they didn't see the point of advertising and creating content with blogs, videos, or social media. Seven years later, most small businesses, artists, writers, and athletes know you need to be on social, but don't use it to its full potential.
More thoughts on this coming soon. But for now, here's another cool photo from Boozer Jam 2021.
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