Failing as a content creator in 2024 and what I've learnt

Think of this as my Creator Wrapped for a very up-and-down year being annoying on the internet.

After over 100 hours of Riverdale, House and Big Joel videos, I’ve finally escaped my year-end depression! I’m showered, fed, dressed and sobered up to start the year (for real this time—I might even clean my room). 2024 was, to say the least, very difficult for me with a lot of curveballs but around July last year, I was very serious about committing to this content creator bit. As such, I’ve been keeping tabs on my growth, output and habits which I’m going to share today as my 2024 Creator Report Self Evaluation Social Media Thing—Final Title.

This is a summary of my performance last year as an online writer, designer, and commentator as someone who’d planned to go full-time and left my 9-5 cushion—including my best-performing content and platforms, income streams and general evaluations as someone who’s worked in this field from a brand, agency and creator perspective.

I’ve been working in marketing, specifically social media and influencer marketing, for the past 4-6 years and began trying to 10x my platform in 2022 to test out a lot of the claims I’d make to clients and talent. (like, I was in meetings just saying anything). That year I grew my Instagram from 5k followers to over 30k in 6-8 months.

A lot of my social growth has kind of been like that—me messing around and then accidentally striking gold. The first YouTube video I published in 2020 is still my most popular at 30k views. While I’m grateful for that kind of luck, and the opportunities and paths that have since opened, it was a lot of unexpected, unplanned successes all at once that have sent me into hiding several times. But if I can do that while fooling around, I’d like to see what happens with a concerted, steadfast effort.

In a fit of rage, I deleted my 2024 content calendar (along with all of my drafts and outlines) which I wanted to show but here’s a peak at my strategy from last year - done on Notion.

This was mostly meant to live in my Notion as part of my Baddie K 2025 Operating System but I:

• had a self-imposed publishing deadline (as part of my New Year’s goals) and couldn’t think of anything else

• enjoy it when other creators discuss their processes and earnings (transparency is good!)

• haven’t seen many African creators doing this and would love to see more insights and conversations from people way less stinky than me.

Growth & Performance

I spread myself too thin in terms of the number of platforms I use but I still haven’t figured out what’s worth giving up. Last year, I was active on Instagram, TikTok, Substack, LinkedIn, Patreon and YouTube. The last two are the most straightforward monetisation paths (omg, hey, have you considered becoming a member?) but in terms of discovery and community, Instagram and TikTok are still the best. I think if I get over myself, I’ll get a lot more out of Substack (I already love Notes as a Twitter alternative—no ads, Nazis or Black people asking asinine hypotheticals) but it’s not monetisable in South Africa so it’ll be a lower priority.

Growth Breakdown

For each platform, I set a growth goal (an increase in followers/subscribers), except for Patreon and YouTube, and I tracked the numbers at the end of every month from August to December 2024. I didn’t achieve a single one.

Instagram (goal: 150k followers)
31 August 2024: 62,963 / 31 December 2024: 69,500 (+6537)

TikTok (goal: 100k followers)
31 August 2024: 54,513 / 31 December 2024: 75,165 (+14,987)

Substack (goal: 1.5k subscribers)
31 August 2024: 530 / 31 December 2024: 894 (+364)

LinkedIn (goal: 2k followers)
31 August 2024: 1,126 / 31 December 2024: 1,247 (+121)

Patreon (goal: 50 members)
30 September 2024: 5 / 31 December 2024: 21 (+16)

YouTube (goal: 15k subscribers)
30 September 2024: 8,008 / 31 December 2024: 10,512 (+2504)

To be honest, a lot of these goals were pretty realistic if I didn’t get in my way. Up until November, I had a lot of growth (about 3-4k new followers on TikTok and Instagram, and 100+ new Substack subscribers monthly) then I posted much, much less.

I’m going to be gentle on myself for this because I was burnt out and in the middle of a very stressful move—finding accommodation in Cape Town is not for the faint-hearted (for a good two weeks, I had daily panic attacks about how I’d afford to move back to Johannesburg because nothing was working out).

Surprisingly, even though I probably put the most effort into Instagram (at some point, posting daily, starting a broadcast channel and just general engagement and use of the app), TikTok showed the greatest growth in followers. I shared pretty much the same content on both platforms and found that while views were often lower on TikTok, there tended to be greater engagement (likes, comments, shares and saves).

Now, I think most people might take this as motivation to invest more in the clock app but unless South Africa somehow magically becomes eligible for the Creator Rewards Program, I think I’ll keep the same Instagram-first system with some TikTok-only content interspersed. Most important are YouTube and Patreon because they mean money.

Performance Breakdown

With my professional social media work, my reports would always include a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the best-performing content to evaluate what was worth replicating, dropping and learning from. On a personal level, I don’t enjoy doing anything more than twice so replication isn’t on the agenda. However, there are always lessons to keep moving forward—how does X bring value to a viewer, am I prepared to deal with Y amount of negative comments again, does the reaction here warrant further investigation and exploration?

YouTube

• Content: The unexpected truth of shweshwe, the denim of South Africa

• Results: 14.8k views / 1618 likes / 157 comments / +813 new subscribers

• Thoughts: This was the first “long-form” video I’d posted after a over 12 months away from the platform. Editing 15+ minute videos was destroying my laptop and the amount of reboots needed didn’t warrant the dwindling views, especially since I was chasing the high of my first few videos—which benefited from a captive lockdown audience and a more consistent publishing schedule (I still kick myself to this day for not taking greater advantage of this time).
  
  For my return, I’ve decided to focus on videos under 15 minutes and fewer video essays (collecting screen recordings was eating into the majority ofthe time)—and I think the shorter duration (8 min) also aided in this video’s success. I promoted short clips from the video on Instagram and TikTok (95k and 128k views respectively which did very well and brought a lot of traffic to my channel. I also was very timely with this release, publishing in the same week as Heritage Day where people were already talking about shweshwe and traditional fashion online. It also helps that a lot of the comments are from people dead certain that I was lying about shweshwe’s origins—almost every Southern African culture has its names, lore and uses for the cloth—so that drove up the engagement a lot.
  
  I also published one Shorts video every day in the following 2 weeks—mostly because I need to get my watch hours back up to 4,000 to re-qualify for ads. Do not take a year-long hiatus!
  

Instagram

• Content: Lively Collab Part 1.

• Results: 90,3k views / 41k likes / 248 comments / 561 shares / 1.1k saves

• Thoughts: It’s wild that my best piece was technically spon-con but it’s pretty similar to my other most popular video of 2024 in that I had a very good hook (interesting question about a very niche topic), titillated the viewer (only offering a reveal in a separate video they’d have to come back to) and documented a process.
  On a deeper level, it’s a very relatable and pertinent topic: how do we interpret cultural or so-called traditional products in our modern, globalised context? Most of the comments are filled with Africans, Asians and Indigenous Americans discussing ways in which they do and wish to celebrate their heritage.
  
  If I had to do this again, I’d make it easier to find Part 2 (the most frequently asked question) and maybe do a bit more research about the names and significance of the garments I was referencing.
  

TikTok

• Content: the same Lively Collab Part 1 video

• Results: 1.1m views / 185k likes / 1,019 comments / 2,856 shares, 14k saves

• Thoughts: When it comes to TikTok, (1) the algorithm is just so much better at discovery, (2) people there love discourse so longer-length, talking videos are good and (3) arts and crafts are very popular niches.
  
  Even though this got over 1 million views and 14k new followers, I kind of wish I didn’t post this here. Mostly because a lot of people were very upset with me for not doing what they wanted—such as opting for pinstripes or plaid or something less gaudy than hot pink tiger stripes—and a few people got very cheeky about telling me about my blush blindness. I don’t know, it’s just very off-putting to me how much that platform validates catty, callous comments. However, I did reach a much more diverse audience—there were lovely anecdotes from all ages and creeds about sartorial traditions and practices and, at some point, a bunch of people started collaborating on an Afro-fantasy graphic novel.

Substack

• Content: Everyone gets an African fashion museum except Africa

• Results: 1.26k views / 57 likes / 9 comments / 54% open rate (332 out of my 614 subscribers)

• Thoughts: I think timeliness was the greatest contributing factor here as I released this in the week this year’s Met Gala theme was announced plus this was around the time Substackers were talking about how overwhelming white the platform is/was. It earned me a whopping 15 new subscribers (always funny in contrast to my social numbers but, as everyone says, 5 subscribers is the equivalent of 100 IG followers).
  
  The majority of my traffic came from my email subscribers (73), followed by the Substack app (195) and Instagram (4%). I know a lot of people don’t see much of a migration of Instagram or TikTok followers here—I’ve tried to find some ways around this such as reading pieces aloud in videos (examples here and here) but I think it’s more valuable to utilise Notes and have a frequently updated link-in-bio. However, I’ll do some more experimentation this year with Stories, Reels and such to see what drives more traffic. I don’t see myself quite capturing the trends on Substack, primarily because I’m not eligible for monetisation so I don’t see why the algorithm would be incentivised to platform me. Also surprisingly only 1 person clicked on my Patreon link where as 7 people did in the newsletter following this one. Wonder what that’s about.

Show me the money (brand deals, earnings and other monetisation stuff)

In 2024, I had a total of 7 paid partnerships/brand deals (3 more than in 2023) and launched my Patreon alongside my Buy Me A Coffee tip jar. I’m not going to release any actual earnings figures because I know some of you are witches (and I was not tracking that stuff at all) though I’ll do so in the coming year (unless I become a millionaire, then I’m disappearing from public life).

Paid Partnerships

Last year I did campaigns with SA20 (don’t ask), Canvas Studios, Lively Fabrics, Nando’s, Twyg and Industrie Africa, and Marc Jacobs Fragrances.

I got the Nando’s and SA20 gigs through the influencer platform Humanz, personally reached out to Lively Fabrics and was approached by the rest. The most lucrative was Marc Jacobs (they let me set the rate), Lively was a trade exchange (though considering I was going to spend that money on fabric anyway it zeroes out) and the rest were a combination of a decent rate and gifting.

I got a lot more money for a Black Friday ‘23 Takealot campaign (which I got from working at the agency managing the campaign) along with red carpet recaps for Netflix on Twitter for Bridgerton (though they never invite me to the parties!) and Kings of Jo’burg (received from the same agency I did Marc Jacobs with).

Paid partnerships aren’t really my jam as, except for Lively (930k views, 9.7k interactions) and Nando’s (34k views, 2.9k interactions), the engagement on them is always pretty low. No one likes seeing an ad. You’ll notice that for the majority of influencers and content creators, sponsored content rarely performs as well. One solution might be to get ridiculously creative with it—but this requires either a very open-minded agency/brand (rare) or adequate compensation to justify bringing on a creative team of photographers, video editors, make-up artists, etc (also rare and not my style). Lively, Nando’s and Canvas worked because they were done in the style of my existing content and I had lots of room to play.

Plus I’m in a very weird position where the majority of my audience is American and British—so not very valuable to South African companies, but also not to American brands either!

Subscriptions and Tips

I’ve had a Buy Me A Coffee account since around 2021 but I barely push or promote it. I’ve liked just having it there should someone prefer a once-off donation with zero pressure. Because that information’s easily deducible, I’ll let you know that I’ve made a total of R2,900 there which I think I withdrew in July to buy some books.

I spent over 6 months procrastinating opening a Patreon, mostly because I didn’t feel I was consistent enough to warrant taking people’s hard-earned money every month and creator subscription models rarely thrive in South Africa. Then my podcast producer reminded me over 60% of my audience wasn’t from here so it was worth a shot. I have about 21 members (18 of them paid) and I’m certain that dedicating at least 2-3 hours a week to developing it can lead to lots more improvement.

Hanger Management is free today, tomorrow, and probably every day after that because social media platforms hate Africans haha. Not that you have to, but if you’d like to support me financially, you can donate any amount to my tip jar or become a member of my Patreon (there is a free tier, so you should join anyway). Your contribution goes toward financing my media subscriptions, research costs, materials for sewing projects, paying my podcast editor, the odd cold one or two, and pressuring me into producing more.

What’s next?

Initially, I wanted to include some creator economy trends for 2025 shaping media and how I’d adapt to them, but this is already over 3k words so I’ll keep that for a separate newsletter (if anyone is interested). Instead, this is just a summary of what I’ll be doing moving forward.

• I’m not a businessman, I’m a business, man
  Entrepreneurship has always scared me since I learnt my dad, a self-made man, lost most of his hair by the time he was my age (27) (I have got to start lying about my age also), but if I respect what I want to do, it’s time to accept I’m probably not ever going to be a beatnik vagabond creative and get a good scalp oil. This means approaching writing, filming and social media with the same seriousness and commitment I do in my more traditionally professional life—keeping track of earnings and expenses, paying taxes, and satisfying stakeholders (you are all my boss now, congrats!).
  

• Weekly and monthly check-ins
  There will always be some part of me that still dreams of being the Wilhelmina Slater-type head of a media empire and while it might not be as grand as the Hearst and Conde Naste conglomerates, it’s valuable to work with this in mind. I will have weekly and monthly check-ins with myself to review my work, evaluate my headspace, and plan for the future. It’ll also be helpful if when I have a team to have a set of systems and processes to hold us accountable and keep things running smoothly.
  

• Separation of church and state
  Towards the end of the year, I felt incredibly overexposed. I stopped writing and posting as regularly because I was becoming an annoying, try-hard—and, to this day, there’s nothing more embarrassing to me than being seen as someone ambitious. And without trying to sound obnoxious, moving to Cape Town didn’t help. It’s a fishbowl of a city. Everyone bumps into everyone all the time where (1) I don’t think I’m a good cultural fit for (I just don’t get this place, man) and (2) it became a weekly if not daily occurrence to run into people who’d ask, “Are you the girl from TikTok?” which just made me overly aware and self-conscious about matching my online image, saying the right thing, and not letting it get to my head when I didn’t get invite to a party or get a certain opportunity. This also spiralled into more self-lashings because, like, do I think I’m a celebrity or something?
  
  I used to joke that I was a niche internet micro-celebrity (it’s an insane and hilarious statement) because I thought it was the safest level of fame to possess. However, the thought of growing further in any way, shape or form presented leaving that medium-fish-in-a-small-pond bubble and 10x’ing those self-lashings.
  
  There’s no distinction to how I present online and offline which quickly devolved into me taking a lot of the absurd, foolish and mean comments I receive online to heart (I mean, I know it’s because I’m a woman with great boobs but the amount of people men who like to speak at me as if I just make stuff up to destroy the Black community is ridiculous—that’s what Jubilee and Don Julio are for) so I’ve decided to reactive my private Instagram account instead. The idea is inspired by how Ariana Grande doesn’t appear in public life with her natural, curly hair—a visual representation of reserving certain parts of yourself for intimate and private life so you can easily disconnect and recontextualise. I still love sharing stuff on the internet but I refuse to let a bunch of losers have this much access to me ever again.
  

• 27 going on 17
  I had my most prudent work ethic when I was in high school—I managed additional subjects, extracurriculars, and hobbies all while getting up at 5 AM every day. Now that I’ve given up alcohol, I won’t be losing 1-2 days a week to a hangover and I can spend this time being more productive.

If you’re a writer, influencer, or content creator of any kind, I’d love to hear your 2025 goals and habits! Along with any feedback you have on the above :)

You know you love me,
xoxo Khensani