During a panel at AthleteCon, full-time creators Emily Harrigan, Caden Davis, and Lacey Jane Brown discussed making content in a life after college athletics. The trio got candid about the ups and downs of making a living as a content creator and offered some tips to anybody else looking to make the leap.
Practical Tips For Content Creators
Harrigan, Davis, and Brown all built audiences in the hundreds of thousands in different ways, but they all have a few things in common, too. For one, they all love sports and played at their respective universities. Harrigan played soccer at Rutgers and Pitt, Davis played football at Ohio State, and Brown says she was involved with sports in Kansas State. From their, each of them took a slightly different path before ultimately making content their primary focus.
So what are some practical tips they've learned? For starters — write your ideas down the moment they come to you. "The notes app is my most-used app," Davis says. "I probably have three hours of screen time per week in the notes app." Harrigan agrees — "The moment I come up with an idea, I write it down in the notes app," she says.
In fact, organization and time batching is a huge part of all of their strategies. "A lot of my content is based at a soccer field," Harrigan says. "So I set out a time to film a certain amount of videos and maximize my time there. Then I have my own editing groove that I go into."
They also recommend having a backlog of "evergreen" content that you can post in case something goes awry or you're just not feeling it very much. Davis says he in particular has about 40 good videos on any given day he can post if his content plans for that day don't pan out. That way, you have the ability to still stay present for your audience without adding too much undue stress.
Starting Over
All three creators say that if they were starting over again from zero, they would approach it with a post early, post often attitude and not care what others think. "If I were to start over I would absolutely be posting consistently, two or three videos a day on TikTok," Brown says. "You gotta post it. I know sometimes it’s so cringe. I’ve done videos that I look at with my eyes closed and click post. But you have to do it."
Another key point, especially once you start to build a following and especially for female creators: be careful about posting content that reveals your location when you're actually there. "It depends on the situation or the environment," Harrigan says, "but if you're out by yourself on a trip or something, maybe don't post it until you're gone." Brown agrees. "I'm really big on pretending I'm with people all the time, even when I'm alone," she adds.
Even Davis, who says he solo travels for just about everything he does, will wait at least a day to post content so people can't determine his location.
It's a sad reality, but being so visible means you may attract the wrong kind of attention. Doing what you can to keep yourself safe is a critical part of building your online brand.
Oh, and don't be afraid to block anybody who isn't suiting the vibe of your page. "I love the block button," Brown says.
Making Content After A Big Life Change
For Harrigan, Davis, and Brown — as well as countless other creators who start building their audience during college — figured out what to do after moving on from college athletics was difficult. "I had a full-on identity crisis whenever I was done playing soccer," Harrigan says. "I struggled with that for a bit. Suddenly I was like, 'What am I going to post?!'"
Davis and Brown say they had similar struggles at first, but they quickly realized they needed to start making content that focused more on themselves than their schools or athletics programs. "My biggest thing was building loyalty around who I am as a person," Davis says. While his content is still heavily focused on sports, it's much more agnostic in its approach and puts Davis as the key persona at the heart of it.
Brown made a similar decision, starting to talk about various interest aspects of sports, athletes, and tangential information — like Lamar Jackson owning a restaurant in Florida. "It was no longer, 'Hey, you're an athlete' — it was bigger picture," Brown says. "That’s how I wanted to be known in the sports industry; what my voice could be used for. Your worth is so much more than just your physical ability."
Harrigan also realized that just because she wasn't affiliated with a team anymore didn't mean she wasn't still an athlete. "It took me a while to realize that just because I’m not wearing a soccer uniform doesn’t mean I can’t post soccer content," Harrigan says. "People who are actively playing the sport want things like different drills and how to do your hair cute for games. There are 600,000 people in the entire world who get to be a student athlete. Don’t be afraid of life afterwards. You are so much more than your sport."
Landing Brand Deals And Working With Agents And Managers
So what about the money? How do you make enough money making content to only make content? The short of it is, leverage your audience for brand deals.
Harrigan, Davis, and Brown are all represented by Outshine Talent, a talent management firm that works with all kinds of creators to help them land deals. And while they all expressed satisfaction with their agents, the trio started making money by landing their own deals long before somebody came along to help.
Harrigan says she hit about 100,000 followers on Instagram before she started getting serious about finding a manager. She says she also had plenty of bad conversations with potential managers, so instead she started reaching out to creators she respected to see who represented them and ask if they'd be willing to share their experience.
Davis says he interviewed Outshine three times before agreeing to work with them. Prior to having management, he'd landed all of his deals simple by reaching out to brands through DMs or other means. "I would cold DM brands for two hours a day," Davis says. "I used to max out my available DMs and then use an alternate account to say, 'Hey my main account would love to work with you.'"
"You need to look for management when things are manageable anymore.," Brown says. "When people are reaching out to you, if you can still manage it, do it. But it’s great to connect with managers and talk to them."
Because agents take a percentage of what you earn in exchange for landing you more deals, you just need to make sure it's a great fit between what you love to do and what they're good at finding for you.
Davis also shared a story of posting a video about Lego that only got him 5,000 views — a relative "failure" by his standard on that metric alone. But somebody from Lego ultimately saw it and liked it, and a month later he was doing a deal with them based off that.