Diversification Of Income Streams Vs Time Management
People who are well-established in the industry often caution new creators about the importance of diversifying income streams. That makes sense, because depending on a single income source can quickly put you in a financially precarious situation. But on the other hand, creators can become spread too thin if they have too many obligations.
The average content creator does the job of an entire film studio all on their own. They are their own talent, director, camera person, talent coordinator (if applicable), marketing team, customer service and accountant. The amount of work it involves to be truly successful is astounding.
It doesn’t take long as a full time content creator before you are looking to cut back the amount of time you are investing. Even if you are lucky enough to afford assistants, you still are paying them by the hour. Even with the extra help, it becomes prudent to cut back on the time spent if it isn’t making financial sense.
So, how many income streams should you have?
Start by making an account on every major platform. Make sure to research and vet each one. You want to make sure it’s one you’d want to be involved with before you get verified. My article Can You Trust A New Platform may be helpful in making those decisions!
Then, make a priority list by looking into which seem to be the most popular used by other creators in your niche or demographic. Start with the most popular, and work your way through exploring them each. Try giving each platform a 2-3 week period of really learning the system and optimizing it. If you don’t have a few sales in that time period, just move along to the next one!
Don’t hesitate to explore before you make your decision!
I have had quite a journey with this myself, and speak from experience about the importance of signing up for new platforms. It is important you don’t stick with just the platforms you are used to and miss the next big thing because you are too complacent to try new things!
My content was published on two platforms from 2006 until 2018. There weren’t as many options in 2006 as there are now. Those “old faithful” platforms worked for me alright, but in retrospect I missed a lot of huge waves of new customer traffic just because I was too comfortable to experiment.
I spent most of 2019 and 2020 trying to upload my entire backlog of over a decade of content creation to all the major platforms and trying to analyze which ones did the best for me. After spending many long hours on that experiment, I averaged out which platforms were actually giving me a return on my sales. I stopped updating all but the top three platforms that perform best for my brand of content. Those three main platforms work well for me and my amazing team for now.
Consider how each platform works with your brand.
Most platforms that have been established for a little while will have some internal traffic and can be made to work with your business. However, many platforms have strengths in different areas. Some are better for fetish, some for vanilla. Some platforms may be better for hardcore content, others better for solo and softcore. Some are clearly geared towards cam creators or other intimate personal connections with subscribers, others to a more hands-off set it and forget it approach like the traditional clip store. If you find it draining or counter intuitive to work a platform, don’t hesitate to leave it behind!
