Avoid Burnout as a Content Creator
Burnout as a content creator in a digital world is real and, unfortunately, common.
In this episode, Audrey Lecker from TigerTeam Studio joins us to discuss maintaining consistency on your social media without feeling pressured to constantly create new content.
In this episode, you’ll learn how to:
Change your mindset on content creation
Identify your missions as a creator.
Choose content your audience cares about.
Accomplish your business goals through content creation.
Delegate to the experts
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Transcript: Avoid Burnout as a Content Creator
Ep. 45 Content without Burnout
Intro
[00:00:00] Sarah Noel Block: Learn how to create content without the burnout. I chatted with Auds Lecker, who is a B2B content marketer and a consultant with influencers, and she teaches creators how to create content without the burnout.
In this episode, you'll learn:
-how to change your mindset and content creation
-identify your mission as a creator
- choose content that your audience cares about
-accomplish your business goals through content creation
-and last, but probably first because it's the most important delegate to the experts when you need to.
In the comments right down there tell me what aspect of content creation drives you bonkers and burns you out like crazy.
My interview with odds is coming up next, so stay tuned.
Episode
[00:00:45] Sarah Noel Block: Thank you so much for joining me today. Can you introduce yourself to the audience?
[00:00:49] Auds Lecker: Sure. My name is Audrey Lecker, but I go by Auds and I am a content marketer for a B2B startup. And on the side I work with content creators, helping them build brands and marketing strategies that aren't gonna burn them out.
[00:01:02] Sarah Noel Block: Okay. Okay. Okay. I need to know more. What do you mean by content creators?
[00:01:07] Auds Lecker: So we're kind of entering into, I mean, we've been in the creator economy, right? But I feel like the 2020s are the decade of the creator where it's people who are multi talented, who maybe originally would've gone to Hollywood or New York to like get signed with a label or a studio or whatever, but now they're building their own brands and their own businesses completely online. There's no need for all of those other industries anymore. And so the creator is somebody who say like a beauty guru, right? Who's just making their own content and then maybe ends up building their own makeup line and having their own TV show. So it's like spanning multiple types and formats of content. But it's all online. And, that's the future of what creators are. So I'm here to help people make that happen.
[00:01:54] Sarah Noel Block: Well, I completely agree with you. That's the direction that it's going and I feel like a lot of brands are going to start reaching out to them more than they were in the past. So let's, before we get into the meat of it, and the topic we're talking about today is how to not burn yourself out when you're a content creator. But before we do that, help me make my playlist , I'm making a happy songs playlist. And you've already told me it's dark and I'm dying to know what it is!
[00:02:25] Auds Lecker: It's probably not a very famous song. I just kind of randomly found it, but it's called Lie to Me by Vera Blue. And I'm not even that familiar with her other stuff. I think it must have just been on like a random playlist I was listening to, but this is one of those songs that I have like run into the ground. I've listened to it over and over and over again for so long, the last several months.
[00:02:45] Sarah Noel Block: Yeah, I'm the same way like in high school, I was always the last of my friends to be like "Oh, I'm sick of that song" - I'm like I'll never be sick of that song. I just kinda put it on repeat.
[00:02:55] Auds Lecker: I definitely was that person in high school where I was like "That's overplayed"- but at the same time, I would have the same CD in my car forever. So I'm a total hypocrite.
[00:03:06] Sarah Noel Block: You don't need to know that though.
[00:03:07] Auds Lecker: I'm very open and authentic about my own hypocrisies.
[00:03:10] Sarah Noel Block: That works perfectly. All right, let's get into the meat of it. So content creators, they make their money by creating content. So how do they do this without burning themselves out?
[00:03:23] Auds Lecker: Yeah, so I wouldn't necessarily be pointing this advice at somebody who say, gets all of their income from just, like YouTube content or like your YouTube ad revenue because for that, you do kind of have to constantly be posting. This is more for the creator that is trying to build a brand for themselves that doesn't just want that YouTube ad revenue, wants to create multiple revenue streams for themselves. So the way that you do that is you build a really solid marketing strategy.
So this is branding, positioning, who you are, like what your mission statement is, and your values and what you want to be spending your time doing. And so once you kind of have all of those factors in place, you can just kind of let go of the outcome. I like to think of it in terms of: let's assume I'm already famous, like assume I'm already there at some point. So let's just get that of the way, it's going to happen. All of our dreams are gonna come true, right?
[00:04:24] Sarah Noel Block: The stars are aligned. It's happening.
[00:04:26] Auds Lecker: Exactly. So we're wildly famous, okay. And we've got multiple revenue streams, whatever. What then? I feel like a lot of times people, myself included, get to this point where it's like, okay, either I've achieved the goal I set out to do, or I'm very close to it, or I'm on my way to it, but I'm still not very happy. And I'm burned out and I've just been like burning the candle at both ends.
And so what I'm trying to do, with the work that I'm doing with creators is, let's think into the future. Let's look into the future. You're already famous, but what do you wanna be doing? Like you've got all the money in the world, what do you want to spend it on? Because money isn't gonna make you happy, fame isn't gonna make you happy, but I feel like doing good, like serving this mission and being true to yourself and your authentic self, is what's gonna kind of keep you- maybe not perfectly content, but you'll be in a better spot than if you are only seeking like I'm just gonna do whatever I can to like get to this goal of fame and money or whatever.
So by assuming that that's already gonna happen and thinking through, like mission. So what, what is your mission? What is, if you had all the money in the world, all the fame in the world, and you could fix one problem, like what's the soapbox that you're standing on top of? How are you gonna serve people? You know what I mean? So we build out that framework and there's about four different sides to like the little box that I've created, which we can get into later, if we want, but, build out that framework for yourself now when you only have 50 followers, when you only have 200- I only have like 200. Um, I've built bigger audiences for bigger companies, but not for myself because, it's a lot of effort.
And that's kind of where all this comes from was I actually did try to go out on my own, built my own audience. And it burned me the heck out. I was a little bit already burned out from corporate life, but I found that even though I'm a creative myself and I love creating content and all kinds of different content, and I'm always thinking of ideas and strategy, like content strategies and things, when it came down to actually having to do the work for myself, I was so tired and I was overwhelmed by all of the options for ideas. So that's kind of where this framework came out of - I was like, I need to simplify this just for myself and make sure that I know exactly what kind of content I'm gonna create, because the moments of inspiration or energy for me that would come, especially in a place of like literal burnout where you just have very little energy in general?
[00:06:59] Sarah Noel Block: Yeah.
[00:07:00] Auds Lecker: There are very few times when I do have the energy- or did I feel like it's coming back now finally, but it's over the last year or so- there were very few times when I actually had the energy to make anything, so I had to make sure that those times counted towards my long term goals. And so that's where that framework comes in and that's what I'm trying to teach creators to do because the creators that I've talked to, and I've also just been there myself as a creator, is there are so many different options. Do I hop on all of these trends? This thing seems to be trending. Do I need to do this? And it's like constant go, go, go, go, go. Which is very typical of like hollywood, the entertainment industry and everything.
[00:07:37] Sarah Noel Block: It's the creative industry.
[00:07:39] Auds Lecker: Yeah. But unfortunately, that's not how our creativity works. Our creativity doesn't really work on a deadline. It can't thrive in an environment where you're constantly having to go like you have like a well of creativity, right? But what happens - at some point it's gonna go dry.
[00:07:55] Sarah Noel Block: Yeah.
[00:07:56] Auds Lecker: You know, you just keep digging it up.
[00:07:57] Sarah Noel Block: And yeah, you lose that spark when you're burnt out. I've been there. So I wanna talk more about this framework because that's exactly how I work too. So I'm gonna tell you a quick story.
Back in 2015, I think it was, I built out a pretty popular blog around marketing and I got pregnant with my second son and I was sick for nine months. I was so sick.
[00:08:25] Auds Lecker: Oh, man.
[00:08:26] Sarah Noel Block: And I just got so burnt out that I had built this pretty big community and I just let it die. I just, I lost my will for it. I was throwing up for nine months, I didn't have the energy for it. It took me probably four years to be able to get back to a place where I had the capacity to build up another community. I mean, this is all on the side cuz I was working corporate that whole time. It was hard, especially when you worked so hard to build that community and then you get burned out and you're just like, I'm done now.
[00:08:59] Auds Lecker: Yeah. Oh my God. I can't imagine being sick for nine months. That's awful.
[00:09:03] Sarah Noel Block: Oh, it sucked. I was like, it was my second son. I wasn't sick at all with my first, but I was like, this is not what I signed up for.
[00:09:11] Auds Lecker: Yeah. That happened to one of my friends with her first. So I'm like, man, I don't know how you would ever want another one.
[00:09:16] Sarah Noel Block: Right? I wouldn't.
[00:09:17] Auds Lecker: Maybe that's why the universe was like- you're getting multiple, so we'll make it easy on the first one.
[00:09:22] Sarah Noel Block: Oh, did she? Did she have multiples?
[00:09:24] Auds Lecker: She did. Well, not the first one, but I know that she has other kids now. Yeah.
[00:09:28] Sarah Noel Block: Well that was the universe saying you're done now. You're done. Okay. Sorry to interrupt, but I wanted to say that point that I feel the burnout. I've been there before and I had to start all over again when I built Tiny Marketing. And two, the way I was able to rebuild Tiny Marketing after I had given up the other thing was through frameworks. Having those frameworks in place gave me a structure that I was able to follow, and it felt a lot less overwhelming, even though I was building it on the side of working full time. So tell me about your framework.
[00:10:04] Auds Lecker: Yeah, so my framework, and I feel like most frameworks are coming from the same place and they generally are hitting the same areas. Mine just happens to be a box because I remember constantly thinking about, the phrase like, think outside the box. And I was like "But what if I built my own box and I never had to go outside of it? Wouldn't that be easier?"
[00:10:26] Sarah Noel Block: What if my box was more like an octagon? It could be whatever I want.
[00:10:30] Auds Lecker: Exactly. And then I thought, cuz one thing I've really been trying to connect with even more over the last few years, especially during the pandemic, like that's really kind of what kicked off this whole transformation for me internally is this focus on connecting back to my inner child because my inner child is crazy creative and constantly coming up with stories and ideas and little songs, and she was an adorable little weirdo, right? And I feel like we've all been that. And then at some point we lose touch with that inner child, you know, just because of school and college and, you know, getting a job and having to pay bills and all that stuff.
And so during the pandemic, I really started making an effort to bring more rest and more play into my life and connecting with that weirdo kid. So anything that's kind of a little bit childlike really sends me. And so once I was thinking of the box idea, I was like, Oh my God, what if it was a sandbox? Which is why I call it the sandbox method, because the concept that I came up with is like- All right, let's make our own box and then we can play inside of it. Because you've already built all four walls that you need, and instead of making you feel like you have to just stick to all of this stuff, let's just keep it a little bit more playful so that it's not a hard and fast rule necessarily, it's just something you can play in. Cuz sometimes sand gets outside of the box, you know? But like as long as you're pretty much staying within your same four walls, then you should be good to go.
And so that is where the kind of the bones of this framework came out of. So it's got four walls. And there's a couple other concepts that are involved in it, but I'm gonna keep it simple today. Where it's got like one wall is just about you and kind of who you are, how you would describe yourself - just like bullet points, like words like weirdo is literally one of my words that's on that side.
[00:12:20] Sarah Noel Block: Hold on. Real quick question. Are these words that are like, for your brand, like brand words that represent you?
[00:12:28] Auds Lecker: Sort of, I think eventually you would get it to this formalized place of like, the only thing that's on here are like brand approved words, especially if you're scaling and you have a team around you. I'm just kind of keeping it fast and loose right now where it's like the, almost like crayon, right? Where it's like I'll write weirdo, like somebody I was talking to on TikTok, she's an author, but she also is like a huge New Yorker, like is obsessed with New York. So I would put New Yorker for her. So it's kind of like who you are. And then another way I've described it is when you're thinking about, 'cause I've done like a lot of meditation and stuff- through all of like the meditation and therapy and like reconnecting to my inner child and stuff, you know, I use the term best self for like higher self a lot now. I guess this is like my transformation into a hippie, I suppose.
[00:13:18] Sarah Noel Block: You know what? I feel you and your energy and everything you're about and I love it.
[00:13:23] Auds Lecker: I'm, I'm glad it's resonating. So, for the you side of the wall of the sandbox, the way I've been describing it is when you imagine your higher self or like your best self, how do you describe that person? And sometimes it is easier to think about it in terms of like the third person. Cuz I found through my conversations with various types of creators, everybody has a really hard time defining just those three to five bullet points about themselves.
[00:13:52] Sarah Noel Block: Yeah. It's hard to see yourself from an outside perspective.
[00:13:55] Auds Lecker: Yeah. So once you put it into third person, because what's what's been interesting to me, I think- this is gonna sound so pretentious and I promise I'm very aware of how it sounds-
[00:14:05] Sarah Noel Block: Now I'm dying to know what you're gonna say!
[00:14:07] Auds Lecker: But like, when you're kind of thinking about your best self or your higher self and like describing that person, what I've found has been happening is, you think that that's like, that's me 10 years from now, or like 20 years from now, this is who I wanna be. Like that could even be another way to frame it. It's like, this is who I wanna be as like an old lady or whatever. I say old lady cause I literally wanna be like the old lady witch down the street who like teaches yoga- that's who I wanna be, like the old hippie.
[00:14:34] Sarah Noel Block: I love it.
[00:14:35] Auds Lecker: But then once you've kind of written that down, like if you've journaled about it, you start to realize like, that's actually you right now. You might not be like, I'm definitely not a yogi yet, you know, or like a perfect meditator.
[00:14:48] Sarah Noel Block: Or a witch yet!
[00:14:48] Auds Lecker: Right? Or a witch, witchy vibe. Not like - being a witch sounds really hard. So I feel like-
[00:14:53] Sarah Noel Block: There's a lot involved, and I'm not committing to that. I like to be a little scary and really aligned with the earth.
[00:15:00] Auds Lecker: Like, long hair. And I want to live in like a nineteen hundreds house in the Pacific Northwest. Like that's-
[00:15:05] Sarah Noel Block: if there were ghosts involved, I'd be happy too.
[00:15:07] Auds Lecker: Yes. That's what I want. But yeah, this is the part that sounds pretentious is like you find that you're kind of already that, or you're at least on your way-
[00:15:16] Sarah Noel Block: You're the baby version of that.
[00:15:18] Auds Lecker: Yeah. And I don't know about you, but I'm really hard on myself for like not being perfect yet. And once I started thinking about those things and what my best self is, I'm like, Oh, I do have those things already. It's not perfect, but you know, we're humans. We're never gonna be perfect.
[00:15:34] Sarah Noel Block: Yeah.
[00:15:35] Auds Lecker: But that's, so that's the you column. It's like who's your best self? Who's your most fabulous- I like to be like a Disney villain in my future.
[00:15:44] Sarah Noel Block: Which one? Ursula is what I'm picturing right now with the witchy vibe.
[00:15:49] Auds Lecker: That's a good one. I was thinking Maleficent or who's the one who's in Snow White, like the evil- does she have a name?
[00:15:56] Sarah Noel Block: I don't know. I think she's just the evil stepmother. Or is she Maleficent?
[00:16:01] Auds Lecker: No, Maleficent's from Sleeping Beauty, right?
[00:16:03] Sarah Noel Block: Yeah, you're right.
[00:16:04] Auds Lecker: So Snow White, she might not have a name actually. This side note is such an ADHD moment. There's like a whole YouTube channel by this guy about like queer representation and all kinds of different media. And he does this incredible video on Disney villains and how they're based off of queer icons. But then he has this whole section about that particular villain where she. If you think back, and he's right, he's like, she's having the time of her life because she's very kind of stayed and like put together at the very beginning and then by the time that she's transformed herself,
[00:16:37] Sarah Noel Block: Yeah.
[00:16:37] Auds Lecker: Into like that little old lady with the apple, she's cackling and like making all these noises and I'm like, he is right! I never realized that! She's having a blast!
[00:16:47] Sarah Noel Block: She's happy now being her authentic, evil self.
[00:16:51] Auds Lecker: So find, dig down deep and find that Disney villain inside of you. And then write down the bullets.
[00:16:56] Sarah Noel Block: Okay. I'm gonna do that.
[00:16:59] Auds Lecker: Yeah. Like what, what would make you cackle easily. That's kinda what we're trying to hit. So that's just you. And then I'll speed through the others, but like the on the other side of the box, after you, we've got them, which is just your audience. So that's your, the demographics of your audience, as well as kind of what their key challenges are, their key pain points.
And it should be related to things you can help with because everybody's got pain points like, you know, Door Dash is too expensive, but like, are you a Door Dash competitor? Then don't, don't bother writing that down.
[00:17:32] Sarah Noel Block: Yeah. Whenever I talk to my people about like content themes, it's always like their problems and your solutions. That Venn diagram, whatever's in the middle, that's where you're, that's the sweet spot.
[00:17:46] Auds Lecker: Exactly. And so that's what we want going on in the, the them side. And then the other two we've got is your mission. So this is the third wall. And mission can be both shortterm, so like, or smaller. Like it could literally be as small as a call to action.
So, I really wanna be pushing this particular lead magnet right now cause I wanna grow my email list. Or it could be something a little bit bigger, which is, like the author I had talked to, she obviously has a book coming out, and wants people to go buy her book. So that's a nice short term one, but on top of that, I want people to think about what their long term mission is.
So this is the one where it's like, I think I mentioned a soapbox earlier, what is the thing that kind of keeps you up at night sometimes? What is the long term issue that if you could wave your magic wand and fix, or what you want to directly have an impact on, what is that mission? So for me, it's gotten very specific for the last year.
So like, it might start out vague, then it just grows more and more specific, which is ideal. But for me, like I, and this has been going on for years, where I literally will get up on the soapbox all the time about just diversity in media. And it used to be, it's definitely getting way better now.
But at the time, like when I was working in Hollywood, everything was so white and all the development people that I was talking to literally were afraid to put non-white people in major roles and stuff. And it was super, super frustrating cause I'm like, how can you expect anything to change if all of our media looks exactly the same?
And then now in recent years, it's gotten to the point where, yes, we're seeing more diversity. We also have more access to more global content, which is awesome. And so I am so excited for the future of content and media to be able to see these diverse stories all across the globe. And I know that there are people who are in, like I've talked to, I used to run a YouTube channel for like music marketing and there was this one kid who I had messaged back and forth with several times over the years who lives in a really small town in India. Like, it's a nice town, but his parents obviously don't want him to be a musician.
[00:19:49] Sarah Noel Block: Yeah.
[00:19:49] Auds Lecker: But he's an incredible musician. But he also didn't have any friends locally that were musicians, so he had nobody to collaborate with or share. Yeah, there's no community. But because now the internet, he was able to grow and build and find communities online, and that's how he found me was through YouTube.
And he's an incredible musician, incredible voice, and like, these are the creators that I want to hear from. Who you normally never would've heard from. Because of just their location or their circumstances.
[00:20:18] Sarah Noel Block: Yeah.
[00:20:19] Auds Lecker: So that's my mission is I really wanna make sure that these creators are getting seen all over the world because they have a voice and I wanna hear it.
[00:20:27] Sarah Noel Block: That is a beautiful mission.
[00:20:29] Auds Lecker: Oh, thank you. So everybody can have one, their own mission. And you get a mission and you get a mission. Oh, yeah. So, so that's what I mean by like the, the bigger mission, like the impact that you wanna have. You know, and then all the way down to like, what's your CTA for this thing?
Because my CTA can't just be: go give a voice to millions of people.
[00:20:49] Sarah Noel Block: Too broad.
[00:20:50] Auds Lecker: Yeah, a little too broad. Yeah, too broad. We want some actionable steps here. And then the last wall is love, and this one, and I switched out this wall a couple times while developing this framework, but this is kind of what I landed on because the love section is all about obviously love.
And it's also kind of about you as well, but maybe some other stuff. This one is the hardest one to describe because it's both things you love to do, things you love to make, things you love to look at, things you love to talk about. And then it's also a way to minimize your effort spent on things you don't love. So when I filled mine out, for example, like, you know, I had this long list of like, I love anime, I love music videos, I love like weirdo yanking, you know, like all this stuff. You know that as you start to kind of fill it out, you kind of start to, it should feel like you, like this box should feel exactly like you.
And what I noticed was the things that weren't on there, which was, a lot of the stuff that I had been doing. And I realized that that was kind of contributing to my burnout, which was like, for example, I do like editing, like video editing and that sort of thing. And right now, since it's just me, I'm the only one editing all of my stuff.
And I realized that it was. Obviously it wasn't a conscious decision to like, I'm not gonna put it on here. It, I thought I did kind of love it, but when I looked through my list, I was like, oh, it's interesting that that's not on there since I seem to be doing that all the time.
[00:22:18] Sarah Noel Block: Yeah, like your subconscious was like, No, you don't love it. You do it though.
[00:22:22] Auds Lecker: Yeah, exactly. And I thought I had to do it, but then when I sat down and thought about it, I was like, Oh my God, I have access to Fiverr and these incredible editors that are so cheap. Why not let us outsource as well?
[00:22:34] Sarah Noel Block: Yeah.
[00:22:35] Auds Lecker: You know, aside from the bigger companies, so like I realized that the things that weren't on that list were stuff I needed to figure out a way to delegate as soon as possible.
Like as soon as I have the budget for it, or as soon as I have the contacts who can take that on, then that needs to go because that was contributing to my, my burnout and my overwhelm. So love is interesting because it's both kind of the content that you're gonna end up making. Like if you love Renaissance art, then let's find a way to make sure that that is feeding into your content.
But it's also a way to figure out what you shouldn't be spending your time on. And that doesn't mean that I'm not gonna be editing anytime soon.
[00:23:14] Sarah Noel Block: Yeah.
[00:23:14] Auds Lecker: I have to. But it does mean that that's now a priority for me to outsource as soon as I can.
[00:23:19] Sarah Noel Block: Yeah. It becomes like it's a goal on your list. I'm going to be outsourcing. This isn't something I love. That makes sense.
[00:23:27] Auds Lecker: Yeah. So that's the box. And then the ideal, it's kind of like when you mentioned with the Venn diagram, it basically is that with just four sides. So as long as you're hitting two or more sides of that box within it with your content, then you should be good to go. And so that's where you build out your box and then now you're set up to.
If you are burned out already or if you just don't have time, like a lot of people are doing this as a side hustle, so that when you do have the time, you are using it the most effective way possible. Just make sure that it's in your box.
[00:23:57] Sarah Noel Block: So it helps you become laser focused on what you need to do so you can spend your energy doing just the things that you love that will drive your mission.
[00:24:08] Auds Lecker: Exactly.
[00:24:09] Sarah Noel Block: Okay, good. I got it. So can you tell me how people can, one, find you online and two, work with you?
[00:24:18] Auds Lecker: Sure. So, for working with me, you can just hit me up honestly on Instagram. That's also where you can find me. So I'm @audslecker- I'm on Instagram and TikTok under @audslecker, I'm also on YouTube, under Auds Lecker and I'm also on Twitch, where currently I'm only streaming video game stuff. But that's under Audsss_ with three S's and an underscore. Cause I, I couldn't get what I wanted.
[00:24:43] Sarah Noel Block: It happens.
[00:24:44] Auds Lecker: Yeah. But, so eventually I'll be doing some more content on Twitch that's more live stream, like biz chat stuff, but hit me up on, I would say Instagram or TikTok are the ones that I check the most.
And then of course you can also go to my website, which is Tiger Team Studio. And that is TigerTeamStud.io.
[00:25:03] Sarah Noel Block: Yes. All of her information will be in the description and the show notes page, so you'll be able to find her through that too.
[00:25:11] Auds Lecker: Yeah, and I've got a worksheet up there, on Tiger Team Studio as well that you can download that includes all four walls of the box.
[00:25:18] Sarah Noel Block: Of the sandbox?
[00:25:19] Auds Lecker: Yeah.
[00:25:20] Sarah Noel Block: Awesome.
[00:25:20] Auds Lecker: So say hi!
[00:25:21] Sarah Noel Block: Thank you so much for joining me today.
[00:25:23] Auds Lecker: Yes, thank you so much for having me on. This was really fun.
[00:25:26] Sarah Noel Block: I did have fun too. All right, I'll see you next time. All right, bye!
Outro
[00:25:30] Sarah Noel Block: There you have it. Auds broke down her framework that helps content creators do what they love while avoiding the burnout.
Hit that subscribe button and like this video, so more people just like you can watch this video, get it up in their the algs, and don't forget to comment and tell me, right down there what burns you out the most about content creation. Thank you for joining me and I'll see you next time.