This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
All right friends, thanks for tuning in today. You're listening to Side Hustle School. I've been making this podcast every single day since January 1, 2017. Here we are in episode 2370. We've got an amazing community of folks all over the world interested in making extra money without quitting their job.
Sometimes making enough money to quit their job and do more of what's important to them. But whatever your situation is, I hope the podcast is helpful to you. Daily stories, tips, questions and answers, case studies and more. Today we're gonna hear from Carmen, a long time listener and aspiring side hustler from San Francisco. Now Carmen has done a lot of stuff.
She has tried a lot of side hustles. Some have worked, some have been less than successful, but overall she hasn't really found the one thing that she wants to do for a long time. So today she's looking to break the mold. She wants to discover fresh, less saturated mediums that could help her effectively engage with an audience. So basically her question in short is, what are some mediums besides blogs, podcasts and YouTube?
So good question. I often talk about those mediums, but those are not the only ones. So let's see what we can come up with. Carmen's question and my answer right after the quick break. Shout out to our sponsor.
[Music]
Hey there, I'm Carmen, long time listener and aspiring side hustler. Over the years I've dabbled in a few different mediums to share my thoughts on tech trends, blogs, videos, podcasts, you name it, but I haven't really stuck with anything. I'm eager to explore other creative mediums that might be less saturated, but still effective in reaching and engaging an audience. The question is, what are some alternative digital mediums out there that I haven't tapped into yet? You know, beyond the usual blogs, videos and podcasts, any pointers would be a massive help and keep up the good work.
[Music]
Hey Carmen, it's great to hear from a listener who is eager to explore and kind of push the boundaries in terms of creative mediums. And it is true that we talk a lot about blogs, videos and podcasts, but you're right, there are other ways to reach an audience. I think maybe what's first important is to think about not necessarily a specific platform, but the actual medium in terms of like, are you writing? Are you creating audio content? Are you creating visual content?
Because the platforms tend to change and such, but if you gravitate toward one particular skill, that's probably a clue or it's gonna give you a kind of a direction to go in. So, you know, if you don't like video at all, like if you like nothing about video, then that can eliminate not only YouTube, but also TikTok, it can also eliminate making video courses and so on. Whereas if you do like a particular medium, it can open up a variety of doors or give you some direction that might be different from what you first think. So if you like writing, but you don't wanna write a blog, well, there's lots of other ways to write. For example, something that's grown in popularity a lot lately is newsletters.
With platforms like Substack, there's some others, you know, you can create this direct channel to readers. It's kind of like a blog, but it often feels more personal and direct, at least some of the newsletter writers have been able to create that vibe and do very well financially in some cases. You can also just opt to send out your newsletter for free, monetize elsewhere, in other words, or you can create, you know, premium newsletters, premium newsletters, interactive content like quizzes, polls, surveys, platforms like Typeform could be a good starting point for that perhaps, just as an idea. And then of course, you know, the world is changing a lot in terms of augmented reality, virtual reality, the metaverse, which, you know, may or may not be overhyped. Actually, it probably is overhyped, but there is something to it.
You know, there are gonna be different ways that people are connecting. So I don't know, I guess there's a whole world of digital mediums out there. I think I tend to go towards, you know, written content, audio content, that's what I tend to be good at, so that's what I do. But of course, there are other options. And also you can mix and match, that's one more thing.
You know, you could write a guide on Medium, you can answer questions on Quora, you could create a thread on Twitter, or create threads, I guess, more than one thread, like build up an audience that way. Some people have done really well with that. So really what you wanna do is find the combination that suits your style and resonates with an audience. So it's about getting both those things right. And you might have to experiment to make it happen, but experimentation is what it's all about.
Good luck, Carmen. Listeners, if you've got a question or an idea, sidehustleschool.com/questions. We'll continue to feature them each week. New episode every single day. Thanks for being out there, you're awesome.
My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. [Music]
- From the Onward Project.
