optimizing for fun
A lot of content these days is slop. People have to meet their posting quotas, and end up making the laziest kind of content that chases a vision the creator doesn't necessarily believe in. The more engaging content, I find, is the kind that creators enjoys making. When creators care about what they're posting about, or take pride in its execution, the end result tends to be more interesting and much more shareable.
When I talk to content creators, I hear all the time about how posting content is a nightmare. You end up feeling like everything you're doing should be made into some sort of clip, and your spirit quickly gets eroded as you pimp out your joy on an Instagram feed.
So, I optimize for fun. If you enjoy the process of posting content, you will post more high quality content. If every post you work on is agonizing labor that takes days, you're not going to keep up a consistent rhythm of production. You have to have fun.
I do this by identifying times in my day when I know I'll be in the mood to make content. I think of trends or patterns I can do over the course of the month or the year that can turn into fun recaps. I try to notice the things I do every day that being me joy, and then I consider whether or not I should bring my phone camera into the mix.
For example, on Thursdays I do karaoke at my local bar then walk home. I'm usually in a good mood, so I film a dancing TikTok in the same spot every time I walk home. It has turned into a fun tradition that just happens to generate consistent content.
Your implementation can be more serious, but what I am trying to demonstrate is that fun matters. We always optimize for speed, profit, and other metrics, but fun can be the secret sauce for unlocking more authenticity in content that reaches your audiences.