Why bloggers and content creators multiply during the pandemic?

 Why bloggers and content creators multiply during pandemic?

What made people venture into blogging (like me) and content creation recently? Well, talking from my perspective, like most of the newcomers in the digital world, I came here to blog armed with nothing but courage and positive expectations that the journey I have started a couple of months ago will turn into something productive and helpful. During the middle of the pandemic, when people started feeling exhausted, worried, and hopeless about the whole covid scenario, millions of people around the world have taken comfort online. Some have already been freelancing years before the pandemic hit us, and being the pioneer for this career, they leveled up their game by providing training and guidance to the newcomers or “newbie” as they call it. New niche-based groups, new YouTube Channels, new FB Pages, and tons of new websites are being created every day, they are popping like mushrooms. You cannot actually blame them, there are two major opportunities they may have realized in the middle of chaos, first, they have the knowledge and experience that are too valuable just to keep for themselves and second, the opportunity presented itself to earn more, achieve more, help more and be more, so why not grab it, right? Even I obviously jumped onto the digital bandwagon, I created a blog three months ago with zero knowledge on blogging. I thought that blogging means merely writing whatever you want to write whenever you want to. A friend from college told me I need to have a niche and that I should learn search engine optimization if I want my blog to be popular, not to mention monetizing it, I said “What?” Honestly, I think I was cooking and gardening too long that I never heard of optimization or niche in my entire life until that moment. So, I started reading, I joined webinars, enrolled in some free online courses, joined FB groups, and watched lots of tutorial videos. I enrolled myself in a handful of free online (yes mostly free because I am still hesitant about the whole idea of digital marketing) classes like Fundamentals of Digital Marketing from Google Digital Garage, Block Editor Certification, and SEO for Beginners Certification from Yoast SEO Academy, SEO Complete Course and Instagram Marketing for Business Beginners from Udemy, and few more without certification. November and December 2020 gave me a lot of headaches because of hours and hours of webinars and pre-recorded videos I have to watch, but, it opened my eyes to the reality that there is an entirely different (digital) world out there that I don’t know of. So I started familiarizing myself with the process, became active on some social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, signed up in Pinterest, activated my LinkedIn account and Twitter. The more I read and study, the more I understand how I know nothing about online media platforms. Today, I am very far from being an expert, but I started applying some things I have learned on my social media accounts across social media platforms like optimization, engagements, scheduling posts, and content creation among other stuff. I have entered into completely unfamiliar territory and I am loving every minute of it!

What was the effect of the pandemic on small businesses, digitally?

Pandemic literally rocked our worlds, This has introduced this generation too many “firsts,” and that too, majority are not good. Let us skip all the nitty-gritty details of the pandemic because even I am sick of it. We heard about all of it for one full year. Are you familiar with the passage “survival of the fittest?” I’m sure you do! Our survival depends on three “As” Adjust, Adapt, and Approach (AAA). Although I cannot say that it is a universal survival mantra, there are certain industries (especially small industries) that got crippled if not folded during the pandemic, but for others where there are means of salvaging the operations, they turned digital. Education, Shopping, minor Medical Consultations, or even mini-concerts are being done digitally, large corporations have adapted the “WFH” or work from the home method, so their employees continue with their employment. Mid-sized companies have suffered a severe loss thus forced to cut many jobs, but the small businesses like bars and food business have the worst punch, many folded their operation because of lockdown.

How are all these related to me then?

Well, it is not in any way related to me except for the first paragraph when I narrated my “not so glamorous” discovery of niche and optimization. The thing is, I am jumping into the digital bandwagon and I will blog about what all I have learned, and the things I am yet to learn on this blog site hoping to help others to learn and grow with me, digitally! 

I am a Content Writer and a Social Media Manager. Now if you will ask what a Social media manager does, every company is having a unique description and set of qualifications for a Social Media Manager or SMM below is a sample description:

social media icons

What is a Social Media Manager?

A Social Media Manager helps to increase exposure through social media platforms. They work alongside a specialized team to reach your brand’s goals. From creating monthly editorial calendars to using marketing strategies to deliver your brand’s message in creative ways, a Social Media Manager is the link between your business and your social media followers. More than just attracting new customers, a Social Media Manager analyzes data to determine which initiatives work best and capitalize on this information to continue scaling your business.