Dear Ellen,
I run a website about realizing your potential and becoming a leader in your industry and community. My work is geared towards young people (16-26 years old) who are just beginning their careers. I’m a former teacher, and I am so passionate about helping young people to succeed. I write. I create videos. I’m active on social media. I release new content regularly and I’ve been doing this for several years.
Here’s the problem: young people don’t seem to be “connecting” with what I’m doing. My content doesn’t get a lot of shares, likes, or comments. Nothing is going viral. It feels like I am talking to an empty room—and it’s becoming discouraging.
I’m not trying to make any money from this website. I just want to help people. But something’s not working. I know that it takes time to build an audience, and it’s important to be patient, but I don’t want to spend another five years creating new content, every week, if it’s just going to be ignored. I want to figure out what I’m “missing” so that I can create materials that young people actually get excited about and want to use and share.
What advice would you give to someone in my situation?
Just Want To Help
Dear JWTH,
A colleague forwarded your question to me because she thought I might have some insights for you. I can see why she did, because our stories are actually very similar.
Here’s a little secret: back when I started this website, I had a very specific vision. I told myself, “I want to coach teenagers, college students, and young adults and help them to launch into their careers successfully. I’m not particularly interested in working with older people. It’s the young ‘Millennial generation’ that I want to help.”
I invested tons of time, energy, and money into creating materials geared towards teens and twenty-somethings. I wrote e-books. I wrote website language. I reached out to parents and school directors to introduce myself. I worked hard to make my presence known.
Guess what happened next?
Much like you, JWTH, I found myself in a frustrating pickle: very few young people seemed to be visiting my website—and those that did couldn’t afford to hire me for career coaching.
A year or so went by. I began to feel really defeated. All that effort to put together a beautiful, welcoming website especially for young people—and they don’t seem to care!
I had to think long and hard about what to do next. I took some quiet time to reflect. I had conversations with wise friends. Ultimately, I made a choice:
If my work is not resonating with young people, for whatever reason, then I need to change gears and try something else.
I decided to re-brand myself and change my business model. Instead of calling myself a “career and business coach for Millennials” I became a “career and business coach,” period.
Today, I work with clients of all ages, from teens to recent grads to people in their sixties and seventies. If you want to find meaningful, exciting work, then my doors are open to you. This new approach is working much better for me. People are emailing and responding to my work much more than before. I recently led an online course for over 70 clients and the energy was palpable! It feels like my work is “working” now.
That’s my personal story. Now, back over to you.
You asked, “What advice would you give to someone in my situation?”
Here’s my advice for you:
• Humbly accept that not every “idea” or “project” is destined to “go viral.” For every campaign that explodes into cultural consciousness—like the Can’t Do Nothing project, or the It Gets Better project — there are 1,000 other similar projects that, for whatever reason, go mostly unnoticed. This doesn’t mean that something is “wrong” with your project. That’s just the reality of our world.
• Ask yourself, “If my work helps even just 10 young people every year, is that enough for me? Is that worth it?” Your answer might be “Yes” or it might be “No.” Neither answer is “correct.” Just be honest with yourself.
• If you decide that “helping 10 people would be enough,” then perhaps you could change your approach so that—instead of posting content online and feeling like nobody is listening—you could lead small 10-person workshops in your hometown where you actually meet young people face to face and mentor them over the course of a year. That way, you won’t feel like you’re speaking to an empty room. Instead, you’ll watch these young people flourish before your eyes, and you’ll really be able to “see” and “feel” the impact of your work.
Believe me, I know how discouraging it can feel when you work hard to create something wonderful, and the audience you want to reach just doesn’t seem interested.
But there’s always a way to move forward. You can switch gears and start speaking to a new (or expanded) audience. You can change your tone, your branding, your type of storytelling. You can change your setting (offline instead of online, Snapchat instead of Facebook, etc). Or you can change the scope of your vision.
Maybe working with 10 young people, face to face, will ultimately feel even more rewarding than trying to reach thousands online.
Whatever you choose to do next, I want to salute you for your tremendous effort and generosity thus far. The world needs more people like you—people who truly, genuinely just want to help, be heard, and share resources with people in need. I’m sure you’ve already touched many, many lives. Perhaps many more than you realize.
Let me know how it goes!
Find great work. Do great work. Unlock every door in your way.
Image: Willie Franklin