Starting a new Instagram account in 02/2025? What? Is it too late? I don't think so. If you've been listening to me for a while, you know one of the things that I like to do is start these experimental Instagram accounts. It's nice to not have everything that you publish attached to your main account. So for me, I've made many Instagram accounts over the years where I just test and experiment with content. These days, I can experiment with content on my main Instagram account, the Dylan Schmidt, because there's that new trials feature. When you go to post it, you can toggle the trials feature, and it will show your content to people who don't follow you that might be interested in your content. You can kinda see how it performs. But I still like to have experimental accounts where I can just post stuff just to, I don't know, play around with different ideas and not feel boxed in or tied to that living with my main brand that I am creating. So I launched this new Instagram account from scratch. No followers, no content, just a complete blank slate. And I caught myself doing something I didn't realize was second nature. I was asking myself, what role will this account play in someone else's life? Would I be proud to run this account six months from now? Is there something with utility around this account beyond just myself? And I don't believe that's how most people think about an Instagram account. And I'm using Instagram as a placeholder here. It could be any social media account. Most people just post what they feel like posting. They treat their creator account like a personal diary or worse, like a generic brand trying to be everything to everyone. We've all come across these corporate Instagram accounts that have no life to them. And maybe they're these mega brands that probably have whole social media teams, and they have zero engagement. And they wonder why it doesn't land. From the outsiders, we go, what's going on here? There's no soul to what is being posted. Here's the truth most people miss. You don't need a niche. You don't need a content calendar. You need a clarity of purpose behind the account that you're running. What role does the account play in someone's identity? I spoke about this a few episodes ago around identity and brand, and we make purchasing decisions based on our identity of who we believe we are or who we want to become. Same thing goes for an Instagram account or any type of social media account. What space is your account holding for them? These questions can save you months, possibly years, of spinning your wheels. Because without knowing what role your account is gonna play in someone else's life, your consistency just becomes noise. And I see creators either leaning into oversharing where they feel like they have to post everything like it's their diary or the other extreme where there's no soul. It's just a corporate page, and it might as well just be AI driven because there's nothing behind the eyes. So you get out of that by knowing what role your account plays in someone else's life. Think long term. Think six months. Think two years. That mindset changes the choices you're gonna make today around what you're gonna post without killing your creativity. Because if you want strangers to care about your content, you have to start by speaking to them, not just speaking about yourself. Being personal is part of the process, but you need to make it purposeful. Build around shared identity, not just your own self expression, if the purpose of your account is to get followers, is to build a community, is to grow. Because ultimately, the quiet reason most creators fail to grow online is they don't actually know what their account is for. They're just posting. But growth doesn't just come from output, not more, more, more, more, more. It comes from intention. And a simple way to approach this, whether you're starting fresh or just trying to realign things is try this. Imagine your account as a product. Would you follow it? Would you recommend it? Would you be proud to run it six months or two years from now? If not, adjust now. Don't wait until you're a hundred posts deep and burn out. There's a moment I keep thinking about. A client of mine was being praised on his podcast for how impactful it had become, how consistent, how professional. His guest was genuinely impressed. And my client who now runs three shows just kind of laughed and said, honestly, I don't even feel like I do that much. I just show up and I hit record. That moment stuck with me because it highlights something I wish more creators understood. The bottleneck isn't your content. It's everything you're trying to do alone. There's this quiet belief that a lot of people carry. If I'm not doing it all, it doesn't count. Or worse, if I'm not the one editing, clipping, and posting, it's not really mine. But that mindset is a creativity killer. It leads to burnout and worse, it pulls your energy away from the one thing only you can do, which is show up with clarity and connect. The truth is your audience doesn't care who edited your video. They care if what you're saying hits. That's what we built content clips for, not to replace your voice, but to protect it. To give creators that the support most people never experience so that they can finally make content that feels like them consistently. You make your best work when you stop trying to do it all, and you go further when you're not carrying it all alone. To learn more about how content clips can help you, visit contentclips.com today.