Content is cringe until it works
“Content is cringe until it works.”
–Connor Hubbard (in this video)
When I started investing money into making content for Instagram in the spring of 2023, I set a few ground rules. I wouldn’t do trends. I wouldn’t do anything cheesy. I wouldn’t do any annoying hooks.
I wanted to bring real value, and anything that seemed too cringeworthy to me, I just wouldn’t do.
That all changed the first time one of my videos got over 50,000 views. I got a ton of traffic to my blog. I gathered hundreds of emails from people who were interested in my projects. I got dozens of DMs of people thanking me for the insights.
Maybe increasing reach is worth it, I thought. Maybe a good hook isn’t so cringey after all.
So I doubled down to increase my reach. I worked on my hooks. I told some cheesy stories. I even did a little dance.
The reach kept increasing. By this time, I had released my first book about freelancing. People were buying it. People were tagging me in their stories as they read it. People were telling me how much it helped them.
Now, I’m at a point where I’ll try a lot of different things to reach people. Because I understand now that social media isn’t the real work. The real work is my writing. It’s my products and courses. It’s the meaningful stuff for the people who are bought-in.
Sure, I’ll get the occasional troll in my comments, telling me what I’m doing is cringey. Sure, I’ll catch strays from people in a bad mood who don’t take the time to see what I’m all about. But all that is worth it now that I’m connecting with people who are really into what I’m doing.
Of course—maintaining your brand is important. There are still things I won’t do, even if they could get me millions of views. But a brand is much more flexible that we think. Maybe the idea of “cringe” is subjective. Maybe we redefine “cringe” to mean whatever we’re scared of doing at the time.
If doing something a little “cringey” could help you reach 100,000 people, and get 100 people to check out your real work…would you do it?
Content is cringe until it works.
