Content of the Week #14: centre of my world

I used to get told that digital content could never recreate the magic of witnessing a physical thing.

Beholding an object is like reading a good book – by injecting your own imagination you can transport yourself centuries across histories to another place, time and people.

You just can’t really compare flicking past a photo of Nelson’s jacket on Instagram against seeing it in person – exploring the frayed stitching around the bullet hole, smelling the acrid smoke of cannon and being kissed by a big man called Hardy.

Anyway.

My content of the week is a content creator who got some of that feeling across: history_mae.

Not all her videos follow the same format, but this one starts with the point of view of the painting’s subjects, as a disheveled man returns from exile to his shocked family.

That ‘POV: You didn’t expect him’ may be part of a trend. I don’t know. I’m too old.

From this point on the video is similar to a lot of Reel/TikTok art history videos, walking you through the characters and the story, but it’s short and sweet.

The reason I’m focusing on it is the importance of the hook – the first moments of your video where you need to draw people in. The copy conjures an air of mystery, and the presenter pulls the perfect face to draw you into finding out who this man is and why he is unexpected.

This simple but effective framing gives me the same feeling as witnessing the painting in person. I’m drawn in, I pay attention, I feel like I’ve witnessed something.

What else I’m thinking about

In my projects I have to do a fair amount of comparator analysis (because ‘competitor’ is too mean).

I also have to do a fair amount of audits.

The trend is almost uniformally that X is dying, that Facebook is stagnant when it really shouldn’t be (but see this post for an inkling as to why), and while Instagram is ‘ok’ the real engagement is on TikTok.

That’s not a directive for everyone to use TikTok. You may have specific niches and audiences on other channels, and engagement doesn’t necessarily always mean success. People may see your event post and not Like it, but still attend.

But the most successful accounts are not successful because they are on TikTok. They also have their production tied up (even if it’s lo-fi, the audio is still clear), they have an on-screen personality that knows how to present, and their USP is clear – no muddling, jumping about from shop post to collections to skit to thanking a funder. They occupy their niche and they rarely deviate.