Why Speed Trumps Quality - Daily Blog Challenge (Day 5)
This blog post is brought to you by @binkyprod
Let's face it: the rise to success on the Internet is a long and gruelling path. Most of us will fail. 😓 I've been on this path for years. But more recently on Instagram, I think there are two things that give me a distinct advantage.
- I LOVE the grind!
- I'm willing to publish things that I think are shit.
I'm not being sarcastic! I first got the notion from Gary Vee. During the Q&A section of a speech he was giving, an audience member asked him what he should prioritize between speed and quality. Before he even finished asking the question, Gary answered speed. There was an understandable pause, and after a few seconds, Gary clarified: "Quality is subjective." Ever since I heard that, it's been a real focus of mine to be as efficient as possible in getting my content out there. That's part of what I'm trying to do with this challenge (so far I'd say I'm failing but I'm only half way in 😊).
As I've mentioned before, I've been taking photos of improv events for over a year. It's happened multiple times that at the same event, another photographer was also taking pictures with a real bona fide DSLR camera. What they had in quality, I made up for in speed. I would often end up posting some of my pictures THAT NIGHT and I wouldn't see the other guy's pics for weeks, sometimes months.
I've also been branching out a bit from photos to creating quote images. I'm pretty good at that too. While I'm on the topic, I highly recommend Canva as a tool. Frankly, for a free product, they're so good I'm not sure how they stay in business. I've been considering upgrading to a pro account to make sure they stay afloat. Anyway, last month, the weather was really weird. Spring had started showing its head, but on that particular day, it was snowing. As I left work, I saw a site that was pretty fascinating (no spoilers). When I got home, the inspiration struck me to run a simple test: how quickly can I create a quote image and posted all over my social media?
As it turns out, from absolute scratch to posting it everywhere took me about 10 minutes! I can only link to the Tweet because on Instagram I posted it as a story and it's gone now. All that to say, as important as quality is, speed is the one thing that I want to develop and focus on developing more. It's happened many times that I posted something thinking to myself "Good God! What a shit picture!" or "Good God! What a shitty caption!" Only to have that piece of content well received! Certainly much better than I would've expected.
Too many people use a concern for quality as an excuse to not do anything! Even if only to themselves. If the shoe fits, wear it! 😇 Even if your piece of shit content isn't received well, you'll learn something you can use for next time! So go out there and stink it up, baby!
It's a tough balance, speed vs quality, but we never fail, Syd, we learn how to not do things and where we must improve. 😁
Since I tend to not be good with speed or "the grind" as they say, I focus on quality. I have devised ways to be efficient when preparing, recording and editing videos for my channels, but I work on improving the quality in certain ways and always give it my all. While I know speed will amp the game up a lot, the quality keeps me in it despite the lack of speed. Though there is something to say about the more quickly made and to the point news related vids I've done, not that great in quality but they have so many views. I'm still working on finding that balance.
I'm gonna have to check out Canva, see what it's all about.
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