A Content Internship During the World Cup

3 weeks later, here are the numbers:

• 10.6 million views
• Over 700,000 interactions
• And over 8,600 followers

Learning means applying. That has always been part of the inzpyre.me DNA. Whether it's surfing or AI. And so 3 weeks of a social media internship on a World Cup tour turned out to be the perfect start into the creator economy.

Every beginning is hard

Every beginning is hard, as they say. You can see it in my videos too. I mean, who watches a 6-minute monologue titled „What I learned from surfing"?

But you have to start somehow. And so I'm still glad that I posted my first videos at the beginning of the year, even if my success back then was limited. You learn fast, though. A 6-minute video becomes 90 seconds, and eventually an 11-second video goes viral.

A German shepherd from the Houston Police Department being petted by a German fan. Over 1.2 million views.

Watch the reel: over 1.2M views →

So it's dog videos after all?

Then the next hit. A friend tastes a soda he mistakenly calls „Pride of Texas". Over 600k clicks. 12k likes and nearly 1,700 comments.

Watch the reel: over 600k views →

To put that into perspective: someone drinks a sugary cold beverage, fills 10 football stadiums with viewers, and still about 2,000 people in each of those stadiums start clapping. Kind of absurd.

So it's not dog videos but product tests?

Then another bullseye. An invitation to the fan march in Toronto. 1.5M views. Even though it's a video from Euro 2024. Whatever.

Watch the reel: 1.5M views →

So it's fans celebrating their team after all? At least that one keeps working.

English super fan, nicknamed „Lobster". 450k views.

Watch the reel: 450k views →

Fan march in Toronto. Several videos break the 100k mark.

Watch the reel: several 100k views →

After one week we have evidence of what works. Full focus on 3 things:

• Videos of World Cup fans
• Videos of us testing products
• Videos of animals

That's what we want to grow with.

Content internship becomes press work

But then the incident in Toronto. Attacked over a rainbow flag. I end up in the hospital. Out of anger and defiance about the situation, I post it on social media. There has to be some upside to having built a bit of reach. Raising awareness for civil liberties.

But the rainbow topic is delicate too. It rubs people the wrong way. For the first time, we lose followers. And the trolls don't take long to show up:

• „No surprise you get punched in the face when you force your opinion on everyone."
• „Rightfully so!"
• „I'm ashamed of you. This is why Germans are hated abroad."

Social media is brutal. It's not that I was surprised by it, but it's still different when you feel it yourself. So how to deal with it? We hand out even more love. That even leaves the odd troll speechless.

But the incident has a second effect. Before, we knew exactly what was working: fans, product tests, animals (which, as it later turns out, was more of a lucky shot). Suddenly it's about civil liberties, about a debate, about me. The rhythm we had built is gone for now. That slows us down noticeably. But these days bring me more learnings I hadn't counted on.

Press work has to be learned too

Fan beaten up over a rainbow flag. I have to admit: that really is a dream headline. Straight out of a tabloid playbook.

I speak with around 10 press representatives in total. I keep emphasizing that I want to approve the articles first, to avoid misinformation. And still it goes wrong. I send one journalist the images and videos of the attackers. One of them is wearing a Scotland jersey. I keep stressing that I don't believe they are football fans. Too late. The press picks it up and others copy it. Sport 1, Stuttgarter Nachrichten, web.de.

I have to intervene. I emphasize once more on social media that we assume they were not football fans. It becomes clear to me: working with the press is exhausting. Every journalist has a story in mind, or a message they want to send. Understandable, perhaps, but it doesn't always lead to the stories that are closest to reality. I notice: there are huge differences in journalistic work. Some really look for evidence of what actually happened, others just look for the quick headline. At this point I also want to name the positive examples: Tagesspiegel, Spiegel and Yahoo.

What I learned

Being a creator is a full-time job. Especially with current topics, you're forced to always post right on the moment. That puts you under incredible pressure. I have great respect for all creators, because this pressure to always post new content is extremely all-consuming. Cue: „You're always on your phone!" The real art is capturing only the right moments and then sharing those.

Posting a lot is better. In the end you (especially at the start) simply don't know what works and what doesn't. So it's about trying many things. Once you've posted 30 videos, you have a good picture of what works and what doesn't. It also shows: how fast you succeed with content depends on how fast you posted your first 100 videos and learned from them. By the way, a second dog video did not go viral again, of course. One week really isn't enough.

AI isn't yet at the point where it can take all the work off your hands. You still have to edit videos yourself to get really good results. My recommendation: find content formats that are as time-efficient as possible. If every video takes you 60 minutes of post-production, I doubt you'll stay consistent long term. Still, I got familiar with the most important tools. Editing videos now costs only a fraction of the time it did before the internship.

Naturally I dug much deeper into content creation, and I now share what I learned under Content & Marketing.

And what does this mean for my business?

I'm currently working on a SaaS product for content automation. With it, I want to automate my own content in some places to promote my products on social media. In other places, I'll now report on my own journey as a creator and founder.

On top of that, I'll launch my second app next month. For it, I've pre-produced plenty of content over the past weeks. Luckily, I found a format that doesn't require much post-production and lets me create videos automatically with AI. My goal: at least 10,000 followers by the end of the year, and the same for the user numbers in the app. From now on I'll share the status here to keep myself accountable. Product content works a bit differently, of course, but with the right product it should work. Small spoiler: the app is about my favorite topic, „Food".

Your challenge for this month

Build your first content piece.

I'm aware that not everyone wants to become a creator. Still, content creation is a skill everyone should have these days. Anyone who wants to market products, services, or themselves needs this skill. So think about it: what could I share with the world? What would be interesting: a learning, an experience, a cool insight? Then record it in a short video or write it down.

If you have the courage, post it right away and see what happens. I know, that's completely out of your comfort zone. But that's exactly what makes us grow.

Stay curious,

Alex

Watch the reel: our World Cup song →