Many aspiring creators get stuck on selecting a niche. Although selecting a niche is
important IMO, it should never be the one thing that holds you back from taking those first steps to becoming a creator. You may have heard of other creator experts and coaches talk about “being the niche” – I do agree with this sentiment and I want to point out that this is a very different thing from being “niche-less” entirely.
What I suggest that aspiring creators do to get past the dreaded “niche selection block” is break themselves down into micro-niches and start there. Micro-niches are very specific niches that serve a very particular audience. By very particular, I don’t mean drilling it down as far as “ranch hands in southern Indiana who are interested in vegan recipes” – although that certainly would qualify as a micro-niche! I am talking about thinking about your personal life story and successes and splintering them off into content buckets.
Before we dig into that process, I do want to talk about the importance of a niche. Here are three reasons why you should have one:
1. You have to have some sort of audience that you serve with your content. I don’t
care if you’re an influencer or a UGC creator. It is imperative that your content gives
a specific type of value to someone. (Bonus points if your content can help them
transform!)
2. Three words: Social. Media. Algorithms. If you’re like most people and plan to share
your content on social media – there are these pesky things called algorithms.
Algorithms will need to understand your content and what it is about so that it can
put it in front of the right audience.
3. Partnerships – be it through brands or platforms, if you plan on monetizing your
content through sponsored posts or affiliate, it’s important that your content have its
own unique voice and style so that it resonates with the type of brands and
consumers you want to forge trust with.
Now, let’s get into the specific micro-niches of YOU.
Let’s start with the cold hard facts: nobody is just ONE thing. For example, not one person out there is “just a mom” – we all have different interests, different strengths, hobbies, preferences and journeys. We all have our own unique points of view and that will always be that thing that sets us apart from other creators – even those creators that share similar niches.
One important thing to realize – as part of who we are individually- we all have special gifts to give to the world. These special gifts are, in fact, micro-niches. As a helpful exercise, I encourage you to create a list of all of your accomplishments big and small, everything that you’re proud of, all of your achievements and successes so far in life. Think about past versions of you, what problems did you solve for yourself that others can benefit from? What you’ll have when you’re done is a list of potential micro-niches you can create content about.
If you’re still getting stuck, ask your family & friends what topic they would go to you for advice on. There is a show on television you may have heard of called, “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” Contestants have three lifelines (kind of like cheat codes) and one of them is phone a friend. What topics would you be the phone a friend on?
Monetizing Content
Once you have even one or two topics to start with, we get into the fun part of monetizing your content. If you’re just starting out as a creator, there are two areas I suggest that you focus on for monetization – those are affiliate and digital products.
Affiliate
First things first, now you’re going to make another list. You’re going to take just one of your micro-niches and think about a story from that topic. Think about how you have achieved success and the storyline of that success from start to finish. What products do you use to help you achieve those results? List all of the products.
Next sign up for an affiliate platform. There are so many coming up in the creator economy now. A few that I like that don’t have crazy requirements to get approved are:
- Audenticity
- Rakuten
- Collective Voice (formerly ShopStyle)
- Mavely
Sign up for an affiliate platform and then start searching on products connected to your niche and generating commissionable links for the products.
Pro tip: You don’t have to physically have the products. We have heard great success stories from affiliate marketers who just show a pic of the product from the brand’s website or when creators create a collage of products for Pinterest, for example.
Digital Products
I always say that you should never rely fully on social media for your audience. That’s like building a house on someone else’s property. You need to keep in mind that you don’t own your TikTok audience – ByteDance does. You don’t own your Facebook or Instagram audience – Meta does. Digital products are a great way to capture email addresses and build your audience on your own terms off social media. There are many examples of digital products but here are a few:
- Newsletter
- eBook
- Templates
- Courses
You can sell digital products and monetize and/or in the case of something like a newsletter or eBook, you can include your affiliate links too for a double income whammy.
Now go out there and start monetizing all of the fun, unique, special, money-making micro-niches of you, mama!
Looking for more resources? Check out this Comprehensive Guide to Monetizing!
If you’re a mom who is looking to monetize her content and influence, please join our Free Mom Creators Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/momcreators
