Week 3 & 4: The Huge Learning Curve to Creating Content As A Beginner

I'm about a month into this journey of building a content brand around exploring California and National Parks, and honestly, it's been a lot harder than I thought it would be. But it's also been equally rewarding.

When I started this project, I had this idea that I could lean on my writing background and figure the rest out as I went. Turns out, that was only half right. The "figuring it out" part has taken over most of my time—especially when it comes to video editing. I'm learning there's a massive gap between knowing how to write a good story and knowing how to tell that story through video.

This post is my breakdown of weeks 3 and 4. I'm sharing my results across six different platforms, what I'm learning about each one, and why TikTok is absolutely crushing everything else right now. But more importantly, I want to talk about the challenges I didn't expect—the ones that are slowing me down but also teaching me what it really takes to build something from scratch.

If you're thinking about starting your own online business, or if you're already in the building your own brand and feeling overwhelmed, this one's for you.

You can get my full documentary series of how to build a brand in public, so you can learn the step-by-step process of creating content, building an audience, and growing your brand to build an online business here →

Building a Brand In Public Documentary Series →

When planning a trip to create content, you need to have some idea of the kind of story you want to tell before you even arrive. Think about the sites you want to visit and what will be the focus of your video. Your viewers don't just want to see the location—they want to gain value from your story. This requires doing at least a little research into the place you're visiting. In this case, Joshua Tree National Park. You need to know what points of interest bring people there.

For those who have been there, what did they love about it?

What is it about this place that people want to see?

What locations grab the most attention?

What creatures live in the area?

Consider the plants, trees, insects, weather, geology, and history that make this park unique and fascinating.

There’s so much to a location that can pull the viewer’s attention, and you need at least one good reason for the viewer to want to keep watching your video to the end.

For me, it came down to the popular hiking trails and one beautiful scenic mountaintop called Keys View. I first learned about these locations from other YouTube videos. Then I did some research, packed everything I needed, and asked the staff at the visitor center how to get there and what I should consider as a first-timer.

The key was to go in with an idea of what I wanted to film and where I wanted the story to go. I still had fun and recorded plenty of extra footage—hundreds of pictures, too. But I made it my mission to build toward the end goal, visiting Keys View.

Now, the story isn’t quite panning out the way I had imagined. Since it was my first time at the park, there was so much I learned, and so much I got to see and experience, that it made changes to my overall story, but it was still a fun experience, and I captured a ton of footage to share throughout the next few weeks.

I only had a few hours of video footage, but I'm not planning another trip for at least three weeks. That means I need to make the most of what I have and package it in different ways so each piece feels fresh. My strategy is simple, I'll upload raw footage—no filters, no color grading, no animations or text overlays. I'm just using what I captured and making quick, spliced edits that showcase different scenes as reels, shorts, and TikTok videos.

Then, as I’m posting one of those videos every day, I’m working on the full-length YouTube video throughout the week. Or at least I thought it would be only a week to make this video, but it’s taking me a lot longer. More on that later.

My strategy is a bit different from what you might expect. I come from a writing background—I've always been a writer-first creator. Writing requires far less editing, less planning, and, honestly, a lot less software to produce quality content.

My strategy going into this was

All of that is video content, which does not include the newsletters or social content.

As I'm publishing short-form content in the first week, I'm actively gathering feedback from my audience. I want to understand what resonates with them—what they like, what falls flat, what questions they have, and which moments truly connect. This feedback becomes invaluable when I sit down to create the longer YouTube video. I can weave in answers to their questions, expand on the parts they loved, and cut scenes that didn't hold their attention. The last thing I want is for viewers to lose interest and click away from my YouTube video because I included something that already proved not to work in the short-form tests.

The more information I gather from the short video reels, the better I can make the final YouTube video.

This is my first time creating video content longer than a 90-second Instagram reel, and I'm realizing just how much more effort goes into holding someone's attention for 20-40 minutes. Up until now, my editing has been straightforward—I'd splice scenes together and cut out the fluff. But after studying videos from successful creators in this space, I noticed they use polished color grading, smooth transitions between scenes, and text animations that highlight key locations or moments. What I'm finding most challenging is selecting the right music—sounds that add depth and intrigue to the story. Then there's B-roll, which adds another visual layer that keeps viewers engaged. I'm learning all of this from scratch, and it's taking me far longer than I expected just to grasp the basics of editing.

When I took on this challenge, I didn't realize how much I'd need to learn just to create content. I thought I could lean on my writing skills—craft a compelling story with text and images, and that would be enough. But I'm realizing this is exactly what it feels like to be a new creator. I'm starting from scratch in so many areas: filming, editing, and choosing the right software. There's a steep learning curve I need to climb. I'm figuring out what kind of content I want to make, what format works best, which platform to focus on, and then navigating through hundreds of apps that all promise to make the process easier.

I think this makes this series even better because of this learning curve I need to go through. It shows an actual depiction and insightful experience that is true for people who have never made content before and have never used the required apps before.

It would be unfair to people who want to get into this space to become a creator or an entrepreneur, to create original content to build up their brand, their business, or even to build themselves up as an influencer in a space. It all comes down to creating content that an audience will love, and you, as the creator, consistently publish content in your space.

This project is taking me longer than I expected. I'm finding that short-form clips are really easy to create, and honestly, that's my advice to anyone starting out. You don't need to know much to publish content online. I just pick a platform—or post to all of them—and see what happens. What I've learned is that most platforms have built-in editing tools. Instagram and TikTok, for example, have simple editors that I can use to create outstanding videos without needing expensive software.

What I've realized through this process is that there's always going to be a learning curve—and that's completely normal. I couldn't have possibly known which apps to use, how to use them, or how to create polished content right from the start. I needed to go through this learning phase, and I'm still in it. The encouraging part is that the longer you stick with it, the better your content and production quality will become.

So that's where I am after four weeks. TikTok is working. YouTube is a slow build. Instagram and Facebook are still trying to figure me out. And I'm somewhere in the middle of all of it, learning how to edit videos that people actually want to watch.

The biggest lesson so far? It's okay to suck at something new. Actually, it's more than okay—it's necessary. I went into this thinking I could skip the beginner phase because I already knew how to create content. But video is its own beast, and there's no shortcut through the learning curve.

What keeps me going is knowing that every video I edit makes the next one easier. Every platform I post on teaches me something new about where my content works best. And every week I document this process, I get clearer on what I'm actually building here.

I'm not trying to be perfect. I'm just trying to show up, create something, and share what I learn along the way. If that resonates with you, stick around. I've got a lot more to figure out, and I'll be documenting all of it.

Next week, I'll be diving into how I'm finally finishing that Joshua Tree video and what I learned from spending way too much time in CapCut. Until then, thanks for following along.

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Building a Brand In Public Documentary Series →