Omotayo Omolade
This week on Dear Creator, meet Salem King, a Creator and Ted X Speaker. He shares his knowledge and experiences on social media, building a community, helping others, and finding success as a content creator.
Q: What Inspired you to start creating content?
Salem King: I know that the one thing I always wanted to do was teach at such a young age. I had no idea what, and I didn’t know how that was going to happen. But sometime around 2017, I started having fun on social media and posting videos about whatever it was I was learning. I would just share it on my Instagram stories and stuff like that, so that’s kind of where it started from. Initially, it was just me sharing with my friends, because it was just friends and family, of course, like it was a very small Instagram account, and it’ll be like 20 people or 30 people on a good day that would watch my stories, and I’ll just share.
In 2018, I decided that I wanted to start posting my videos on my page. So from January 2019, I started making and putting my videos out there, and I went from 1,500 to 5k in one month. That’s sort of just me realizing, ‘Oh, some people like this stuff, oh, there’s nobody that came for me, maybe I should just keep doing this,’ and that’s how it started.
I wasn’t really trying to be a content creator. I didn’t actually know what content creating was. I just wanted to be in the specialties I was learning, and social media was the easiest way to do more. The way I imagined my life, God knows that I’d be like a motivational speaker or something like that. But when you’re 21 years old, I mean, how do you want to gather people and what do you want to tell them, you know, especially in Nigeria? So social media was just like the easy way out. I was reaching more people.
Q: What would you call your own style of content?
Salem King: I won’t call it anything, oh, but I am a niche. Some people would say it’s education, like I don’t feel like I fit in there, cause people that are educators are strictly academicians. Sometimes I post some content that I find funny. It’s mostly where I am building a brand that helps a lot of people, so in most ways, I end up helping different people, and my topics differ from content to content, but ultimately the one thing I wake up thinking about every day is how I can shorten the journey for somebody else. I’m constantly thinking about the economy in Nigeria and thinking with everything I post and share, how can I make a positive impact? Something that took me 4 years can take somebody else 6 months if they listen to me.
Uhm, sometimes that’s me talking about creativity and productivity and how to navigate all those things, and it’s just me expressing myself. It’s me posting about my bloopers so people can see that I’ve been doing this for so many years, but it’s still really freaking difficult, even for me, you know, that you can just use what you have and not just because I have 100k followers. I would also post funny content because I want people to see that, the work you do doesn’t have to be so serious all the time.
I always used to feel like I needed to do serious stuff like teaching or informing, but I now realized that I can actually put my human side on display. I can show people the things that make me laugh, the things that I find interesting; it shows my personality. And it goes the same way for people who are very funny, who are comedians. The fact that you’re a comedian doesn’t mean you can’t write a very serious attempt, talking about your journey or sharing your story and stuff like that, you know. The content creation space is still relatively new, and it is what we make of it, you know, and I feel like nobody should be under pressure to fall into one category; you can be anything.
Q: What was the defining moment for you as a content creator?
Salem King: That’s a good question. First of all, when I first started creating content, I was getting a lot of questions, like people asking a lot: ‘How do you make your videos?’, ‘How do you say so much within such a short time?’, ‘How do you edit?’, ‘How do you come up with your messages?’, ‘How is it that what you’re saying is exactly what people want to hear?’, creatively, how do you do that? Of course, people would ask me questions a lot, and I would answer in their DMs one by one. All of the people asking how I edit; I’ll do screenshots and recordings.
My community started to grow, and it was getting harder and harder, especially because I had a different life. I had a whole 9-5 and everything, but some months later I decided to just do a class and have people pay. But I mean it’s a terrible idea to believe the hype, so I was afraid to do a class, but finally, I did a free class. The idea was, if people don’t get value out of the free class, at least money was not involved, nobody would come and ask me, and it’d just mean that we wasted each other’s time, so that’s what I did. Then I saw the result people had from the free class, and there were all kinds of creators; lifestyle creators, you know, people who ride cars, makeup, travel, and so on. They got so much value out of it; they were able to apply some of the lessons and principles that I applied to their own careers and see some results.
So that’s when me I was now like ah! I don vex, you know, let me quickly turn this 5k, so I did the next set 5k, and I had over 100 people sign up in just over 48 hours. Then I said like I want to do 50, since it was my first time, but I got so many people, and I had to open another group, and I did another 50, and the group filled up. So that was the first time I earned 500k, and in my life before that moment, I had never had that much money in my account at the same time. So that was like a couple of months of my salary at that time, so that’s when it just hit me, ‘omo! I don’t need to do this job,’ and I needed to plug my escape, so yeah, that was one of the things that sort of opened doors. Of course, I think I had some beginners luck cause it’s not like 500k just come in easily like that. You know, capitalizing on my skills, building a business out of what I do, building my audience, interacting with brands, speaking at events, just so many efforts coming together to build what I’ve been building hasn’t been easy, but that was the tipping point for me, and I just realized that if I’m working at a job and I can make this money, what if I had free time, you know, maybe I could do more, so yeah.
Q: Aren’t You scared of being replaced or your style of content going extinct?
In the past 3 years, I’ve had 2000 creators, maybe 2,500, but I don’t want to say, but definitely over 2000 creators go through my class. The other day, somebody was asking me, “Are you afraid that you’re going to get replaced? Do you ever get scared that you’re going to get replaced one day?” and I said, “Every morning I wake up and show up, I am actively training my replacement, and if I’m unable to replicate myself in other creators, I have failed.” I like to see myself as a creator’s creator. Like, I’m here to help creators. I’m not just here to make content. I am here to help everybody who wants to be creative and even people who are not creators, to help them see that they have something to share with the world. So with every class I hold, every place I’m speaking, with my ebook, that’s what I’m trying to do. I’m just trying to help more people to get access to the creator economy.
Q: Do you constantly fight imposter syndrome? Like, do you have to remind yourself every day that you are that guy, even if you are not making the numbers that other people are making? But you still feel your content is worth it.
Salem King: One, I don’t fight imposter syndrome. It is not something to fight; you’ll lose. Cause imposter syndrome has more experience than you, ruining lives, so you’ll lose. But one thing I like to think about is that imposter syndrome is a high-quality problem. What’s important syndrome first of all? It’s the idea that in everything you have just happened by chance and you don’t deserve the success you have, and one day everybody is going to find out that it happened by luck and you’re a fraud. But the thing is, to have imposter syndrome, to have that fear that the success you have, you don’t deserve, means you have that success. And there are people who do not have imposter syndrome because they are not yet at the stage of life where they have imposter syndrome. You can’t make problems go away in life, like problem no dey finish, every stage of life you’ll have problems. And since you can’t make problems go away, the mark of growth is that the quality of your problems is constantly increasing. So, when I’m experiencing something today, I always think, “Is this is a good problem? Is this a problem I would have had two years ago?” If it’s not, it means I’m growing.
So everybody has money problems. Some people, their money problem is that they don’t have enough. Some other people have too much money. You also have a money problem, right? Like, what are you going to do with the money? Where do you put it? How do you make sure they don’t cheat you? What are you going to invest it in? How do you know you’re going to get your money back? Where do you save it? What platform do you use to save? It’s all still money problems, but it’s a higher quality money problem. So imposter syndrome is a serious problem, but it’s a higher quality problem. Basically, when you have imposter syndrome, it’s normal. Everybody who is pushing the middle in their life and growing and actually moving forward would have imposter syndrome. It’s natural. And Seth Godin says that, of course, you have imposter syndrome because you’re an imposter. You’re trying to become somebody that you’ve never been before. You wake up one day and decide, “I want to be a writer,” then you start calling yourself a writer, even if you even do it in one article, you’re an imposter, right? So it’s the fact, you have the feelings, it’s fine, it’s okay, you know.
Secondly, you know, the thing you said about seeing other people have numbers, I’m a human being, so sometimes it’ll get to me, you know, and even sometimes when you see somebody else and you’re just like, “Ahan, who be this person wey just come out of nowhere,” type of thing. But one thing is, a lot of creators and a lot of your faves went through my class, and I say it with every sense of humility. These are people who still honor me, people who still show a lot of respect and still pay homage in so many different ways. I take pride in knowing that I was a catalyst in a lot of people’s journeys. So, the things they learned from me created a foundation, you know, for everything they’ve been able to do, and I can’t take all the credit, of course, Because they put in the work, but I take pride in the fact that I was able to contribute. I was part of their creative journey, and that’s what success is to me.
I would like to have a million followers. I would like to have 5 million followers, but that, if I never have one million followers, it doesn’t mean I didn’t succeed. The thing that is failure to me is if I fail to replicate myself to other creators before I die.
Q: What’s your favorite part of interacting with your audience?
Salem King: It’s through research, so whenever you’re creating a business, you need to know what your customers are thinking, and you need to know how they’re feeling. You need to know what their problems are because they are only as valuable as your own standing with the problems you’re seeking to solve. So, like what I do on Instagram is my business, it’s my full-time job. I’m a full-time creator. There’s not a lot of full-time creators in Nigeria, but I chose this path, and that’s something I need to take seriously. So, to other people, it might just be me being on Instagram, chilling, having fun. I’m having fun, but it’s also work to me.
When people wake up in the morning and go to the office, I wake up in the morning and I open Instagram, right? And I decide, what am I going to ask my audience today? What conversation am I going to start today? And in the midst of those conversations, I am now grabbing attention, and that attention is valuable to the brands that pay me. Do you understand? Cause they know that when they work with me, they’re going to get many engagements, because the audience listens. The number in my bio is not just the number in my bio; it’s the number of human beings, real individuals, and that’s something I’m always conscious of, which is another reason why I’m not faced by the fact that someone has more followers.
I know my people, and my people know me. I genuinely care about my audience; I genuinely care about my followers. These are people who have been there from day one, and on my stories, you know, I do my Instagram stories and I’m just chilling, I’m just flexing, but that’s where I make most sales for my digital products, right? So, if somebody has just read my eBook and they’re like, ‘Wow, I really love this,’ I post it and attach the link, and every time I do that stuff, somebody always buys. Every single time, at least one person would buy. I said at least because sometimes it’s 3 people, sometimes it’s 5 people, sometimes it’s 7 people, right?
Every time I’ve had my classes, classes that over 2000 people have gone through, I have never promoted on my page, it’s only on my stories, it’s for my community. And I’ve had times when I had 200 people in a group, I’ve had times when I’ve had 100 people in a group, sometimes 20, sometimes 50, all of them come from my Instagram stories. All of them come from my Instagram stories that disappear after 24 hours, so the people that come to my Instagram stories, they are genuine. They see that I genuinely care too cause I respond, I enjoy the conversations. And finally, like I said earlier, that it’s free research for me cause now I know what they want to hear about. I know what to make content about next, I know what to create an eBook about next, I know what to include if I’m making an online course.
I know how to communicate when I’m trying to promote something that’s related to the brand I’m working with. And so sometimes when a brand will reach out and say, ‘We want to do this, this is the creative direction we’re thinking of,’ I’m able to say, ‘This is great, but I don’t think it’s going to work with my community. Here’s why,’ and then I present strong reasons why this is a better direction to go. All of that insight is stuff you only have if you’re actually connected in the way that I am, do you understand? And finally, I’m constantly thinking of the individual; I’m thinking about each person. You know when you work with marketing or when you’re a business person, it’s easy to reduce people to numbers and leads.
Q: What’s the most unexpected skill or knowledge that you’ve acquired throughout your content creation journey?
Salem King: Community building, which I didn’t realize was a skill, I didn’t think it was a thing, but it is, right? So now I realize that I now know more about the fact that community building isn’t just this fancy marketing word that we throw around, right? It’s something that has existed as far back as the Stone Age. Human beings have always needed to exist in tribes, like to protect themselves from the wild. Then, you know, in pre-modern times, we have our parents and their weekly meetings with village people, you know, and “august meeting” – all those things we used to make fun, but you realize that, you know, in those circles, they look out for themselves so much, right? Like all those meetings our mothers used to go to, like if somebody’s daughter is getting married, they rally around each other. Someone who you know is bereaved, they rally around each other so well, they put their money where their mouth is, right? That’s a skill that I just picked up.
Me, I just wanted to make content. I just wanted to make videos. And even when I started getting people interacting with my stuff, you know, I used to respond to every comment. Right? Like if you saw 400 comments on my post that time, 200 were me. It’s me that responded to all, and the reason why I used to do that is ’cause I was just so grateful. I wasn’t trying to – it was not a strategy for me. I was just so grateful that, wow, it only took 60 seconds out of your day to watch my stuff. Thank you o! Sometimes I’ll tap on the person’s profile, you know, to respond in a personal way. It just made people really endeared to me, my audience. Me, I did not know. I was just – I don’t know, maybe it’s my upbringing or something. I was just grateful. But now I see that I’ve learned more, now that I’ve been working for a couple of years. I see that all those things can be applied as a strategy to make people feel like a part of something that is bigger than them, right? So that’s a skill that I haven’t 100 percent started to apply yet, but I now see all the way that I can apply it to building movements around certain causes and businesses, around events, around products, around services, around religious organizations, literally anything that requires the driving force of a community. And that’s something that I’ve just become so good at by posting on Instagram stories every day.
Q: What is the weirdest or strangest request you’ve ever received from a viewer of follower?
Salem King: Marry me.
Wow, marry me! So what do you do in instances like that?
Salem King: I tell them my wife would not approve.
Awww, but you’re not married yet?
Salem King: Yeah, but like it sends them away.
Q: What if it’s a really determined person?
Salem King: If the message seems like this one is too determined, I won’t even open the message. I would just delete it from my request and just run from my life.
Q: So, can you tell us like a video or project that you’ve done that you’re particularly proud of?
Salem King: Omo, I’ve done like 1000, so that’s a very difficult question to answer. So, my favorite body of work actually is on YouTube, ‘The August Meeting’ we made it in 2020. I wanted to do a gathering with like my community, but it didn’t work out, so we did something online and called it the August meeting. So, I just hung out with a bunch of my friends, we recorded the whole thing, so you could just search the August meeting on YouTube, and you’d find it. That’s very close to my heart.
Q: Can you please share an example of how your content has positively impacted someone’s life?
Salem King: Omo, how much time do we have? I mean it when I say I’m a creator’s creator, and it’s basically me saying it’s the dream I have, and I wake up to every day, and it’s fulfilled. The success stories are so many, but yeah, I don’t think I can pick one. For me, every single time somebody stops me when I’m trying to buy groceries, you know, to say, “Oh my gosh, thank you for what you do,” or somebody walks up to me after service in church and says, “Oh, I started posting because of you,” or somebody who sends me a DM to say, “My children love what you do.” I think that would be the one that takes the cake for me. You know, somebody coming to me to say, “My child follows you and is inspired.” That one really touched me cause this kid is like 15 or 16, you know, and just the stuff I make when I’m sitting in my room, you know, is already helping him on his journey.
A lot of what I talk about is stuff I wish someone told me when I was younger. It’s stuff that I wish someone had given me guidance with. Or the reason I was making videos isn’t to say, “Oh, here’s something I’ve figured out, so let me show you the way.” It was more like, “See, here’s something I learned the other day that was valuable to me. It might help you too.” I also realized a thing that you don’t have to be very old and experienced before you start to help people out. If you’re 22 years old, there’s somebody who’s 20 who wants to know what you have to say, you know? If you’re 19, there’s a 12-year-old that needs what you have to share. So that’s basically how I’ve been navigating it, to be honest.
On my journey, even now, I still don’t feel like I’ve done anything major. I still don’t feel like I have scratched the surface of everything I want to achieve. I’m just so grateful to God that at my young age, there are so many people that I’ve been able to reach and help and support on their journey, you know? Looking at my content, just with me saying, “Oya, this is your sign to clear your drafts and stop procrastinating,” and everybody starts to clear their drafts, and their content creation career begins.
Q: What advice would you give aspiring content creators?
Salem King: Clarity would come on the road. If you’re sitting at home, you know, trying to strategize, brainstorm, and come up with ways, that’s the reason why you’ve not started. You’re not going to figure it out. You have to get your hands dirty and get out there. That’s how you figure out what to do.
Clarity will come on the road, so just start. It’s scary, it’s uncertain. You could start on the side while you still have a job. And if you’re doing content creation just because you want to make money, it’s going to take a while cause you need to build an audience. Everything is going to be better when you have an audience. I think I’ve said too many things already; I’m going to stop here. I’ve said enough. Good things take time, and clarity comes on the way.
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