Blue Eyed Sun

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14 Things I've learned on The Greeting Card Project

#TGCPDespite my best efforts to focus on the journey rather than the outcome of my YouTube channel (The Greeting Card Project) I have found myself distracted by the numbers of late.

Whether you set up a Facebook page, Twitter Account, YouTube channel or add Google Analytics to your Website, those cunning geeks from silicon valley provide you with a raft of information on how your particular digital poison of choice is performing. In the case of YouTube, you get to see the number of views, minutes watched, average view duration, likes, dislikes, shares and subscribers. The list goes on.

I guess the idea of this is to have some KPI’s (key performance indicators) that will help you measure the success or failure of your channel. Which is fine, so long as you define the success or failure of your particular project in those terms. Last month, my dashboard was full of red downward pointing arrows (with the exception of my dislikes which has a perky little green arrow pointing upwards). As a result, I have been doing some real soul searching with regards to my project.

Here are things I’ve learned personally whilst producing The Greeting Card Project so far this year:

1. My fears have indeed been realised: A weekly video visiting different card shops is time consuming to make, load up to YouTube and share on social media (4-8hrs per video on average - even if all done on your phone). Don’t do it. Seriously. You have to be nuts to add this to your workload. Especially when the jury is still out on adoption rates of new tech by our industry (I still cannot get over how many business don’t have a simple web page).

2. Your friends will only watch so many of your videos to support you. I have been paying it forward in our industry for a number of years now and have helped a lot of people. I’ve been speaking at the Ladder Club since 2004 and serve on committees for the GCA and the Giftware Association. Even with an army of support you cannot expect people to stay and engage without quality content that’s relevant to them or their friends and followers.

3. Going into shops and choosing cards and talking about who you are sending them to might not be interesting enough to get more than 200 views per video on average. I need to accept this or evolve. It’s enough that I personally find it interesting visiting different retailers, selecting and buying different greeting cards, and working on my relationships. Numbers are not the only thing that matters to me.

4. Weekly watching is as much of an ask for people as weekly video making. Peoples’ time is more precious than ever. The videos must be really good as they compete with so many other things vying for attention (content that’s funny, cute, weird or emotional). Note to self: I must get more kittens into my videos.

5. I need to truly understand my 'why' on this project and project it even more clearly than I do. I believe card sending can help us to feel closer to one another. I do feel that the message I am broadcasting is important.

6. Let’s face it, card sending is a pain in the backside compared with the ease of social media and texting. Honestly. If you don’t believe me, join me and send more greeting cards every week. You’ll see. Don’t be cheating with franking machines either. Buy stamps every time. Card sending is time consuming, expensive and laborious and you often don't even know if your card arrived safely through the post.

7. When the card does arrive, it can feel really wonderful for the recipient, perhaps because we all know it's not easy to choose, buy, write and post a card (the feeling the recipient has is what keeps me going).

8. Expecting positive reactions to a card, gift or video makes it all about me. The true purpose of a gift is that it is about the recipient, not the sender. You need to let yourself go and focus purely on the other to truly give. True love is a love of giving.

9. I'm stubbornly sticking to my New Year's Resolution to do one video a week for the project this year. This is despite my better judgement at this stage. I feel that quitting this goal is a bigger personal failure for me. Discipline is key to success.

10. It is unhelpful to me to measure the success of The Greeting Card Project in terms of views. If views plummet to next to nothing then it can seem like failure. Having said that, failure can be an important part of what builds our experience. Experience helps us make better judgements in the future.

11. I'm seriously doubting the concept of being Open, Random and Supportive (ORS) at this stage. This is a driving principle for me in doing my project and something I am testing. The project is not about my business. Every week I promote my competitors cards by choosing them in the shops I visit. I’m also giving my competitors a free sales lead by promoting retailers to them each week. It might seem a little crazy, but it also feels incredibly liberating not worrying about this. Control is fear based. I refuse to live in fear. I have to let it go.

12. Interestingly, people that I promote in my videos won't necessarily share the videos online. I don't understand why this is... yet. So far I’ve been assuming it's because they are just too busy or haven’t seen them (despite my emails and tagging on social media). It may be that they don’t trust my intentions, they don’t understand what I’m doing or they don't see the bigger picture. i.e. We are all in this together.

13. Up to half of the shops I visit have zero web presence. Not even a simple website, never mind social media profiles (i.e. free websites). This is making each video harder to share to the niche greeting card audience that might be most interested. Websites and digital marketing are a must for small businesses.

14. I'm becoming obsessed with post boxes. I love them. I love their bright red colour and the variety of types of them. What’s that all about? I'm working on a special post box episode for later in the year. A love of something so mundane is a source of genuine surprise and amusement to me. It’ll be postage stamps next!

This month, the numbers on my YouTube analytics have really been challenging my reasons for doing this project. Yet the numbers are arbitrary in many respects. They don’t really matter. For some strange reason The Greeting Card Project is all I want to do right now. Making these little videos about cards. I feel it in every part of me, compelling me forward. Like it’s bigger than my company, bigger than myself.

I’m so grateful to you for reading my blog. If you’ve watched even one of my videos or taken the time to offer feedback - thank you so much. I love what I’m doing. It really is the journey and the interaction with people along the way that makes all the difference to me. Do watch the videos though. Seriously. I’d be lying if I said the number of views didn’t matter at all.

Watch all the videos on Jeremy’s blog at www.blueeyedsun.co.uk/blog/tgcp

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