Or, shall I say, #StanDaretoPost
There’s a company called Stan — Your All-in-One Creator Store (I think) that is dedicated to supporting and educating content creators so they can make money doing what they love. On March 18th, they rapped their #DaretoPost challenge. One of my close friends, who’s an artist, told me about it, and we encouraged each other through the entire challenge. Here were the rules:
- Post every day for 30 days, from February 17th to March 18th
- You must sign up for the 14-day free trial for Stanley IG (The free trial can be cancelled, but you must sign up for it before or during the 30 days of posting; if you forget to cancel, it’s a $44.99 charge to your card… BIG YIKES)
- Join the Stan Community, which is a completely separate app
- Complete a provided form with basic information
- All posts must be original (no reposts or duplicates of previous posts)
- Each post had to be either a minimum 10 second reel or a carousel of at least 4 images
- Each post must include: @stanforcreators and #StanDaretoPost in the caption
What’s the prize if you participate in the challenge and follow all of these rules? Every single recipient who complies with the rules and posts consistently will split a $100,000 cash reward. As they were gathering the winners (and struggling to do so), I believe each winner got around $100, which I think is pretty good.
Did my friend win? Absolutely, and I couldn’t be prouder of her. Truly, there is no one more deserving.
Now, did I win? No.
Was I pissed about it? Yes. Why? Because, after looking at everything, the only difference between my friend’s posts and mine is the hashtag. When I put the hashtag on every single post, I did not capitalize the S,D, or P and put #standaretopost. Whereas my friend put #StanDaretoPost and received the “Winner” email at the wee hours of the morning.
I have no regrets, but if I had known this company, with its multiple platforms and apps that consistently crash, would be so particular [and a little too unnecessarily complicated], I would not have done the challenge.
Though I could have definitely used that $100 to buy groceries and am upset a mild technicality cost me food for two months, I did experience four positive things completing the challenge:
Making and editing reels is so much fun, just like editing long form content. Though I am incredibly slow with it (well, not necessarily slow, but have a busy day… everyday), editing YouTube videos is incredibly fun to me. Honestly, I think editing short form is easier since there are limitations with the videos. For example, to include copyright/commercial music in an Instagram reel, you can only include ninety seconds. Despite its ease, making reels is a little nerve-wrecking, and I am still figuring out why.
I reached eighteen thousand views over the thirty days, which made me feel a little hopeful. I didn’t gain followers, but knowing it’s possible to reach more than one thousand views makes me feel like I could maybe make a little side income from the platform.
With a little planning, it’s possible to be consistent. I thought it would be easy to make up social media posts on the fly, but this competition has shown me that planning content is actually easier. Plus, it gives you something to be excited about. Like, I knew part two of Bridgerton season four was premiering during this challenge, so I planned content around the girls night my friend and I were having to watch the second part of the season.
The best performing content was about Clover. A compilation video of my dog got the most engagement, with over two hundred likes, some reshares, and about ten comments. Then, a video of me prepping my dinner versus her dinner received close to three thousand views, the most I’ve ever had on an Instagram reel. However, I don’t want my account to turn into a dog account, and Clover has to be tricked into posing for a camera.
Despite not winning on an annoying technicality, I am happy I did this challenge… but I’ll more than likely never do another one hosted by Stanley (or Stan).
