We were lucky to catch up with Aaron Van de Steen recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Aaron thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear the story of how you went from this being just an idea to making it into something real.
One of the most important things about being a content creator on social media is knowing how the algorithm works. For me at the very beginning it all started with instagram. I spend years trying so many different things. So many different pages. From posting what i like to posting what does well for others. Photography, Motivational quotes, funny videos, fitness videos,…. But nothing seemed to work that well. In July of 2019 i was left with 2 pages with a total of around 13,000 followers. 13,000 in 6 years time… It was time to change my game plan. I spend the entire month studying how instagram works. Every little thing that could be important. At the end of july/beginning of August i started to try thing out with a couple of old pages of mine. And it worked! I mean, it kinda did. On one of the pages i managed to go viral a bit. A few days later after trying some other things, I created another page. My 20th page by now. But this was the page that eventually changed my entire life. With a good strategy i managed to grow 2,000 followers without posting anything. Not in an illegal way or from bots, it took time because i needed my first 2,000 to be acive and interested in what i was gonna post. On August 15, at 2,000 active followers and 0 posts, I finally posted. In less than an hour that post hit 500 likes. 12h later 3,000 likes. Next post 5,000 in just a few hours. I knew that i finally found it. I finally knew how to go viral on instagram. in just 2 weeks time i hit 10,000 followers. 2 months later 100,000 followers. After 1 year I was the proud owner of 4 instagram pages, 1 twitter page and 1 tiktok page with all together more than a million followers, reaching millions of people every single day. With an amazing team to help me maintain the pages, companies I have partnerships with and so many lovely followers, this changed my entire life.
Aaron, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Since I was young i have always loved the outdoors and the beauty of earth. that is why i started doing photography. Mostly nature but also archutecture. People, animals,… almost never. Almost 10 years ago i started to share my work on social media. That is when i first started to post daily. The compliments, the love, the people you meet,… amazing. I stopped sharing my work back in 2019 but there is a good chance that when you are reading this i am finally posting again!
We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.
It was in 2020 that I started to get very busy with all my work. No free time, spending late nights working, so i posted something to find a business partner. Next day i checked my inbox & saw over 100 messages from people interested! I picked some people that i saw potential in. I trained them with everything i knew and together we grew our social media network. In the past 2 years alot has happened and almost all of them quit or got fired. Only 1 of them is still by my side working with me on social media & other projects.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
In this kind of business there are alot of things to profit from. You can earn money or get free products. But this was never my main focus/motivation. It is the love from followers and the amazing people you meet every single day. Even other content creators that became really close friends. Helping each others grow & working together. And finally, the celebreties that start follow & message you. Always nice to get recognition from those people haha.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: instagram.com/aaronvdsteen
Image Credits
@aaronvdsteen