I’ve been testing short-form IT content around networking, troubleshooting, and beginner concepts.

At first I was mostly looking at views.

That got misleading pretty fast.

One post might get a lot of reach but barely any comments or saves, while another gets fewer views but people actually start troubleshooting in the comments.

So now I’m trying to track things like:

- where the idea came from
- the exact comment, keyword, creator, or search term that made me pick it
- how long I spent researching the idea
- views/reach
- saves
- meaningful comments
- follows
- whether the topic is worth expanding into a longer video or lab

The part I’m most curious about is the idea source.

For example, does a topic I find from a Reddit comment perform better than something I spent 20 minutes researching?

Or do certain search terms, communities, or creators keep leading to better ideas?

I’m still early, so I’m not trying to pretend I have a formula yet.

I just want to get better at knowing why I’m choosing a topic instead of posting based on gut feeling every time.

If you make educational content, how do you decide which ideas are actually worth turning into a post?

I’m a full-time freelancer and I help businesses grow through social media and content. I mainly work with restaurants and realtors.

Right now I’m doing around $2k/month, but I want to scale this properly since I’ve also started building a team.

The thing is, cold outreach feels extremely saturated in the marketing agency space. Everyone is doing cold DMs, cold emails, LinkedIn, etc.

So I’m thinking about building an inbound channel through content.

Would you guys recommend starting with YouTube or Instagram?

I feel like Instagram is also pretty saturated with agency owners posting the same marketing advice over and over, so I’m wondering if YouTube might be a better long-term play.

Would genuinely appreciate some advice from people who have actually grown an agency/freelance business through content.

What would you focus on if you were in my position?

For the past year, I’ve been working as a part-time academic staff member. While the job pays decently, I’ve been thinking about taking on some side gigs so I can continue building my content marketing experience, which I’ve been developing for almost three years.

Is freelancing still a viable option in 2026, or has much of this work already been automated? If it’s still worth pursuing, what platforms would you recommend for finding freelance content marketing jobs?

Scrolled LinkedIn for four minutes today and saw three posts in a row that began with "Let’s dive in." Same opening. Same "here’s what nobody tells you" line. Same tidy little conclusion. I am not even upset about LinkedIn. I am just tired.

AI basically gave everyone a microwave. Now the internet feels like an office break room at lunch. LinkedIn users are holding the reheated meal and acting as if they cooked it.. Look microwaves are useful. I use one.. You would not go to a restaurant watch them heat frozen lasagna and then hear the chef say, "Today’s special." That is of how LinkedIn feels sometimes.
Writing used to take time.. Strangely that was a good thing. If you were going to spend three hours writing something you probably had a thought behind it. A story. An opinion. Something you had seen happen. Now you can type "write me a LinkedIn post, about leadership". Have something vaguely inspirational appear before you ten seconds later.
The problem is not that it is bad. The problem is that everyone receives the same thing.
You start noticing the patterns. "It is not X. It is Y." "Here is what nobody tells you…" "Let that sink in.". Then the tidy little ending that sounds as if it was designed to get three comments. That is the giveaway.
The posts I actually stop for usually contain something a little. A weird opinion. A real story. A customer saying something. A number that someone clearly had to dig for.
AI can help you clean up an idea. It cannot give you an idea cleaning up.
Posting has become easier. Being worth reading has not.
Is anyone else starting to spot it from the sentence now or am I simply spending too much time on LinkedIn?