Author Ron Lim (@ronwritings) On How Online Communities Can Transform Your Career
'Connect with other creators and lift each other up. There's a lot of opportunities to grow simply by spending time on the app and actually caring about it.'
Welcome to the Collective World Careers Newsletter. Collective World is a one-of-a-kind creative network powered by the minds and voices behind The Thought & Expression Company. We’re so glad you’re here.
Today we’re talking to Ron Lim, creator of @ronwritings and author of No Idea What I’m Doing But F*ck It, about the joy of not knowing what you’re doing, the importance of online community, and the best way to stand out on Instagram as a creator.
First, give us a brief rundown of your career journey.
Quick backstory – I started traveling in August 2017. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life but I knew I didn't want to stay at home, so I bought a one-way ticket and I left. In March 2018, about half a year into my solo travel journey, I was at a point where I had a lot on my mind and no one to talk to. People you meet on the road are temporary. You'd connect with them for a week or two, and then we would break off and go our own ways. I wanted to have a place where I could talk about my experiences as they happened and not have to repeat my story to every new person I met. So I turned to writing and documenting my experiences on Instagram. I started an account called @payformycoffee to do that. I would just take a picture of whatever I saw in the moment and type in the caption whatever that was on my mind and post it as it is.
Initially, it was just something I did to cope with my overwhelming journey. Writing it out made me feel good. What I found interesting after a while was that, the more I wrote, the more I had to write. So I kept doing what I was doing. It sort of became a coping mechanism for me.
For the first two years, I experimented with creating a lot. I knew I loved to create, but I didn't know how I wanted to do it. I tried doing it through photography and writing out snippets of spontaneous thoughts through the captions. I tried documenting my travel itinerary, I tried vlogging. But I think it was the writing of my generic thoughts about life through quotes and poetry that really stuck. I like to look at my life in a third-person perspective and write about it. Kind of like me writing to myself. That was also the one thing that got more people to notice and engage with my page, so I kept doing more of it and the account grew.
At the beginning of 2020, I felt like @payformycoffee had gotten to a point where the way I created was too confusing. I was still documenting my travels, sometimes I'd post silly or funny content, and I'd also write quotes and poetry about the deep thoughts I have. The marketing side of my brain was telling me that I was doing too much, and if I wanted to take this a little more seriously and grow, I needed to simplify what I was doing.
So I decided to start a new account dedicated solely to writings – and that was @ronwritings.
I tried posting every single day and my following grew because of it. I started receiving more messages from people saying that I should put a book out. In December 2021, after running @ronwritings for almost two years, I self-published a book. That book was my first attempt at taking writing seriously and as a career instead of doing it for fun on Instagram.
In the middle of 2022, I got picked up by Thought Catalog. We decided to take that self-published version I did and make a second edition out of it. I spent most of my time last year waiting for the book to be out, and it just came out this month.
To summarize – I'd say I've been writing on Instagram for years, but I've only just started taking it seriously and seeing it as a career. For the most part, it was always my coping mechanism to deal with my constant traveling and my overwhelming life. I'm very excited to take it a step further this year and expand on this as my career.
Since you launched @ronwritings in 2020, you’ve amassed 700K followers. What are some strategies you implemented to see that growth?
I'd break it down into 3 things:
Give a shit about your community.
I think a lot of people see Instagram solely as a tool and nothing more. Most people neglect the "human" side of social media. There are real people behind the accounts seeing and supporting your work. I think that's where all the opportunities lie. Post often. Interact with your community. Connect with other creators and lift each other up. There's a lot of opportunities to grow simply by spending time on the app and actually caring about it.
Try things and do more of what works.
Look at what works. Take that concept and apply your own style to it. Try different ways of presenting your content. For example, there was a time during late 2021 when Instagram was trying to get everyone to adopt reels. I tried posting reels where I would narrate my writings instead of typing them out, and some of them blew up. I think I must have gotten at least 100k - 200k followers during those few months simply because a reel I did for fun worked better than I imagined, so I just kept posting more and it kept growing.
Learn to market your brand.
I think a common mistake people make when starting out is that they see Instagram as something for fun and don't bother to learn the business side of things. The thing is – if you do it for fun, most of the time nothing will happen. Maybe 1 out of 1000 people will get lucky, but I generally don't like to sit around and wait for luck. If you treat your creation hobby as a brand or a business, you will realize that there are a lot of things you can do on the marketing side of it. And that will help bring in more people to notice what you do. Some things I do are – learning how to promote things more efficiently, trying to view what I do in the perspective of a consumer, working with other creators or ad agencies to spread the word about my work.
How do you think online communities can impact creators and their success?
As someone whose entire career was only made possible because of my online community, I'd say building an online community is probably the most important thing you can do for your career. I think online communities can either make or break a creator's career. If a writer doesn't have a community who is interested in buying their book, they would still be a writer, but they would have no career.
What are your top tips for standing out on Instagram?
Make it simple and easy to consume.
Post regularly.
Respond to your community.
What do you believe are the top things to avoid when promoting your writing on Instagram?
If something doesn't work anymore, stop repeating it.
Remember the message you want to write—don't get distracted by what might go viral and forget completely about what you actually want to say.
Copy the concept and the business moves someone successful has done to make it work. Don't copy their content or message.
What do you look for in work to share on the various Instagram accounts you run?
Honestly, most of the time I just go with my personal preferences or my general understanding of my community. If it's something I like reading or thinks that others will like, it's good enough.
Many creatives get discouraged by Instagram’s ever-evasive algorithm and feel that their work isn’t getting the momentum and attention they deserve. What would you recommend to those creatives?
I'm a strong believer in the abundance of opportunities the internet has to offer. If you dig hard enough, you can always find an opening. Pay attention to people who are successful in what they do and don't just focus on what they do. Look at how they do it. Pay attention to the concept they take to make things happen, and try to apply some of that to your own work. Change things around. Be open to new ways of doing things. But most importantly, when you find something that works, keep doing it. I cannot emphasize this enough.
You recently released your first book, No Idea What I’m Doing But F*ck It. Tell us all about it and the significance of the title.
No idea what I’m doing but f*ck it is really just the motto of my life the past few years coping with all the hectic traveling and living a chaotic life where something is always happening and something is always changing. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life when I first started, but I knew I wanted to be doing something. Anything. Saying fuck it is really just my way of processing and to dive into the unknown instead of waiting for something to happen. Nothing will ever happen if you don't do anything about it. It's sort of a mantra I have as a self-reminder that I don't need to know what I'm doing to be doing something. Because it is the doing that makes the difference, and not the knowing. The entire book is really just me trying to expand on this thought, to encourage people to do more. I believe that most of us already have enough power in ourselves to change things, or at least start. We don't need to keep waiting.
For more from Ron, check out his work on Instagram and Shop Catalog.