These Are Our Content Goals For 2025 (STEAL THEM)

All right everybody, welcome to the Howdy Podcast.

We've been recording this entire time.

2024 is coming to an end.

Facts.

What do you guys think? How was your 2024?

Can we redo that intro?

What? This is in, bro. Yeah, we don't cut it here.

Um, my 2024 was actually good. Um, focused a lot on building myself up as a person, you know, getting rid of the Trimming the fat, you know, trimming the fat and just moving forward. A new slimmer me, even though you can't tell.

What about you, Mike?

Uh, 2024 has been an eventful, eventful year.

Lots of coffees dropped, lots of cameras broken.

Uh, no, it's just been eventful. The opportunities that have been given to me, um, you know, starting off here in what was like February, I got the opportunity to join the the team, and then, um, just like everything after that. I feel like I just was filled with endless opportunities, and now I'm kind of just enjoying the fruits of that.

Now you're phasing out of the college life?

Yeah, last semester going into it, 2025.

Wow, that's incredible. 2024 has been an awesome year. We just kind of wanted to recap on what happened, where we were, how we got here, and maybe even talk about 2025 and some plans going forward. As many of you know, we're in the Howdy Studio, and the whole reason we started this thing— we started in February of 2024, and we wanted to provide like a resource, a tool that business owners and creatives could use that would help them get their story out there, help them grow their brand online, We believe video is extremely important. And so whatever you do, whether that's like your personal life, just documenting your everyday activities, building your business, it can benefit literally every single section of your life. And so it's been cool. We've been here for, what is that, 10 months now? 10 months going strong. It's— there's been a lot of roller coaster up and downs, like A lot of challenges that come with something like this, but at the end of the day, I think it's just cool to see the fruit of our labor and see these, these stories get told, and these businesses are growing because of what we're doing here in the studio to help promote their stuff. Um, but yeah, so 10 months here in the studio. What are some of your favorite memories from the studio in 2024, Mike?

I think just like seeing the transformation from like the start when I started here to where we are now.

We weren't even Howdy Media.

Yeah, we were the unspoken name. To not be named, but just like seeing that and then how far we've come as like a company. Like obviously the name change, just the more people that we've had like come on to our team, the new equipment we get to use. Stuff like that. The new opportunity we've been given working for different things, different companies, and just bringing on different companies to come work in the studio. Path to Victory, Wild Lucene, Totally Love, and watching them grow too. That's been huge. I'm a big number guy, like to see the numbers, and so like watching like the number count go up just like on each of their videos and then each of their reels, it's been pretty awesome. My least favorite memory is probably like this last 3 weeks, so Why? Well, let's see, I dropped a lens, shattered, terrible. And then, uh, completely—

like, it's not repairable, by the way.

Yeah, it's pretty bad. Um, and then just like, yeah, that, that, and then the coffee incident yesterday. She's like, back-to-back weeks, it's just terrible.

So yeah, November, December have been pretty rough around here at Howdy Media, but 2025, January, we're going strong. Garen, what have been some of your favorite memories 2024?

I really just enjoyed working for the company, and I'm also a little bit newer to the company. I haven't been here the whole time, but this is Garen, everybody. Yeah, I'm Garen.

His first debut on the podcast today.

Facts. Yeah, I've just been really having fun with kind of soaking up everything that this company has to offer, you know, from producing podcasts, going out in the field. And, you know, working with clients and just getting my hands dirty with all things media, um, in front of the camera, behind the camera, just understanding what goes into running a company like this and just looking forward to grow with the company as well.

Yeah, so kind of tell them a little bit about like how you even ended up here and like what you were doing, like what, what changed your mind to switch and go this route?

Well, you know, for me, I've always been a fan of like media things. Don't have any formal training, just always wanted to learn a little bit. I've been a little bit self-taught in the past, but I just figured it was time to kind of take the step to work towards understanding it like on a deeper level. So, you know, I talked to Darren one day and was just asking him if he was hiring, and, you know, ever since then I've just been working here and picking up on things.

Heck yeah, you've been here helping out how long?

Um, I think I joined the team back in August, right before I started school.

And dang, it's already been like, what, 4 months?

4 months, yeah, yeah. It's, it's been going good though. Um, I haven't been as active as I'd like to be, but you know, whenever I get a chance, I try to stop in, you know, and learn as much as I can.

Yeah, Garen's been a big help in the recent YouTube videos that you've been watching. Um, probably the last like, what, 4 or 5 videos Garen has edited. Um, so that's been a huge time saver for me, and he's also getting to learn some techniques to help him out in Adobe Premiere Pro, which is the software that we use. So yeah, it's been cool to see everything grow. We— I think we have about 7 people now who are involved on a weekly basis helping out in some capacity. Not all of them are like technically employees. We have contracted out people. We have volunteers. We have lots of help and people on board for Howdy Media. It's just cool to see and have a team that's behind the vision that I somehow got randomly one day. A year ago today, like, I was working from home, didn't have an office, didn't have a studio space. It was a one-man show.

Wow.

And just to see it a year later, it's like mind-blowing. And I'm stoked to see a year from now what it's going to look like because this space alone has opened up so many opportunities and doors for us to grow this thing and work with new clients and reach more and more people on YouTube especially, and through this podcast, which we're going to be hopefully doing more of this podcast in 2025. I kind of been slacking. These last few months with the podcast specifically, but we're gonna get back on it. Um, what are y'all's content goals for 2025?

I think you can go first.

Um, so for me, I'm actually working on my own personal YouTube as well.

Um, shout it out. What channel?

Uh, Garon Shanks is my name, uh, @garonshanks. Um, yeah, I want to start growing my personal YouTube and, um, you know, create a following for myself as well as just continue to help the team and, you know, create a greater following for the channel as well, for the Howdy Media team.

Sweet. Are you gonna do any short-form stuff, Instagram or anything?

Um, personally right now I'm not too focused on the short-form stuff. I think YouTube will kind of be the big thing that I'm working on. And then of course, you know, create short-form content from my YouTube. But right now my main focus is YouTube.

Okay, sweet. What about you, Mike? What are your big goals?

Um, dang. Yeah, my big thing is like trying to like weed out of that like college mindset into like kind of this professional— like not professional, but like this more day-to-day full-time job. But it's also like just trying to go on my own, like personal one. Um, just to like have on the side because I think I— what I do is fun. Um, Big Mike Sports Media, go follow it on Instagram. Um, and I was talking with one of my friends today and he's about to hit 2K on his, um, profile. And I was telling him like, yeah, I was like, hopefully mid-January I'm at like 500 and then— or like 400— and then mid-March I'm at like 500, and by the end of the year like 1,000 followers. But, um, those are like super low goals, and I hope I break that. You know, it'd be great to hit 1,000 followers by March. That'd be great. But, you know, just doing that. But it's also like consistency. Um, I was telling them earlier, it's been super hard, like, since football season's over. Like, all my content— I was making, like, putting out 2, 3 videos a week, um, and I'm like taking photos every day. But like, now it's like football season's over, so I have like no content. And like, I've put out no content. And so like, my last video, I think it was posted in I want to say, let's see, let's look at it. It's posted maybe over Thanksgiving, and that's like super— that's like almost 6 weeks now. So I'm like sitting here, I'm like, how do I come up with more content? And so what I've done the last couple weeks is like obviously brainstorm like goals into setting up, um, just for me, like a follower goal, and then like consistency, and then how do I become consistent? Like, is is doing more like, you know, behind the scenes, um, you know, more top picks from a football game, something like that.

But yeah, so are you gonna do stuff other than football, or are you gonna—

Yeah, that's the goal. I think, um, it's just like broadening my horizon because right now I've only done football. And so, um, just having that ability to go out there, and obviously a lot of time you're like doing stuff for free because like you're trying to build yourself, and then be able to do that But yeah, I think as baseball season rolls around, I'll kind of get baseball and softball, try to get some photos there. And then I owe softball a little hype video.

You owe them?

Yeah.

Why?

Just politics. Oh, it was just like a deal I made with them. If they did something for me, I would do something for them.

Whoa.

Not like that. Not like that. It was just like—

What if they vote for you?

Yeah.

If they endorse you?

Yeah, it was like that kind of deal. Under the rug. Under the rug. Yeah.

Oh boy.

Um, and so we'll do that. So I'm, you know, got to get that planned out. Um, but just going to more sporting events and just bringing a camera along with me. Um, because a lot of times I just show up just to watch, and I'm like, dang, if I had my camera, that'd be cool, get a cool shot. Um, so yeah, that's my idea. And then going into the summer, like, hopefully, you know, plan out the rest of that. But for right now, it's just followers um, and then kind of just building Instagram on Instagram. Okay, maybe try to do some more YouTube, um, and I guess we'll see. But yeah, right now it's a YouTube, Instagram.

Perfect.

YouTube, Instagram.

Yes, just to add to what I'm doing, uh, a big goal of mine for 2025 is, uh, documenting my journey as well. Just, you know, everything I do, being more comfortable in front of the camera or even just picking up the camera in moments where I normally wouldn't. So that's a big thing for me as well.

Yeah, and this is a great example of like, if you're wanting to start making stuff, just freaking do it. And like, we— I honestly hated being in front of a camera a year ago, but I forced myself to.

Yeah.

And over time you just get better and better and better and more comfortable. And so if you're watching this and you're considering starting making content, at least try it. Give it like 3 months. If you hate your life, then you don't have to do it. But like, the opportunities that you find along the way, they are life-changing, I'm telling you right now. And so just go for it, try it out. If you need camera recommendations, contact one of us. Like, I'll leave their Instagrams in the description below so you can go follow them.

But, um, what are some, uh What are some goals that you have? And then for, for like yourself and like your content, and then for like the company.

Yeah, so for myself, um, you talking about for social media stuff or just in general?

Yeah, I like to just kind of grow your brand and then be able to grow the company.

So these last like 6 months, I've really been, uh, in my head, Howdy Media and my name are very close. They're almost the same thing. So if you don't know this, or if you haven't been following us long, we built up our Howdy page. I think we almost hit like 1,000 followers. And then I was, I was posting the same stuff on my personal page that I was the professional page, the Howdy page, but I had more followers on my personal page. And so it was just doing double, double the work for not— I don't know, it was just stretching myself too thin. I was like, I'm just gonna grow my personal brand. And like, that's what you see with all of the big names. They don't have— they don't get famous through their business account. They get famous through their personal account. And so if I build the personal, it also builds Howdy. And then if I ever want to branch off, do anything else, it's gonna benefit me even more. So like say we open up Howdy Coffee Company one day, I'll already have that following on my personal account. And so I won't have to build a whole other— like, people will already be seeing our stuff from what we've done in the past. But the main platform that we're gonna be pushing is YouTube, just because—

okay, we hit 1K.

We hit— we're at 1,168 subscribers as of like 5 minutes ago. So make sure to sub if you haven't subbed already. But yeah, we're gonna be pushing YouTube a lot more. So you may see these guys in some more YouTube videos coming up, just kind of teaching about gear, software, like all the social media things that can help you grow your, your brand online. So yeah, pushing YouTube hard. Instagram, I'm really not concerned about Instagram right now. I was majority of 2024, and then I discovered the power of YouTube, and I'm like, I'm never going back because that's where everything is going. Um, people are like, why don't you get on TikTok? There's talks of TikTok being banned right now, so why am I going to put my effort into something that TikTok's all over the place right now?

Because it's also like a lot of like TikTok is like super one-sided on like what comes, and then it's also like random. Like a video will go super popular from like the most random person and most random video.

Yeah.

And then it's like same thing with Instagram, but a lot of what Instagram is, is like once your algorithm is working for you and like, you know, I get a lot of video stuff, like a lot of videographer and like photography things, um, and so like that's just because my algorithm on what I like and what I don't like. And so I think with TikTok, the algorithm is obviously just kind of like random most part.

I'm going to have to pause.

Hold on.

Calling.

Oh, it's the bleep calling. Welcome back, uh, Darren.

Let's cut that out.

I don't even know what we were talking about.

Um, TikTok getting banned, I think, right? Anyways, we're back. Podcast. Um, dang, it was flowing too.

I can't remember what we're talking about.

Sorry, I had a phone call from a priority client. I had to answer it. We took a quick break, but hope you're enjoying the podcast so far. Um, make sure to subscribe. Let us know your comment, or, oh gosh, not your comments. Let us know your, your New Year's resolutions, your New Year goals for 2025. Whether it's your, your personal life or your business life or your content life. I think all those three things can honestly mesh together. So let us know in the comments what you think. Um, be watching out for more podcasts that we're putting out. Uh, make sure to join the Insiders Group. It's a free group full of creatives and business owners on Facebook. We'll leave the link in the description. Any last words or hurrahs or predictions for 2025? What's gonna happen? Are there aliens?

Aliens?

There for sure are aliens. They're already here too.

Uh, predictions, let's see. I don't think I have anything too, too extravagant.

Um, who's gonna win the Super Bowl?

I don't know, hopefully Steelers. Oh, that's a crazy prediction.

Yeah, it's mad wrong.

Um, I think, I think I'm just excited to get this, this year going.

Get this year going.

I'm hitting 10K on YouTube.

Hitting 10K on YouTube, he's calling it right now. Go subscribe. Hopefully we'll be there too.

Of course you'll be there before me.

Well, sweet. Well, thanks for watching the podcast today. Um, like I said, let us know in the comments what you're gonna be doing for 2025. Um, and if if there's anything you want to learn about. And we've been doing a lot of reviews too, so let us know if you want us to review any specific piece of tech or camera gear, whatever it is. Um, we're pumped to keep making content for you guys, so we'll see you guys in the next one.

Peace out.

Cheers.