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About Inside History
Inside History is an educational, social media account featuring entertainment, history, and news from all eras. Inside History has grown to a massive 220,000+ following in only a few years and landed its creator many lucrative opportunities.
The creator of Inside History, Hon, studied criminology in college. During the pandemic, he took a deep dive into social media and launched his deep passion for history online with his account, Inside History.
Hon explains, “I run Inside History. That’s [account is] essentially the study of past events and anything that has happened from the inception of time up until now.”
He shares that he created his account as a friendly challenge between himself and a friend. They both started social media accounts to see who could get the most followers in a week. His friend only gained a few followers, but Hon gained 10,000 followers on his history TikTok account. Shortly after, Hon created the Inside History Instagram to capitalize on this success.
A post shared by Inside History (@insidehistory)
About a year and a half into his social media career, Hon received offers from Doing Things Media, a widely popular media and entertainment company with 65 million followers across their social media accounts. Hon worked for Doing Things Media for eight months and even created a docuseries with them.
Hon shares, “The brand became part of Doing Things Media and had the unusual distinction out of all the other DTM-owned brands to have in-depth research and longer captions. Inside History has only recently focused more on incorporating history memes to make the content more comedic and funny to balance out the seriousness and the dark, macabre nature often associated with history.”
During his time with Doing Things Media, Hon worked full-time as a content creator. However, he has recently gone part-time with his platform as he is going back to college to continue his criminology studies.
Making History Content Interesting
Many of us don’t think history is terribly interesting, especially after dry history classes in school. However, the Inside History account’s approach to history makes it far more interesting.
Hon shares, “I use already existing clips that the audience is already resonating with, and I take a lot of inspiration from different content creators already on TikTok.”
Some of Hon’s viral Tikoks were a success because of the rarity of the historical clips he was showing, such as clips from World War One or the 1890s, which have now been colorized.
“They’re basically just unseen pages that nobody’s ever seen. I think that’s why the attraction is there. There are some funny vintage videos with Bill Gates having a pie thrown at his face.”
He adds that he didn’t expect his TikTok to grow and gain millions of views. However, he leaned into Instagram more when he realized he could go more in-depth with research and long-form captions.
In terms of signature content, Hon shares that he tries to focus on happy historical images and events. However, history is typically quite dark, so this can be a challenge.
Creating TikTok and Instagram Content
Hon uses InShot and Adobe Photoshop to create more stimulating historical content for both TikTok and Instagram. He usually refers to notes he has jotted down in his notebook for captions. He also makes a significant effort to accurately credit sources and to ensure his posts are without prejudice or bias.
The Secret to His Success: Collaboration
So, what’s the secret to his success?
“I think it’s engaging with other content creators, like having a discussion with them, is probably the most important thing when it comes to content creation and growing your own brand. You need exposure from other people, and I’ve met a handful of different creators online during my time now as Inside History.”
He jokes that many of these creators refer to him as President Kennedy because of his profile picture featuring John F. Kennedy.
Many of Hon’s collaborations have also been with other memes or historical accounts to help each creator grow their followings. He noted that this has been a very successful strategy for him.
For many of these campaigns, he didn’t focus on project-making. However, for Sky Channel, he created captions and dialogue for a show about Queen Victoria. For this project, he traveled to London and worked with an incredible production team on the captions.
He has also collaborated with different brands within the Doing Things Media brand, such as ShitHeadSteve and DoggosDoingThings, all of which are meme accounts.
“[I’ve collaborated] with different history accounts within the space as well. I did one with Quantum Quarantining. I’m not sure if you’ve heard of that [account] before, but he’s the one who raised a lot of money for the Afghan refugees when the Taliban took over.”
The Creator Marketplace
Hon shares that he would love to see even more young people involved in the creator marketplace. He would also love to see more places where content creators can come together and work together within a particular niche.
“Let’s say with Instagram, it’s not really as stimulating as it was a few years ago, and I’d like to see more sort of big creators working with smaller creators.”
Future Plans
Hon shares that he’s excited to continue growing his platform. He may also return to working with Doing Things Media in the future.
Amy DeYoung is a freelance blog post writer covering influencer marketing and business topics. As the daughter of two business owners, she’s been fascinated by all things business from a young age, which led her to graduate from college with a bachelor’s degree in business. When she’s not typing away, she spends her time reading nonfiction books and mystery novels, baking scrumptious desserts, and playing with her dog.
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