Firstly, an admission: I find content creation easy and speaking to camera a doddle. It’s the confidence from childhood, a long career of teaching English for 27 years and an innate sense of having something worthwhile to say when I see it.
I could walk round Manchester in my 3 years there, see something that looked interesting, whip out an iPhone and shoot or record. I moved to Liverpool at the end of January 2026 and that impulse has become stronger. It helps that it’s a beautiful city with amazing people (Manchester was no slouch either).
Oddly, my TikTok metrics have been in a death spiral since moving west, yet Instagram metrics have rocketed, as has LinkedIn. 4 million views of TikTok posts in 2025 have dwindled to 100,000 in 5 months here, LinkedIn connection count and post reach have doubled on Merseyside though and Instagram has gone bonkers.
261,000 views in the past 30 days from posting 5 to 10 stories, mixed in with 2 to 4 photo carousels or reels every day, practically every day.
That, for one man and a dog, is pretty pleasing – one post of me extolling Liverpool life saw 50,000 views in the first 2 days alone on a burner account and my main account gpcliverpool has seen follower growth and views explode.
3000 followers was reached this week – which is a bit tame compared with others I know, but the likes, engagement and comments are positive and are helping with web traffic and on-street recognition in Liverpool city centre: a narcissistic vanity metric, perhaps?
I now manage 16 social media accounts for companies and, fortunately, have yet to be dropped – one company has paid me for 8 years to produce content for their Facebook and LinkedIn page.
I’ve invested in a drone, an Insta360, tripod with remote shutter button, and my daily carries are: an iPhone Air with 1TB of storage, a huge power bank and a Leica Leitzphone.
The iPhone Air shoots dual videos in 4k and 48MP photos, is a beautifully premium thin design, with a 6.7 inch screen, but the battery life is below average, the camera has 1x and 2x and it has only one speaker. I sold a 17 Pro though mainly for the design and storage and love it.
The Leitzphone is wondrous as a camera – it has all the Leica film simulations, 8k video, exceptional microphones, 200MP shots, and 100x zoom with no loss of resolution. Android, to me at least, is a bit of a dog’s dinner though and that device is my professional go to device for personal and client content.
I sold two Fujifilm SLRs to fund it and, like the iPhone Air, have zero regrets.
I do more than act like a dumb waiter with clients – I am a content coach and when I go out to film and shoot, I devise and ask questions that will (hopefully) lead to huge engagement in short Q and A clips. The doom scrolling generative habits mean that 7 to 12 seconds is a sweet spot and I’ve lost track of clients who’ve said “Oh I got an order through TikTok with that video; that Instagram reel generated £6000 in sales.”
Tbh, it’s a bit relentless for me, I can’t have a week off and shut down – also I visit those clients who specify it once a month to create content and for others I self-generate photos and videos from briefs. I’ve been to London 3 times; Manchester loads, as well as Leeds, Sheffield, Doncaster, Ilkley, Harrogate, Bradford, Halifax as well as seeing content angles in my home of Liverpool.
It works too.
Must do or I’d have surely been dropped by companies.
So if you’re reading this and posting sub-par stills, over-edited or dull reels, of jobs you’re working on, contact me and see if we could work together.
There is no contractual tie-in, beyond a month, either, in case we don’t gel; costs aren’t huge, but the impact can be business-changing.
07462923476 is my business and WhatsApp number or info@getprocopy.com will reach me too. DMs are monitored too.
