10 fun and faceless content ideas for camera-shy teamsBy Sophie

If your colleagues would rather paint their whole house with nail polish than show their face on camera, try any of these 10 content ideas 👇

1. Match the lunch order to the job title
2. Overheard in… (taking inspo from Overheard LA, Overheard NY and Overheard London)
3. Come to work with me (shot from a first-person perspective)
4. 5 quick-fire tips from…(interview them over a cuppa and turn their answers into typographic assets)
5. Topic of the week voiceover (like this video from Polyester Magazine)
6. The [name] edit (a curation of their favourite products from your range)
7. Use puppets (They’re everywhere this year! Even Berlin’s public transport system has them)
8. Creative team challenges (latte art, pumpkin carving, pottery—the uglier the result, the better)
9. A parody of their calendar (like this one from Zoopla)
10. [Name] narrates (they do the voiceover for someone else’s video. Like this dad who narrated his daughter’s hair routine)

Dive deeper 🤿

꩜ The allure of the mundane

꩜ Like the puppet idea? Here’s where you can get one made

꩜ Why mascots still have brand magic

꩜ Aesthetic quote templates for your typographic content

꩜ Forever obsessed with Bird of the Week

꩜ The Nutter Butter account is face-free and totally weird

In the pool with…Malika Favre from I Can’t Afford This But Maybe She Can

Malika Favre is a French Artist and the co-curator of I Can’t Afford This But Maybe She Can—“the long distance shopping list of a wannabe millionaire and a would-be millionaire.”

It started 3 years ago as a passion project with her close friend and fellow colour-lover, George Wu. Through daily posts, they open a dialogue about beauty in all shapes and forms, from everyday objects to fashion, architecture, interior design and anything in between.

👉 Find Malika on Instagram

How did the idea for ‘I Can’t Afford This But Maybe She Can’ come around?

The idea for the account came a decade ago when George and I were both living in London. It first started as a private joke turned public by George posting random things on Insta for me to buy. It literally was an account for an audience of one.

Years later, during the lockdown, we decided to revive it together and start curating objects we each coveted but couldn’t afford. It started growing, first slowly, then suddenly very rapidly and eventually became what it is today. Our aesthetic was somewhat niche and pretty different to other blogs out there at the time: a mix of graphic, bonkers and often colourful things.

Despite every marketing expert telling us that video and talking-to-camera is the only way to succeed on social, you’ve grown ‘I Can’t Afford This But Maybe She Can’ to 240K+ followers with just images—none of which feature either of you. Why do you think the content has landed so well?

Though we don’t create content as such, there is an element of art directing in the way we curate, which helped getting visual traction. We are both from the design world so we are very picky about what images we post and what feels pleasing to the eye, but other than that I think the strength of our content is the curation itself. Taste is a mystery and I feel that most people feel self conscious and shy about publicly embracing all the facets of their own taste. We definitely don’t, and I think it is that spontaneity and carefree approach to curating that has helped us grow. We don’t post content that can be found anywhere else and we don't put any limits to what we post, nor do we ask for each other’s approval before posting. Also, we are not a business and as such, we don’t have to push sales, to please anybody but ourselves or make concessions.

We post stuff we genuinely love and without asking for anything in exchange from makers and designers. Social platforms have become so commodified these days, so that kind of generosity is a rare occurrence and is what helped us build a great community of like minded people over time.

Would you ever do face-to-camera content on ‘I Can’t Afford This But Maybe She Can’?

We are not against it but this was never our strategy. First because we live in different countries but also because we don’t need to be the face of the content we post. At the end of the day, this account is not what we look like at all, it is about our eye and taste. We simply want to showcase other people doing great things and not getting the traffic they deserve.

That being said, there might come a point where we would show our faces but only if the content justifies it aka doing podcasts, interviews or studio visits for example…we just haven’t found the formula yet and are not in any hurry.

What are 3 of your top tips for content curation?

• Be genuine and spontaneous, in tone and choices.
• Don’t chase likes.
• Be coherent but do not constrain yourself to your safe zone. It’s a mysterious balance.

Content idea of the week 💡

This newspaper idea from Paris boutique, Maison Guava, is a great way to make company announcements (that could easily be faceless).