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Dimby Rakotomalala (SKEMA 2014) – Excel coach and content creator on Instagram & TikTok (> 345K followers): “Free to do what I want”
Dimby, a SKEMA Business School alumnus and a content creator on Instagram and TikTok, spoke to SKEMA Alumni about his work and shared his motivation and energy with us.
Could you tell us a little about yourself?
My name is Dimby Rakotomalala (SKEMA 2014) and I’m a content creator on social media. My work consists in sharing Excel tutorials daily with my community of around 345,000 followers.
Tell us about your education and work experience...
After my Baccalauréat, I enrolled in an undergraduate technical diploma (French DUT) in Grenoble. It was a very comprehensive programme that gave me a solid grounding in business management. That is where I had my first Excel lessons and I loved it right away!
Then I attended SKEMA Business School, where I got the chance to travel between the Sophia Antipolis (France) and Suzhou (China) campuses. To me, that is one of SKEMA’s strong points: the possibility of studying overseas while still being on one of the school’s campuses.
My experience in China was so incredible, during my first semester in Suzhou, that I stayed for three semesters, followed by a gap year in Shanghai. I really fell in love with China.
After finishing my Master’s in Management, I started my career in project management consulting. I worked for three years in one firm and one year in another before realising that it wasn’t the right fit for me. Something was missing; independence, maybe?
How does one become a content creator?
Some might think it’s easy, that all you need is a phone, five minutes to film yourself and you’re done. The reality is much more complicated.
To become a content creator, it’s not enough to just find your topic. Several qualities are needed. You have to be rigorous, organised, creative and available:
- rigorous: you have to be willing to post pretty much every day to be visible on the platforms and to grow your community;
- organised: you have learn to create content in batches to save time. For example, you can prepare the week’s posts on the Monday and produce them on the Tuesday;
- creative: you have to learn to keep things fresh, find new ideas and offer new content so your audience doesn’t get bored;
- available: you have to reply to comments and private messages every day to nurture the relationship with your audience.
In short, what are the goals of your work?
My main goal is to teach my community something new every day.
I’m a huge fan of Excel and I enjoy discovering new productivity tools. So now that I have a community that supports me, I try to satisfy them as much as possible!
Walk us through a typical work day...
There’s never a dull moment! I start my day around 8.30 a.m.
I look at how the previous day’s videos are performing and reply to the comments left on my videos.
Then I look at my tasks and prioritise them over the coming days.
The rest of the day is spent doing different things like improving my organisation, driving more sales, and meeting other creators.
At 6 p.m I stop everything to devote myself to creating my Excel tutorial. I start by thinking about the day’s tip, I build the dataset, I practise what I’m going to say and I record my video.
Next, I edit the video and I post it as soon as it’s ready, generally around 7 p.m.
As a content creator, what are your revenue sources?
My main (and only) source of revenue is selling Excel training courses on my website, ExcellersAcademy.com.
People discover me thanks to the videos I post on social media and they sign up for my training if they want to hone their Excel skills.
There is also the TikTok Creator Fund which pays me based on the number of views I’ve achieved on the platform, but that only works out to be a few dozen euros a month.
Why did you choose this as your occupation?
I started creating content a little by accident.
I posted my first Excel tutorial on TikTok in late January 2021, just to try it. And the numbers immediately skyrocketed. In 4 months, I went from 0 to 130,000 TikTok followers and 40,000 followers on Instagram.
At the time, I had no organisation or business plan, and I had zero knowledge of social media. My business developed as my community grew.
What do you love most about what you do?
The freedom: I am free to do what I want, when I want and where I want!
What I also love is the incredible support from my community. If I am where I am today, it’s solely thanks to them.
What progression is possible in your line of work?
There are infinite opportunities for progression when you’re a content creator. You can explore new topics, new formats, new media or platforms... Everyone is free to progress based on their own preferences.
In my case, I’d like to get my YouTube channel going again and get some first collaborations going with some great brands.
What advice would you give a student or alum wanting to get into the same line of work?
Before getting started on social media, ask yourself why you want to get into content creation.
If it’s to have a lot of followers, forget it. It’s not worth the effort. Content creators are driven by passion. That’s what motivates us each day and it’s why the community supports us.
The number of followers should be seen as a result, not a goal.
You also have to be prepared to work a lot and to be patient.
In the beginning, nobody knows you and that’s normal. The more people will see your content, the more they will remember you. Rome wasn’t built in a day, was it ?
Don’t be too much of a perfectionist.
When you’re starting out, you won’t necessarily feel comfortable. Talking alone in front of your telephone isn’t innate for anyone. To get better at it, you have to practise over and over. As the saying goes, done is better than perfect – and nowhere is that more true than on social media.
Above all, be psychologically resilient.
Just starting can seem complicated. Add to that the sometimes inappropriate criticism or even insults you receive and you really have to be mentally tough not to let it affect you over the long term.
Finally, I’d say: go for it and you’ll see! Social media is full of surprises!
To follow me:
- @dimbyrakotomalala on TikTok
- @dimby.rakotomalala on Instagram
- @dimbyrakotomalala on YouTube
- The Excellers Academy website
Contact: Dimby Rakotomalala, Excel Coach (> 350K followers), content creator
