EKWE JONAL

The rise of social media has transformed content production and consumption globally. This study explored how social media content creators in Abakaliki, Nigeria navigate the complex dynamics of balancing their personal interests, creative passion, and authenticity with the expectations and feedback of their audience in shaping their content choices. The study aims to determine the major factor that influences choice of content creation among social media content creators in Ebonyi state and ascertain how personal and public interests influence content choices by social media creators in Abakaliki. The study used a survey methodology, employing purposeful sampling and Likert-scale questionnaires with a sample size of 385. The results showed that personal passions have a moderate influence on content choices, while public interests and trends play a more significant role. Demographic factors like age and gender have minimal impact, but the socio-economic status of the audience does affect content decisions. Audience feedback, especially positive engagement, strongly influences content production. The study concludes that the content choices of social media creators in Abakaliki Urban are shaped by couple of factors, with public interest and trends exerting a more significant influence than personal interests. This study makes unique contributions by providing contextual insights into the connection between personal and public interests, the crucial role of audience feedback, and the minimal impact of demographic factors on content choices among social media creators in Abakaliki Urban. The study recommends that creators balance personal creativity with public trends, utilize audience feedback for content improvement, and tailor content strategies to reflect the socio-economic demographics of their audience for better engagement.

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