Lacclan Gottfried on making a living on social media on the Gold Coast

Lacclan Gottfried worked on a farm in the Lockyer Valley after school to buy new camera equipment and has now become a social media star on the Gold Coast. It is a career many now dream of.

An ambitious young man who has made his name, and a living, from social media believes anyone not using the platform to their advantage is “crazy” after amassing close to one million followers.

While running a busy videography business shooting weddings and advertisements as a teenager in Gatton, Lacclan Gottfried worked on a farm after school to fund the purchase of new camera equipment.

That opened the door to filming content for social media influencers and he has spent the past few years living on the Gold Coast with Jackson O’Doherty, whose YouTube videos have been viewed more than 578 million times.

Lacclan Gottfried and Jackson O’Doherty.

Mr Gottfried has built an impressive following; including 532,000 on Instagram, 262,000 on TikTok and 94,000 on Facebook.

Thousands can be spent putting together a video in the hope it will go viral and be seen by millions of people around the world, with the pay off immense.

But it can just as easily fall flat and send him back to the drawing board; such is life in the world of online content creation.

Staying ahead of the curve and pumping out unique and engaging content is the key to standing out in an over saturated market which has only ballooned in the last 18 months since the start of Covid-19.

Mr Gottfried was behind a table tennis game played across the Queensland and New South Wales border at Coolangatta to lift the mood earlier this month amid chaos over travel restrictions.

The stunt, which was the brainchild of Shannon Bourke, went viral and was picked up by news outlets around Australia.

“Well (Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk) is only letting sporting teams in so we thought the only way to get in was to create a team and a tournament,” Mr Bourke laughed.

“It was just a lighthearted way to make fun of it.

The table tennis game over the border went viral.

“We got 25 minutes out of it (before being moved on). The public was coming up and playing with us and people were taking photos. It sent a fair bit of traffic my way.”

The benefits and buzz that come along with a big hit soon fade and then it’s on to the next idea.

Mr Gottfried said staying true to yourself and producing original content rather than trying to replicate others was the best way to get noticed.

The 22-year-old spent four months in the United States in 2019 with Mr O’Doherty and worked with online megastars such as Logan Paul and Riley Reid.

“Sometimes the videos you don’t expect randomly blow up,” he said.

“I think TikTok is solely responsible for this huge wave of content creators. So many people are now confident making videos. People are getting super confident.

“I find videos out of everyday things I’m doing. I don’t really brainstorm. I don’t sit and think about it. It just comes to me.

“If you find someone doing the same thing as everyone else there’s no reason for them to blow up.

“Just do it because you enjoy it and you’ll have more fun with it and it’ll be more genuine.

Lacclan Gottfried (left) has launched his own clothing brand off the back of his online success.

“You’ve got to start and don’t care what anyone says. Make it because you enjoy it.”

The 22-year-old has used his online popularity to drive other business ventures.

He has launched his own clothing brand, Easy Tiger, and is working to set up a neon sign company in partnership with a large Melbourne company, as well as a vintage sweater business called El Vintage he wants to get going in the coming weeks.

“People aren’t using social media to their advantage, it’s crazy,” he said.

“There is so much to learn. It blows my mind that people are still happy to get up and go to a job they hate.

“I’ve learnt how to do so many things and it’s benefited me so much in what I’m trying to do.”

Read more stories by Lachlan McIvor here.