“Content is King!”
“Content is anything and everything!”
“Tell your story and grow your business!”
If you have been researching how to run an online business or how to market yourself and/or your business online, then you have likely come across at least one of the statements showcased in the image above.
These statements are not wrong, but they do very little to tell you or show you how you can really use content to build your business.
In the world of online marketing, content is critical for securing a following and gaining clients. While this blog article is not going to answer all your questions, my hope is it does provide you with a starting point and initial outline for what you should be doing as you get started on the development phase of bringing your business to the online world. Here are the six steps to Building a Business Through Content Creation.
Step 1: Choose your Long-Form Content Platform
There are three types of long-form content platforms.
> Blogs- like the one you are reading right now.
> Videos- you can check out my live videos on Facebook here. Not on Facebook? No problem follow my youtube channel its all the same stuff just delayed.
>Podcasts- I don’t have one of these, but I can definitely recommend some good ones, just leave a comment if you would like to see a list of my favorite podcasts.
Blogging is probably the most useful in terms of website traffic building and honestly even if you already do video or podcasts I highly recommend adding a blog to your page too. You can easily repurpose your videos and podcasts to develop the content for your blog, but we will talk more about that later.
Step 2: Be Consistent with your Long-Form Content
Whichever platform you choose, you must commit to it. Posting at least once a week, though twice is honestly much better. You don’t want to commit yourself to more than twice a week though as it can easily become overwhelming and much too time consuming to keep up with.
When you choose your platform, you must commit and be consistent. This will grow your web traffic and it will build your following. This is the best way of developing your reach organically and at a low-cost.
Step 3: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle (your content)
I’m not talking about paper, ink cartridges, or plastic bottles. I am talking about your content. Reduce your workload, reuse your long-form content, and recycle your social media posts throughout the year.
Reduce:
When you simplify your language, you create less work for yourself. Don’t try and put everything right there on the page. There is always the option for another post, video, or podcast. Keep things simple and to the point. Don’t overuse the jargon of your business and instead attempt to use layman’s terms when necessary.
Reuse:
We will talk more about this in step 5 when we discuss the art of repurposing your content. When developing your long-form content you do not want to one-and-done it. You want to break the content down into smaller bite-sized pieces you can use in your marketing later. Keep this in mind as you develop it.
Recycle:
Recycle your content, when someone asks you a question you’ve answered in a piece of long-form content, send the link to them. Combine posts together to create a brand new post. Take out pieces of your long-form content and expand on them to create new pieces of long-form content. This way you never run out of ideas.
Step 4: Choose Your Social Media Platforms
You have the long-form content you are being consistent and you are 100% committed to creating and posting it twice a week. It is now time to choose your social media platforms. Ideally, you don’t want to start off with more than two.
Consider your audience carefully when making this decision. Most of the world is on Facebook, so done correctly you can reach just about anyone on the Facebook platform. However, the other platforms out there like LinkedIn, Instagram, Ticktock, Snapchat, Pinterest, Twitter each one of them has a certain demographic that they are more connected with and cater too.
For a breakdown of the different demographics and their statistics check out this great article by sproutsocial.com.
Step 5: Repurpose Your Content
Repurposing is when you take one piece of content and reformat it to be used in a different area of your marketing.
That 1,000-word blog post you wrote? It can easily be turned into five or more social media images and posts. In fact the images you create for your blog? Use them for your social media page.
That 5-minute live video you did? Same thing. Take the words and put them on a branded image. Bonus if you also type up the transcript or add the minute times to your best quotes and tips from the video and use it as a blog post. Doing this will provide you with 2 pieces of long-form content for your followers and clients to connect with you and find you on.
That 30-minute podcast you did? Well depending on the topic you might have more than just a blog post, you might have multiple blog posts, maybe even an ebook. An ebook is email opt-in gold. People love the idea of downloading a free book.
Don’t just one and done your long-form content reuse the posts throughout the course of the year or even throughout the next year and beyond as long as the post remains relevant to you, your business, and your audience.
Step 6: Distribute your Content
Remember those social media platforms you choose? Not only must you distribute your content onto these platforms, but you must also do so consistently. Your following needs to know what they can expect from you and that they can depend on you to show up and be there.
Ultimately, when it comes to building a business through content creation, you have to be consistent and committed. Not just to your business, but also your marketing.
Did you enjoy my outline of the 6 Steps to Building a Business through Content Creation? I would love to hear your thoughts or answer any questions.
If you would like to learn more about content creation for your business, join my Facebook group Focused on Content Creation.
