Going Beyond Just Content Creation: Take It to the Next Level Part II

KEYS TO GETTING THINGS DONE IN CONTENT CREATION

You’ve taken the first 5 steps in your content creation journey. Now focus on actions that will help you see if what you are doing is having an effect. Steps 1 to 5 are in this post (Part I).

6. Content creation for every social media channel

Gary Vaynerchuck opened my eyes to adapting my content to each social media channel in his book, “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook”. There are tons of social media channels you can post to. As digital marketers we should try a focused approach. We need to understand the type of platform. We need to think about the audience each social media channel has. Finally, we should customize our content creation accordingly.

• While I currently post articles to my Facebook Page Memory Pie, I do not post these to my personal page. That would be annoying. Also, it would be a waste of my time. I don’t want to engage my friends in that way. I do invite friends, and strangers that are on my personal pages to view, but do not continuously spray my private channels with digital content.
• On my memory_pie Instagram account I focus on more visual, and creative content. I then post to my Facebook page, but I also do not post any articles on Instagram. That would also be a waste of time. If I wanted to spread the word about a great article I posted on my Facebook page, I would make a shorter, and more visual on Instagram. I would customize my approach to the Instagram platform.

7. Searching for a Human Response

Data and feedback is important. We need to know where we are on the map. Are we are getting to where we need to be?

• Are people engaging, and responding to our content creation efforts?
• Do you have data collecting tools? Can you access them? Do you know how to view the data? Readily available website data, is right at your fingertips. With a bit of extra effort, you can set up a Google Analytics account. If you have an e-commerce website, you view what people buy, or don’t buy.
• Working in a vacuum is like going around the world with your eyes closed. To make your effort worth it, you need to actually see, and understand if people really care what you are posting about.

8. Don’t be afraid to stop something completely, and quickly

It’s important to take an “Essentialist” point of view.

Just like we de-clutter our physical belongings in our homes or offices, we can de-clutter our content sharing processes.

• Is what you are doing actually achieving what you want? If not, change it, or stop it.
• Are you having fun, joy, or a sense of accomplishment at any point? If you aren’t, realize that while “finding your passion” might not be the key to everything, being miserable all the time isn’t any better. Maybe re-tune your approach so you can release some energy into what you do.

But stopping something is not enough. Once you stop, you create a sort of vacuum, which you can fill up with a better method, or an approach that will bring you more engagement, and joy. Otherwise, you will just fall back to familiar, and less effective patterns.

9. Automating your content creation efforts: Social Bee

Once you get a general sense of how all this works, you can automate.

While posting content is not difficult, it does take time and effort. Once you have content, you have to post it. If you post daily, you have to go back to where you stored the content, and post it manually. I use an automatic posting app, Social Bee. Here I can put all my content, comments, and photos. I can also schedule when, where and to what social media channel I want to post to.

It’s a pretty simple to use tool, but truthfully, there is so much more in the app I haven’t explored. Right now at least, it has afforded me the time to write more creative posts like these. As I get better with content creation, I hope to do even more creatively.

You can search under “content scheduling app” in your favorite search engine for more information.

10. Monetize, but don’t overdo it

Finally, while there are ways to monetize the content, or eventually a product, do this in moderation. It’s annoying if somebody keeps harping on about the benefits of their product. Essentially, all we do is marketing, so there’s no need to amplify that.

If you love a product, use it, and show others how to use it on YouTube for example. This provides a direct benefit without being preachy. If people see your good work, and effort, they might even ask you how you do it

To read 1 to 5 (Part I) click here. Good luck on your content creation adventures!