Creating great content is easier than most people think. In this article I’ll share 16 ways to easily, specifically & consistency create more content so that your followers and fans share your work, your audience scales, your customers buy & your brand gains traction and reach.
I used to struggle with creating content, despite having a lot to say and a decent amount of experience in my business. Keeping the consistency up is important, but that is where a lot of people struggle. How do I keep producing articles, blogs, live feed videos, posts, images and social media content people want? Is it unique and interesting? If you have ever felt any of these, copy & paste these simple strategies..
So here are 16 ways to easily create great content:
1. This is what I did, this is what I learned
Rather than ‘look at me’, ‘look where I am’, add ‘this is what I learned’ onto the post. Sharing what you learned, so others can too, still allows you to post about yourself (which most of us like to do), but it also gives value to the reader. Add 3 or 5 things you learned when are opting where you are or what you are doing and people will like, share & follow you. And you’ll stand out & set yourself apart from all the other selfies & foodies.
2. SB(O)
Story-Bridge-(Offer). Tell a quick story, ‘bridge’ into the concept or message from the story, linked to the story, and then if you have an offer to make, link the story to the offer & the offer to the story. For example “I posted on social media for years and got hardly any engagement. I was frustrated and didn’t know what was going wrong. Then someone outed me publicly saying I posted all about me & didn’t teach my readers anything. So I took their advice & started posting and writing with the reader in mind: what can they learn, how can I inform and entertain them through my posts. The likes, shares, comments & even subscribers to my blog grew dramatically. And that’s exactly the reason I wrote a blog on 16 ways to create easy, great content consistency & prolifically.
3. Rant
Some people hate but most people love a good rant. Don’t rant everyday. Don’t rant about everything. Pick subjects you are passionate about, wrongs in the world you want to put right, and go on a rant about it. Most people will feel your energy & emotion. Try to educate through it, & be wary not to hurt or humiliate people when you do them. I do “Rob’s Rants” on my podcast the “Disruptive Entrepreneur” & people seem to like & download them more than more ‘How to’ related content.
4. Newsjacking
Whatever is being talked about in the news by the masses has energy and momentum. Newsjacking is converting that momentum into your content by making it the subject, referring or relating to it or using it in the headline. Things like ‘Trump’ and ‘Bitcoin’ would guarantee lots of comments debates and noise when they were at fever pitch. Make sure it is relevant to your message and not gimmicky or clickbait. The more relevant and the more ‘trending’ the news is to your content, the more your content will get shared, encourage debate and even possibly go viral. “Lessons from {Insert news}” works very well.
5. Surprise
If you create a message that goes against conventional wisdom or common sense, surprises or even shocks people, it can gain great momentum. You should not do this for the sake of it, but if you can reverse against the masses you gain viral and share-worthy traction. People like new news and unconventional things to talk about. ‘I used to think {insert old wisdom}’ or ‘I was shocked to discover {insert surprising revelation}’, can work very well.
6. SEO keyword article
Take your desired title or main keyword content, and do searches in Google & word tracker. Do lots of results come up, or not. You want to make posts that are popular that people are searching for, so a quick test can give you feedback if it is worth the time investment. You can also put your keyword(s) in and then look at the related searches to see if you discover better titles or material.
7. Behind the scenes
People like to be a fly on the wall. To be able to see behind the curtain, what they rarely get to see. To be part of the inner workings of your life or a story. If you are a big name, you simply have to show it. If you are not a celeb or big brand yet, you may have to explain it too. Different scenes and backgrounds create a visual ‘pattern interrupt’, where the view looks different and interesting (whether on video or creating the scene in the written word), & variety will keep people interested. Show the making and baking of the cake, not just the cake.
8. Pains your audience feel
If you take the time & care enough about your followers & customers to understand their challenges, obstacles, frustrations & pains, & then answer them through your work, you have instantly great rapport and highly relevant content. You either watch what they are saying that comes up frequently, or you engage in discussions, or you simply ask them, then give them the solutions.
9. Motivation
People like a shot of motivation. In my podcast the “Disruptive Entrepreneur” I do weekly Friday episodes called “Caffeine-Casts”; 6-12 minute short sharp shot in the arm episodes of inspiration & motivation. They are quite popular. In the top 3 highest downloaded episodes for the last year, “8 Ways to Motivate Yourself” was in the top 3 out of over 200 episodes. Just be wary to make sure they have some substance and aren’t just “Hustle, grind, work 18 hours a day you loser don’t be a be-yatch”.
10. Reverse of what everyone is tired of
I was getting fatigued of all the posts about the “6 AM club”, then the “5 AM club”, then the “4 AM club”. All these people shaming anyone still in bed & hyping on social media instead of actually getting work done early in the morning. So I I did a video & accompanying article called “All the 5Am club bollocks” and it got 300,000 views on LinkedIn & 100s of comments. It created great debate and was in my top 5 downloaded podcasts of last year. People felt liberated that finally someone came out and said “who cares what time you get up, it’s what you do when you get up not when you get up, & you’re not a loser if you get up at 7AM. We all have different body clocks”. Phew!
11. Check your analytics & create content on popular headlines
Self explanatory. If in doubt, reverse engineer the data on your web traffic, social media posts, podcast downloads & scale up what is popular & scale back what is not.
12. Mistakes you made
There’s a load of hype and pea-cocking in the world of content, social & media. But people like honesty. People want to know you are a real, normal person, and as such want to hear about your mistakes as well as your successes. So share them. Don’t be afraid to be vulnerable. To care and to share. People learn as much from your mistakes as they do your successes. It can save them time and money that they highly value. Tell them how you worked your way around them; reverse engineer your journey to guide them through the same path.
13. How to: 5, 7, 9 ways…
People love to follow clear steps. Any post starting with “how to…” seems to give a clear promise: that we will learn how to do something. When you add specific numbers of points you give credibility and an apparent system or steps to follow to achieve the result. It also helps you as the content creator get clear in your mind the parts that make up the whole and therefore the detail of your message.
14. Case studies
Whilst knowledge is useful, people find it harder to relate to generic or abstract concepts and much easier to relate to real life case studies or success stories. Make them specific not just results based. Take the reader through a ‘then, now, how, action’ journey of where the case study was before gaining success. The results they have achieved and the knowledge gained now, exactly how they did it, and what actions they took, the reader should also take to make it happen.
15. Interviews
Interviews are great because there is a dynamic between the interviewer and the guest. Interviews can take unexpected tangents. You can get a sense of the person behind the message. You can extract great content from real life experience, & great for you, you don’t have to create the content from scratch; you simply leverage someone else’s experience & expertise. You can even ask them the best questions they’d like you to ask! Lazy leverage for a great message!
16. Your take, analysis of content
If you have gotten this far but still think creating great content is hard, then take Getty’s or Arnie’s rules, or Cialdini’s laws of influence. Or my podcast or video episodes. Share them, credit the authors, & then put your view of their content across. This is great because you don’t have to create new content, the authors love you for sharing their work and you can put new light on existing work. Feel free to use mine as long as you credit. You will likely teach me something I hadn’t seen by putting your spin on my work.
Podcast: http://bit.ly/disentpodcast
Facebook content & videos: https://www.facebook.com/robmooreprogressive
No excuses now. 16 ways to create great, share-worthy, brand & audience building, comment enduring content in video, audio & written forms. Now copy some of these and start doubling or tripling the amount of work you put out to the world, & watch your brand, reach, audience & bank balance grow.
“If you don’t risk anything, you risk everything”
