Create Content for Yourself
Jarad Johnson of Mostly Serious offers insight on creating quality content on your own time.
By Jarad Johnson
Dec 09 2016 at 10:51 a.m.
We all know content is a vital part of growing any brand, from your personal online persona to business blog posts, but a lack of content is the most common problem we see at our digital design and development studio. We see our clients struggle to create page writing for new websites, rework out of date information, and, most of all, to create engaging ongoing blog, news, and press release content — the heart and soul of an effective online marketing campaign.
For some clients, we fill this hole by holding a monthly dashboard meeting and collecting bullet points and high level information that we can later use to write the content for them. However, we understand every client doesn’t have the budget to pay a digital studio to manage the entirety of their online brand. So, what do individuals and companies do when they have to write but are struggling to create content?
Most of us don’t suffer from writer’s block because we never even make it that far.
Start writing for yourself. Document your expertise, your process, and your value. Dig into the areas you understand best and simply begin writing. Too often we get caught up in attempting to create content that will turn heads, be shared thousands of times, or even win awards. We are focused on creating something great instead of sharing our own thoughts on the topics we understand.
Start with these simple questions:
What did you work on yesterday?
How did you do it?
What was different or unique about your approach?
What did you learn?
What would you change?
These questions, although obvious, can lead to limitless content. For example, yesterday I helped on-board a new employee. Using those five simple questions I could easily document that process, how we created it, what we do differently, what I personally learned, and what I will change for our next hire. I could also easily ask our new employee for her feedback and add their perspective to the article.
Most of us don’t suffer from writer’s block because we never even make it that far. We suffer from wanting to create great content instead of creating relevant content that engages with and helps our audiences.