The Ultimate Content Creation Guide Learn to (Finally) Publish Consistently Workbook
What s the one thing that separates hobbyist bloggers from professional bloggers with thriving, online businesses? Consistency. Platform-builders who regularly publish content are much more likely to see long-term success. Think about your favorite bloggers. If their content gets stale and you see they aren t posting new posts or videos, they re likely to drop off your radar. Maybe you ll rediscover them down the road, but the chance that you ll reengage with them is slim. Why is that? Because the connection between you and your audience is much more like a relationship. Relationships need constant attention and care. Your readers are making an investment in your content every time they read it. They want a return on that investment in the form of a long-term relationship. If you want them to engage with and share your content, you need to be predictable producing at a regular pace. Consistency is also important because the act of producing content makes you a better content creator. The more blog posts you write, the better you become at honing your message. The more videos you make, the better your editing skills become. Platform University 2018. All rights reserved. 1
But still, the million dollar question remains: How can you become consistent in your content production? Chances are, if you are reading this, you haven t quite mastered your creation schedule. We ll walk you through a series of questions designed to help you figure out what you re content roadblocks have become and how you can overcome them to finally establish a regular publishing schedule. Let s get started. 1. What s your current content schedule? How often do you publish new content? 2. Which of these barriers is the number one factor keeping your from creating content? I don t have enough time. I don t know what I should be creating or writing I don t like creating content because it s such a daunting process. Platform University 2018. All rights reserved. 2
3. In an ideal world, how much content would you produce each week? 4. How long does it take you to create one piece of standard content? Platform University 2018. All rights reserved. 3
Time Management If it takes you longer than 3 hours from start to finish, we ve got some work to do. Few people have large chunks of time to sit and make content. Here are ways you can create your content faster or make that time more manageable. Write out each step in your content creation process and assign time values to each of those steps. This is called a production flow. Your flow will look something like this: 1. Write rough draft (45 minutes) 2. Select stock photo (15 minutes) 3. Polish and format rough draft (30 minutes) 4. Publish post (5 minutes) 5. Create social media posts to promote (15 minutes) 6. Write and schedule email to email list (20 minutes) Write out your production flow here: Platform University 2018. All rights reserved. 4
Time Management (continued) The next time you create content, set a timer as you work through your production flow. Sometimes you can get stuck trying to find the right photo or making final adjustments. Your content doesn t have to be perfect before you hit publish. The beauty of a blog post is that you can always go back and make adjustments later. Your big goal should be consistency, not perfection. Set a daily timer and commit to work for at least 30 minutes every day on your platform. If you make a commitment every single morning to sit down and devote 30 minutes to work through your production flow, you will see growth. Discover new types of content you can create that will not require a large time commitment. You should be able to create these pieces in one hour from start to finish. Examples: How-to lists Quick Win posts (solve one problem for your audience) Do a Facebook Live on a topic and repurpose that content in a blog post Recommend a book that has been meaningful to you that will help your readers Update a previous blog post and republish it Give your thoughts on a recently published article or podcast Platform University 2018. All rights reserved. 5
Time Management (continued) Write from a template. Many bloggers (including our Platform U team!) write from templates. It s a massive time-saver. Here s the template we use most frequently. Try video first. If writing is very challenging for you, consider creating videos and repurposing that content into blog posts. Platform U student Matt McWilliams used this content creation model to propel his online business to the next level. Are there any parts of your content creation that you can outsource? Perhaps you can hire a proofreader to polish your content, or an assistant to help with social media. Many bloggers outsource their workload and in turn, this helps them produce more content faster. Take a pipeline approach. A pipeline approach means you have different pieces of content in the pipeline or in production. So you might be creating a draft of one piece one day, then taking photos for a different piece another day. Little by little, each day, your pieces move further through your production process. If you get bored working on one piece each day until it s complete, you might find this process more exciting. Platform University 2018. All rights reserved. 6
Creative Direction The best way to keep your creative direction is to have a monthly or quarterly brainstorming session. That way you never run out of ideas. Here s what we recommend: 1. Commit to at least an hour of brainstorming time. We recommend you do this process while manually writing. Sometimes taking the extra time to write can help with the creative process. 2. For 10 minutes, write out every possible topic you d like to cover on separate pieces of paper. 3. When the timer is up, set another time for 40 minutes. Now on every piece of paper, write problems (related to that topic) that your readers might have. 4. For the last 10 minutes, transform those ideas into blog post titles. Don t worry about the content. In an ideal world, what would your blog post (or video) title be? 5. By the end of your brainstorming session, you should have an arsenal of blog post ideas. If you re still struggling to figure out what to write, survey your readers. Discover what they want to see from you and what sort of problems they have that need solving. Look at what other bloggers and influencers in your category are writing about. What do you have to say about those topics? Platform University 2018. All rights reserved. 7
Make a New Commitment How much time each week will you commit to creating content? With that weekly time commitment, how much content can you publish each week? What types of content will you create each week? Platform University 2018. All rights reserved. 8