As a creator, you know that you’ve got to be consistent to make it in the content game. But consistency isn’t enough on its own. In order to stand out from the crowd, your consistently produced content has to be quality. You’ve got to make stuff that your target audience will genuinely enjoy, find helpful, or, ideally, both. To do this on a regular basis, you need your content to work harder. Here are a few tips you should know.
Transform Your Videos
Repurposing content is one of the fundamental ways to make your content work harder. It can also be one of the easiest and most straightforward. Rather than create entirely new content every time, transform work you’ve already done to use it in new ways. This could be as simple as clipping key moments from your YouTube videos and editing them into a Short. You can then repurpose that same Short again by posting it on Instagram and TikTok.
Take it one step further by turning your videos into written content. You can create an article from a video using AI technology that can summarize the info. Include the video in the article itself to give your audience the option to watch your content, read it, or both. With this strategy, you get at least two pieces of content for little more than the work of one.
Go the Extra Mile With SEO
As you expand the written content you have available, it’s crucial to ensure your SEO is up to snuff. Optimizing SEO involves various strategies to enhance your website’s visibility and ranking on search engine results pages. This includes keyword research to identify relevant terms users are searching for, optimizing meta tags to accurately describe content, improving website speed and mobile-friendliness for better user experience, and earning backlinks from authoritative sites to increase your credibility in the eyes of search engines (and your audience).
To go the extra mile with SEO, you can implement more advanced strategies. Make sure you’re creating high-quality, in-depth content that thoroughly addresses user queries and provides unique insights. Conducting competitor analysis to identify gaps in their SEO strategies and capitalize on opportunities they may have missed can also be beneficial. Continuously monitoring and analyzing performance metrics, and adjusting strategies accordingly, ensures improvement over time.
Create Evergreen Content
Speaking of longevity, jumping on the bandwagon of a niche or industry-specific trend can be great for getting short-term exposure. After all, there’s always that chance you ride the crest of that wave and go viral. However, if trend-chasing is all you do, your content isn’t going to be able to stand the test of time. This is true no matter how big one post gets.
For your brand to be useful, informative, and engaging in the long run, the content you produce must be too. So focus on creating helpful content like tutorials and how-tos, or address frequently asked questions on subjects of your expertise. Case studies, spotlights, and product comparisons can also serve as anchors to inform and empower your audience. The bandwagon is great to jump on now and then. But, as a professional creator, keep producing quality content that lasts as your primary focus.
Influence Your Audience
You can create the best content in the world, but no one will care if they can’t see it. Besides quality and consistency, visibility is one of the greatest challenges for any content creator. Now, optimizing your SEO will always help. But you need to be more proactive to truly get your feet off the ground. Try expanding your reach and your audience by piggybacking off someone else’s.
Identify individuals whose expertise or industry aligns with your niche. Then reach out to those influencers to collaborate or otherwise share and repurpose content. This could look like guest posting on an industry expert’s blog for free, for example. They get free, high-quality content to post, and you get more eyes on your work. Or you could do a true collaboration, working together to produce something new. The key thing here is to provide real value to the person you’re reaching out to so you both benefit.
Actually Engage Your Audience
As your content-creation career matures, you may begin to lose sight of your audience. Remember that, like a good conversation, content creation is a two-way street. And producing content without paying attention to your audience’s reaction to it is like lecturing someone during a “conversation.” So be sure to redouble your efforts to engage with your audience.
This can be as simple as including a comments section on your blog and thoughtfully responding as much as possible. It could involve creating and hosting events via a community Discord server or Twitch stream. You could even crowdsource content ideas by conducting polls to see what your audience wants next. As the creator, you’ll always be the one driving the car when it comes to content creation. But, as the driver, find ways to engage your audience to ensure they’re actively enjoying the ride.
Harder and Smarter
Being a content creator can be one of the best jobs in the world. But, at the end of the day, it’s still a job. It’s important to make sure you and your audience are getting the most value out of everything you’re producing.
In this light you want your content to work harder for you. Be smart about what kind of material you’re producing and how your audience receives it. Find social networking opportunities to leverage. And, no matter what, always ensure you’re producing quality content as consistently as possible.
Featured Image by Callum Shaw on Unsplash