The Key to Creating Amazing Content is a Hell of a Lot Easier Than You Think…
The quest for writing the perfect content seems to be like the quest for the Fountain of Youth or Atlantis or Big Foot.
There’s a bajillion articles, ebooks, actual books, masterminds, YouTube tutorials, Udemy courses, Coursera courses, Lynda courses, and more out there trying to give you the precise formula for amazing content. Of amazing work.
They’ll say in order to optimize your content, your headline must be no more than 47 characters and your body copy must contain between 13 and 15 pronouns and 4 bullet point and be posted when the sun is at its highest peak after reciting ancient Roman chants three times through.
Don’t get me wrong. I love data. After all, I’m a marketer myself. But at the end of the day, you are creating content for people, just like you, to consume. For God’s sake, where does the human element come in for these equations?
Learning tips, tricks, and optimizations for your content is vital if you want longevity in the cutthroat market we live in today. But you can only get longevity for content if you have the foundation to create compelling content in the first place.
For many, learning these optimizations and hacks is a bit premature.
It’s like that kid on the basketball team who always bought the newest headband, limited edition Nike sneakers and $80 socks before learning how to make a layup.
There is great news though! The foundation needed to create content people will consume is easier than 99% of the online gurus and marketers are telling you it is. Ready for it?
The key to writing amazing content is this: provide value to the readers.
We humans are selfish. We only care about the things that provide value to us.
Warren Buffet has a quote on the topic.
Value is the single most important thing people are looking for when they check out a book at the library, they log into Medium, or they buy a product at the department store.
Unless you’re Richard Branson or Oprah or Lebron James, no one really cares about your opinion. They care about what you can teach them. About the value you can bring to them as a consumer. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Once this concept clicks, I promise your Medium stories will receive more Recommends, your emails will receive higher open rates, and your blog posts will receive more shares.
Some more great news is the way to provide value in your content is simple too! There’s two ways to do it:
- Look at your work objectively
- Learn
Looking at your work objectively
To look at your work objectively, ask yourself these questions:
- Would I click on this?
- Would I read/watch this?
- After reading/watching, would I feel the content was worth my time?
I know looking at your work objectively is difficult. In fact, it may be the hardest part of creating anything.
But if you are able to honestly answer these questions with “yes”, then you are good to go. You have done all you can do when it comes to creating the content (marketing the content is a different story, but that’s for another day).
In short, there must always be a reason for people to consume your work. Unless it’s your personal journal or blog, it’s not a great idea to write something for you and only you.
Here’s an example to illustrate this principle.
Let’s say you have a lucky penny your grandfather gave to you as a child.
If you placed this penny on a busy sidewalk alongside a regular quarter with no sentimental value, 9 of 10 people would pick up the quarter over the penny.
Why? Because to them, that penny is just another penny.
Don’t give people your lucky pennies. Give them quarters and dollars. Give them gems and pearls and diamonds.
As hard as it is to hear, just because something is sentimental to you or dear to your heart does not mean other people will find value in it.
Sometimes they do. Sometimes they will. But in most cases, other people care only if they can gain some sort of value from what they are consuming
Learning
There is a direct correlation between learning and creating valuable content.
No one follows my Medium articles (or any other Medium writer’s articles) because they want to know what color my dog’s fur is, or what my favorite genre of music is. They read my articles because they want tips in marketing, social media, and writing. They want value!
Learning is scaling experience.
By learning through someone else’s experiences, you are gaining the knowledge which took years, sometimes decades, for the author to learn for themselves.
Serial entrepreneur, Mike Dillard, says when you read a book you are gaining 15+ years of someone’s knowledge for $15.
Content will come 100% more natural to you when you are learning. Once you learn something, share it with the world. It’s that simple.
Herman Melville said in order, “to produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme”.
So next time you are creating content, remember to ask yourself if the foundation is present before you do anything else.
Will this piece of content provide value to the readers?
Would you read the content if you saw it while scrolling down your feed?
Are you sharing something you have learned yourself?
Once you have created a piece of work that answers “yes” to these three questions, only then will the optimizations and tips mean anything.
I would never want you to waste time or not see the fruits of your labor, so make sure you have the foundation first and foremost. Don’t try and hit a home-run without having the baseball bat first!
Have a good rest of the day :)
**If you have any questions feel free to shoot me an email at dakotashanenunley@gmail.com, or visit www.arctiphi.com for business inquiries.
