Content is king may be the most abused cliché in marketing, but it isn’t backing down from asserting itself over reality. The truth is, if you want to make money off of content, you can either create content which appeals to everyone and manages to obtain great word of mouth and manages to just touch every heart everywhere, or you need to make a lot of content which makes a few people (comparatively) happy at a time.
I can write well about many subjects, but how much crossover is there between: IT, programming, the Chinese language, and marketing? Anyone who doesn’t care about any one of these subjects is not going to really care about how they all come together (if manage to) outside of morbid curiosity. I’d much rather hedge my bets on something a little more surefire than “morbid curiosity” though.
Content needs an outlet and it needs multiple spots where it can go. Not every article is going to be a thesis, and not every marketing campaign is devoid of art. You need to make a lot to make it good, but that doesn’t mean you need to throw the only okay stuff away. It might not be the highest art for your craft, but it just might be good enough to help someone in some way. What you write may not be what you want to, but it should always be factual or moving to be worth pushing. The same goes for basically any type of content.
Pushing Content
Once you create content, you need to get it moving forward. If you are creating as a hobby or out of passion, you should still consider how to give your content a way forward. Most of us are going to be the hopefuls trying to “pull ourselves up by our bootstraps” looking for the next “hustle”, and cursing gravity every second of the way there as we live as Sisyphus. Even if you’re a worker drone creating for the corporate dollar, you still need to get your content moving.
Content is like crude oil, virtually every part has a function, but it’s basically useless on its own. The waste product of kerosene was gasoline, which was burnt off at one point from a lack of use. We’ve reached the point that it feels like there’s barely anything left by the end of the multiple divisions into different hydrocarbons. Some applications may be limited, but they still exist and can use what we can’t elsewhere.
Your content is going to have different levels of qualities and grades of usefulness. A picture of a building is not going to fit someone wanting to see nature. A plain, architectural shot won’t be winning any awards or being featured in galleries. Not all content has the same artistic edge or quality to it, and that’s okay. You just need to build a content pipeline to push everything forward if your goal is to profit from it. You need to start, nurture, grow, and develop so that you can diversify. These 5 steps will help you get your content moving forward.
Start – Create An Outlet
What are you doing with the content you develop? If you’re sitting on it all to “build your portfolio” with, you’re probably wasting your time. What’s in your portfolio should be high enough quality to be pushed into public, and vice versa. If it’s not, you have a problem either with your ego or your art.
If you want to move content, you need to start by first moving it somewhere. What is the primary outlet you’re pushing content through? It doesn’t need to necessarily make money, but it does need to be public. Don’t take this to mean to devalue your content though, the only content you should make free should be strategic and not “for exposure”.
If you want to start pushing content, you need to start something like a blog, a photography site, etc. There are usually options to try which are free and can help you see how your content really stacks up. Success takes time, but read or look into what others do and see how your content stacks up, objectively. This isn’t to compete with others but to objectively see where you are.
Find a space where you can explore you craft without it being a risk. If your money is tight, this may be a blog like Medium or some other free host. For others, you may want something more private where you can control the interactions.
Why are you producing content and where do you want it to go? What is preventing you from taking that first jump? Plant the seeds of success and target a primary outlet which lets you explore creating content and helps you do it as comfortably as possible. Different seeds require different conditions to germinate, pick the conditions that benefit you.
Nurture – Establish Social Presence
The process of germination is about setting the right conditions for initial growth. It doesn’t matter how big a plant could get if you can’t get it to sprout. Social media is where you grow your initial outlet, and where you grow your future campaigns.
The internet is saturated with content, so you need to reach out or you run the risk of fading into obscurity. “Build it and they will come” just plain doesn’t work for the vast majority of content. It only really works with a lot of luck and chance. You need to at least put a sign out or something to have any hope of being noticed. Not every content pipeline needs it, but your first probably does.
Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Facebook, Medium, Instagram, Quora, etc. are all great ways to promote content. The question you need to ask is where are the people you want to reach? I don’t really like Twitter, but it brings me traffic. My content is all written pseudonymously so I don’t use LinkedIn. How are you going to interact with your target audience?
Begin creating a social presence to promote your content. Where is your target audience and how can you connect with them? Build your content up and get more exposure with more people. What is keeping people and what isn’t? What works and what doesn’t? If you want to improve, you need to know what’s good and what needs to improve.
Grow – Monetizing Your Efforts
As you build the quality of your content up, you should work to monetize it. Consider how to make money, but don’t do it at the expense of quality. Monetization is a form of pressure which can run the gamut between motivating you, and inhibiting you. Why are you trying to promote your content?
There are relatively passive ways to monetize content, but they may not be as passive or as profitable as you would hope for. The first dollar you earn is usually the hardest. You don’t want to work for exposure, you want to work for money. How do you turn your work into money though?
Find the low-hanging fruit to test the waters if you aren’t sure. You might be able to skip this step, but if you’re just starting, you probably want to learn to walk before you swim in the ocean during a hurricane. How can you begin to subsidize your time spent on making things?
If you write, how can you turn this writing into money? If you’re a photographer, can you sell to stock image sites or similar? Musicians can sell sound bites or backing tracks potentially. How do you turn your content into something? It all depends on exactly what you can offer and what you want to offer. The first sale is going to be the hardest, but you need to make it.
I got into writing to blow off steam and to try to make some beer money. I was willing to drop the money for hosting anyway, but I also wanted the chance to be paid for it. I started with ads and affiliate links to make something.
I started writing for a blog and for Medium and grew it into ghostwriting. When I first started though, I needed somewhere I could hone my skills, justify the time, and see where I was. The competition should come from within… but if you’re trying to act, you need to see if people are convinced and if you fit the stage.
Develop – Setting Your Sights Higher
Once you find where you can make some money and push your content, you need to work on improving your content to target more lucrative opportunities. You’re going to have great content which you monetize, and okay content which you put out there. As long as the quality is good enough you’d put your name behind it, you might as well let it loose.
As you hit the lower hanging fruit, you’ll find yourself hungry and energized to climb higher. Aim for even more profitable avenues for content.
“Profitable” doesn’t just mean it makes money, it means it benefits you in some way. If you’re pushing an ad campaign, the goal isn’t necessarily money, it could be awareness or similar. You want to build your content and target higher levels of success. What defines success is going to depend on what you’re looking to do.
I write because I enjoy it, but I still want to make money. Ads and affiliate links may pay something, but they don’t pay enough. Medium adds some fun money each month, but not enough to really affect my finances. As my content grew in quality, I found that I needed something better as an outlet.
Ghostwriting served me best for higher dollar work. I write more for the process than I do the result. Most pieces I write are going to be boring documentation, but that doesn’t mean that’s all I write. Even though I can’t necessarily maintain the same pace with that sort of content, I can still maintain a good enough pace to monetize it.
How are you cashing in on the highest echelon of your content? If you’re trying to make money or buy time back, you need to make the most of what you have. Not every piece will be good, but some are going to be much better than others.
What This Process Gets You
This process gives you a way to take something you’re unsure of, or more akin to a hobby and turn it into a pipeline of content. You’re going to have varying qualities for your content, so you might as well assign each one where it can benefit you. How you cash in depends on who you’re selling to. A given publication may only have a few slots for you, but what do you do with the rest of the content you’re proud of?
You need to have a way to push the content which is not as profitable, or more passive, as well as the cream of the crop. If you do so, you end up promoting yourself at multiple levels creating both awareness and potentially a career. By starting somewhere, you can more privately work out the kinks in your content creation process. What works and what doesn’t?
As you grow, you need to see what others are doing as well as show your target audience. Who are they and where are they online? How can you now monetize this presence or otherwise profit to begin paying for your work? These are each important or else your pipeline becomes clogged. You’re creating a content pipeline to pipe out to others, not just to enjoy, so you need to make it work for you.
As you grow and develop your craft, you can begin to target better avenues. I grew from writing technical documentation and a blog to ghostwriting for magazines. While this path may not be ideal for most, it is what I wanted. I got there faster by pulling myself up a level at a time. Sometimes you can make some greater jumps, but not all of us can handle it.
Diversify – Creating Alternate Paths
While I write about many topics in this blog, there are topics which I don’t write about, or refrain from more often than not. That doesn’t mean I don’t write about them though. I have diversified my writing by creating multiple content pipelines. As the volume of content goes up, a single pipe stops being practical or effective.
Certain content helps your brand, but other content hurts it. I write each pipeline as a different aspect of myself under different names and pseudonyms. Each pipeline is separate from the others except for links interspersed organically for personas which are compatible and potentially could see one another.
As you get new interests which are either incompatible or not good fits for a given pipeline, start constructing a new one. You can skip parts or steps depending on what the goal is and what you’re working with. I don’t spend as much time shopping my content for my book review project, because it’s not practical.
Sometimes a pipeline will feed into another pipeline. If you target higher end content, sometimes the content just won’t take but it’s still good (or good enough). Content which doesn’t make it at one level, may excel under a different pipeline or persona. If a ghostwritten article doesn’t take on a desired platform, it might work great somewhere else with a different purpose. That great magazine article may get shot down, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be pitched to another one or rebranded as a company blog.
Putting the Steps Together
The whole purpose of this process is to create a primary pipeline and any necessary side channels. Content may not work in one spot, but it can usually be repurposed. This leads to less waste for your content (assuming it’s not bad). An article may not make the cut on one platform, but may be okay on another, and amazing on yet another. Repurpose content to fit your overarching goals instead of just tossing it.
This also leads you to pushing higher. If you want to create content for a living (or even on the side), you need to be able to make it do something for you. Create a primary channel for your creations to live in, and push them higher and higher. If they can’t make it at a higher level, you have an out for them which can contribute to a portfolio at the absolute worst while still potentially providing some degree of profitability.
As you grow more and more pipelines for your content, you’ll find that a bigger pipeline may produce things which may be okay for that pipeline, but would do much better elsewhere. Almost every article I write gets pushed somewhere. Some get me a fortune, some help the bills, others get me ad revenue, but they all work to get me something. Virtually nothing is wasted with this setup.
I write because I love to, but I also want to make money off of it. While this isn’t a blueprint that will work for everyone, it is a safe way to turn a hobby into something productive without being demotivated and without risk.
Plant the seed for your content somewhere you can control. Nurture it by growing the presence and reaching out to the outside world to let them know what you can offer. Grow your craft by having a way to monetize better pieces while honing your skills. Develop yourself further by setting your sights higher and higher. Diversify your content and create multiple pipelines. I don’t wonder how I’m going to monetize my content now, what about you?
Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay