You’ve done it. You’ve come up with a new brand. You’ve read articles about finding your perfect niche, and you’ve been convinced that “err’body” does not make up a target audience. And you’ve ultimately accepted that content creation is the only way to get people to find you online. It’s time to start posting.
Why Is Content Creation Important?
If you sell a product or service, and your aim is to create a community of loyal followers and repeat customers, content creation is a must. There’s no way around it. A large part of your customer’s journey involves educating. You’ll want to take the time to educate them on your product or service and create content addressing why they may need it in the first place.
At this point, you should already know what problems you solve for your audience, and educating them with great content covering how you can solve that problem will help you close the deal again and again.
When you do a search online, those first-page results (outside of the adverts) were all fueled by the creation of good content. Optimizing your content to include terms that you know your audience searches for can help you snag new leads. Posting regularly, even on social media, can positively affect your search engine standings and help you build relationships.
What Platforms Should I Post Content On?
Let’s face facts: social media content creation is time-consuming. You’re just one person, and you alone can’t create good content for every platform without an entire team. Finding and creating unique content for even a single platform takes time and resources. So, how do you know what platforms to focus on? It helps to know your audience.
Your ideal fans and followers most likely won’t be on every single platform consistently. For example, according to a report done by The Nielson Company, African American women tend to be on Facebook and YouTube above all other platforms, while Twitter and LinkedIn are the least visited platforms by this demographic.
With the above in mind, if African American women over 18 are your target audience, it won’t make a lick of sense for you to spend time creating and posting content for them on LinkedIn and Twitter.
You also have to consider that each platform has content types that do better than others because each platform has its own unique audience. Here are the general rules:
Facebook:
Videos and curated content (content created by someone other than you) do best.
Twitter:
This platform is where people are going for news, so news about your industry or market, blog posts, and animated gifs showing your reaction to news do best on this platform.
LinkedIn:
Curated content, industry news, and posts highlighting your successes do best here.
Instagram:
Artsy photos, quotes, stories, and reels do best. As of this post-publication, reels are EVERYTHING on Instagram.
TikTok:
This platform is all about trends. Find trending hashtags that fit your niche or create social media challenges that fit your market. Cute animal videos, art, crafts, and voice-over reenactments do best on this platform.
You’ve got to find the platforms that strike a balance between being best for the type of content you’re good at creating (see The Secret to Successfully Branding Yourself Online) and platforms that your target audience are actually on.
Do I Need a Blog?
I don’t care what you do: baker, makeup artist, comedian, life coach, or stripper (shoutout to Cardi B). If you want to be found and gain all the benefits of creating a strong brand for your business online, you’re going to need a blog or vlog.
For the sake of clarity, a blog is an informational website where you post entries almost like a diary. A vlog is essentially the same thing – just in video format. On your blog or vlog, you may discuss the latest trends in your industry or provide how-tos.
A blog is what Luvvie Ajayi, better known as Awesomely Luvvie used to propel her career.
Ajayi started writing a small blog in college covering random topics, and in her words, “foolishness.” She started her current blog, Awesomely Luvvie, in 2006. She took a no-nonsense approach to report on pop culture, and she leveraged that into a New York Times best-selling book and a global non-profit.
It doesn’t matter whether you use your blog to post your latest podcasts or to discuss why Monday night is the worst shift to have at the strip club. A blog gives you the chance to build your credibility, boost your search rank, and create strong relationships with potential fans, followers, customers, or clients.
By no means am I saying that a blog is an easy road to success, but it damn sure won’t hurt.
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It’s undeniable that the benefits of content creation far outweigh the time investment it requires.
Ready to start creating? Follow me on TikTok for regular tips, tricks, and cheats on content creation and more.
