Content creation simply means sharing your knowledge with others. On this page, I’m just going to focus on digital content that’s published online.
Anyone can create content. Anyone can share their experience. Experts share their wisdom. Beginners share observations. Beginners actually have a lot to contribute because they see things that the pros will skip over. Check out Gift Egwuenu’s presentation on learning in public. Learning in public is a very effective way of learning — because it’s like teaching others and teaching is the most effective way to retain what you learned. People create content in a lot of ways.
Types of content:
- Recorded audio (podcasts)
- Live audio (radio)
- Recorded video (YouTube)
- Live video (Twitch)
- Writing that doesn’t change after it’s published (articles, blog posts)
- Written that does change (wiki, digital gardens)
- Multiple media types (courses)
- Note that live audio and video is called streaming.
Content creation pipeline:
- Idea – All pieces just start out as a good idea. At this stage, all you have is a phrase or at most one paragraph.
- Research – This is a learning and exploration phase, where you might make a doc to save links and notes about information related to your piece
- Outline – Write down the order in which you’ll present your information. If you’re making an audio or video, you might want to get feedback from an editor at this point.
- Draft – Create a fully finished version of your piece. You’ll want to get feedback from an editor before you publish.
- Edited – Once you get feedback from your editor, make the final changes and publish.
- Published – At this point your content is online and shared with the world!
Tips on creating content:
- Produce enough content to have a backlog of pieces in different stages of the creation pipeline.
- Always wait 2 days between creating and editing.
- Publish consistently.
- Consider recruiting an editor and maybe a platform that already has editors.
- Focus on providing value.
- Stick to your theme.
- Become an authority. Do a deep dive into something and show off your technical expertise and problem-solving skills.