How To Start Making Content Online To Grow Your Business.

In this guide, I cover how to start content marketing your solopreneur business online, and how to build a strong fan base.

Content is the core of every successful solopreneur business online. It is the key to organically growing your audience, making connections and monetizing your knowledge. What most brands and solopreneurs get wrong about content marketing is that it is not about them. Rather it is about having a system to educate others and gives your valuable information away for free.

Most creators do not understand this in the beginning because most of the content we see online is coming from personal brands that have been doing this for years. They have mastered mixing education and personal experience into their content so beginners think making content online should be all about them.

Instead of focusing inward, you need to focus on your audience's needs, desires, and educational goals. Don’t post your daily routine, skincare routine, or you going to the gym unless it actually helps your audience. Selling a lifestyle that is unattainable for most is the opposite of what you should be doing for your personal brand.

What you should be doing is giving your best secrets, hacks, and advice for free to start…

Building Trust

We have all seen the “Social Media Gurus” selling thousand-dollar courses promising you fame, fortune, and get-rich schemes. For every honest, resourceful creator online there are 10 snake oil salesmen like these gurus out there, and because of this trust is at an all-time low.

But a few rotten apples shouldn't make you discouraged, instead, we have to build trust with our respective audiences. The best way to do this in content creation is, to be honest, vulnerable, and transparent with your audience about everything.

Tell them your authentic story, your insecurities, and your hopes and dreams. Educate your audience by using your story and build trust with them by being yourself. Most solopreneur brands forget to do this and instead focus on selling, or just on their product. Which then leads to not building trust with your audience.

Become relatable, likable, and informative and you won't have to sell to your audience besides sending out the occasional promotion email. Do not be afraid to be yourself, instead lean into your weirdness and you will find your tribe online.

‍Educating Your Audience.

Almost every day when I scroll through Instagram I see a small business or personal brand trying to sell me their product without educating me on it first. I don't understand why I need it or why it would make my life better. So I just keep on scrolling. 

That is a missed opportunity that 99% of businesses online don't realize they are making. Educating your audience for free is the best way to ironically get them to buy from you, let me explain.

If your audience doesn't understand that they have a problem that they need to solve and that your product or service solves that problem they will never take action to purchase. What we need to do as creators is educate our audiences on all the topics around our product without selling it to them. 

Here is an example.

Company: A Gourmet Olive Oil Company

What they sell: Gourmet-infused olive oils, that are priced above the industry average price for olive oils.

Their Customer Base: Women who are 30+ that have a disposable income of more than $65,000 a year

Purchase Adverison: Why should I buy this expensive product when I can get the same thing for less elsewhere?

The type of content they should be creating to educate their customers:

• What are the benefits of adding olive oil to your diet?
• Why should you use olive oil when you cook instead of seed oils?
• Comparison between salad dressings and olive oil on a salad?
• Uncommon uses for olive oil.
• Why is this gourmet olive oil better than normal olive oil?
• How is the gourmet olive oil created? What makes it special?
• Daily health hacks that may include olive oil
• Nutritional hacks that can be used with olive oil
• The list goes on…

In this example, we can clearly define what content this business should be making for its audience without directly selling to them. Highlight a problem such as “seed oils are bad for your health, here is why you need to be using olive oil instead” by educating your audience that they have a problem they can then see that your product or service is the ideal answer to it.

Each of these content ideas highlight a problem and then frames that olive oil the company as the ideal solution to the problem without directly selling the product. Educate your audience on all the topics around your product instead of just what's in the product or service to build trust with them. This will lead to organic growth in your content marketing strategy and less fluff for your audience.

Make Your Audience Look Good.

The next step in creating content is making your audience look good. Create content that when your audience shares it, it makes them look smarter, healthier, and wealthier. Growth on social media platforms is dedicated now by shares, reposts, and engagement. When you make content that is easily shareable like a guide, a listicle, or a general life hack your audience will look good for sharing it.

The key here is to create content that surrounds your product or service and still makes your audience look good. Here are some headlines from posts from creators I follow that do just that. 

All three of these posts have actionable content and steps that readers can use to make their life better. They can share it with someone who may need that information to grow, or it can be a connection point to a larger community that they can use for content. The goal is to create content that brings positive change to readers and creates a relationship between them and your brand.

One of the quickest ways to do that is to help your readers run away from pain.

Running Away From Pain

It is always easier to run away from pain than it is to find a solution by yourself and walk toward that solution. This is also true for your audience as well. Most people settle for mediocrity rather than greatness because they are running away from pain.

That pain can be many different things, a job they hate, a diet they hate, or a lifestyle that is holding them back. By creating content that shows them an exit away from that pain you can create trust. This all starts with identifying the problem and then positioning yourself to answer that problem quickly, resourcefully, and for free for your audience who is running away from that problem.

Create solutions for problems your audience has and you will never run out of new customers when you give it away for free.

Give Your Best Content Away For Free

You should always give your best content away for free because 99% of your audience will not truly act on it until they pay you for it. Those who want to pay for your content whether it is a course, a digital product, or an ebook love your free content and want a more in-depth answer.

That in-depth answer can be a paid coaching session, A ebook that expands on your core free content, or systems that help your customers. The key here is to use your free content as a base for your paid products.

By also giving your best content away for free you can see what your audience loves and hates. What content does great, and what content has poor engagement. This can all be solved by making your content free and easily available. Build on the free content that does great, and the content that doesn't perform as well you can workshop or toss out.

Giving your content away for free also allows your audience to see your knowledge and experience. You build trust with every piece of content you make and grow your relationship with your audience. This removes the need to qualify yourself to potential customers as your free content is so good that they are ready to make a purchase by the time they get to you directly. 

This allows you to get great feedback from your audience and experiment with new topics, formats, and messaging.

The System I Use To Create My Content (The Content Tree)

To create consistent content on a daily basis I have created a system so I can systematically create content for multiple platforms, and my newsletter. Here is how I do it.

First I start with the core problem I would like to solve for my audience and turn that into my weekly newsletter or a full blog post that is around 1,500 to 3,000 words. From that newsletter, I can take sections and turn them into carousel posts, how-to guides, and listicle posts.

Once I have a few sections from the newsletter pulled out (5 to 7 sections) I craft them into Instagram posts, Linkedin Posts, and scripts for reels. In this way, I can take 1 large piece of content and turn it into multiple smaller pieces of content that lead back to my newsletter on this website.

From there I can turn my written posts into short-form content for Instagram reels, Linkedin video, and Youtube Shorts. The newsletter itself I can turn into a full-length youtube video, which I can then again cut up into bite-size reels and videos for social media.

In total from 1 newsletter, I can get the following amount of posts:

• 1 Weekly Newsletter
• 1 10 to 20 minute Youtube Video
• 5 to 7 Instagram posts
• 5 to 7 Linkedin posts
• 5 to 7 Instagram Reels
• 5 to 7 Youtube Shorts
• 3-4 Additional short-form videos from the Youtube video that I have cut up

From writing one thought-out newsletter a week I can get 2 pieces of long-form content, 13 to 14 short-form videos, and 10 to 15 text posts. 

For scheduling, I go ahead and schedule 1 piece of content once a week for 7 weeks. I then repeat the process by writing 6 more newsletters and doing the same. So a week of posting would look like this.

Monday: 1 post from newsletter 1

Tuesday: 1 post from newsletter 2

Wednesday: 1 post from newsletter 3

Thursday: 1 post from newsletter 4

Friday: 1 post from newsletter 5

Saturday: 1 post from newsletter 6

Sunday: 1 post from newsletter 7

This means in 1 to 2 days I can go ahead and create 7 weeks of content for my solopreneur business quickly and effectively. This works as not all of your followers on social media will see your posts, they may not be subscribed to your newsletter, and they might not watch you on Youtube. Meaning this 1 newsletter cut-up can get more mileage by being formatted into many different pieces of content and spread out over 7 weeks.

This is also effective as your ideal followers are not on all platforms. By posting to LinkedIn I reach an older corporate audience who may not be on Instagram, by posting to Instagram I reach a younger audience who may not be on Linkedin, by posting to Youtube I reach a well-rounded audience that is actively building their business and is taking action.

Not everyone consumes content the same way or is on the same platform you are on so it is extremely important to take one piece of content and reformat it for multiple platforms.

‍Pulling this all together

Creating content online for your business isn't hard. You just have to be strategic in the approach you take. Focus on serving your core audience, educating them, and giving your content away for free. Provide so much value to your audience that they cannot help but buy your products because you are helping them run away from their pains.

Focus on problems that surround your products and services and provide actionable solutions, systems, and insight that makes your products or services the ideal solution. 99% of content marketing is making quality content at scale, and gaining feedback from your audience.

Your audience will tell you exactly what they want through questions, feedback, and testimonials. Become reliable, transparent, and relatable and your audience will pay you back hand over fist. The primary thing is to just get started and test different ideas. Once you find what resonates with your audience you can double down on it and create more content that leads to more sales.

Serve your audience, and they will take care of you in turn.

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