“I don’t have anything to write about” or “Who is going to listen to me?” These are some of the limiting beliefs that stop many people from becoming content creators. While establishing yourself as a subject matter expert is one way to create an audience, there are other ways as well.
Creating content is more about you than the topic or subject. In most cases, there are already articles, blog posts, videos, and books published on your topic. Your audience wants to know why the topic or subject is important to you and also to them.
For example, look up “How to start an LLC” on Google. You will see step-by-step guides on how to create this business entity. However, your audience is more concerned about why you would create an LLC or why they should create an LLC.
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Creating content is a very personal affair. The only person stopping you from creating content is you. And now that we know that anyone can create content, we should focus on creating good content.
Good content is interesting and helpful to your audience. It helps them solve a problem. Sometimes, it helps them solve a problem that they may not even know they had. It brings different ideas and viewpoints on the original topic.
Let’s say someone searched for “why to start an LLC”. They come by your blog post. Your blog post may be “Why creating a business is vital to building generational wealth.” Now they can read the larger viewpoint on why creating an LLC helps build wealth. They may have been searching for something more along the lines of “LLC versus S Corporation.” That information is still available elsewhere, but now they have your larger viewpoint. Maybe they like it, maybe they don’t.
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This brings me to the first strategy of creating good content: topic extraction. Probably a horrible name because I literally just made it up. Topic extraction consists of dividing your main website/channel niche into 4-5 sub-niches.
Finding your niche is one of the harder parts of becoming a content creator. In order to truly find your niche, you have to start…creating content. Once you start shooting videos and writing posts, you will naturally gravitate towards a certain area. That will be your niche. When I started, I thought that I would focus on “building great investment portfolios”. However, my content was more on the larger financial independence movement. That became my niche. Sure enough, you can go back and look at my original articles and see this (Basics of Investing, my first article).
Once you have your niche, you need to perform topic extraction if you want to be able to create tons of content. If you only plan to write/create once a week, you probably don’t need to perform topic extraction. There will be enough content to create just from the happenings of your daily life.
Topic extraction consists of breaking down your niche into 4-5 sub-niches. These 4-5 niches all feed into a greater understanding of your niche for the audience. Let’s give some examples.
Pretend that I am a part-time gardener. Gardening is the highlight of my life. After my boring full-time job, I come home and can’t wait to get to my plants. Gardening is my overall niche. However, once I perform my topic extraction, I come up with these sub-niches: gardening for relaxation, gardening to improve mental health, how to be a part-time gardener, small garden set-ups, and best plants for first-time gardeners.
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Now, pretend I am a committed full-time gardener. I believe in the technicals of gardening and want to attract other hardcore gardeners. My topic extraction may lead to these: the most difficult plants to grow, compost creation, healthy pesticides, large-scale gardens, and garden product reviews.
As you can see, both have gardening as a niche but they will attract completely different audiences. One audience will be casual gardeners focused on mental relaxation and the other will be hardcore gardeners striving for perfection. Every niche can be broken down in a similar way. Hopefully, this will give you a very streamlined way to start creating lots of content.
And yes, you will need tons of content. If you plan on writing once a week, then you are starting a hobby. If you want to start a business, then be prepared to start writing and uploading everyday. You may not be able to create every day because of “life” but be prepared to. However, once you have performed topic extraction, you will probably be eager to create daily. You will have never-ending streams of ideas to fill out.
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Before you go further, it is important that I give a shout out to some extremely relevant books. These books will assist you with building the framewrok that you will need to become a content creator. The books are “How to Take Smart Notes” by Sonke Ahrens and “On Writing Well” by William Zinsser.
You will need to take lots of notes in order to create ideas and content. “How to Take Smart Notes” literally changed my life. I have formulated more ideas since reading this book than I have in the rest of my life. Matter of fact, topic extraction came from taking notes after reading this book. Once you have ideas you will need to write, and write well. “On Writing Well” will give you the tools to sound intelligent. Once you have the basics of writing, all you have to do is write. The only way to learn is by doing.
The final idea we will learn today is the triangle of creation. (I realize that I will need to make a part 2 on this topic). Again, I just created this name, it will probably change over time. In order to create truly unique and original content, we need to look towards the triangle of creation. The three points on the triangle are:
- You, Your Experiences, Your Beliefs and Ideas
- Notes on Niche, Notes on Sub-Niche, facts, ideas, and guides
- Combination of sub-niche facts, ideas, and guides
After reading “How to Take Smart Notes” you will realize that creating information on one topic is not that hard. It is the combination of ideas that will give you a never-ending stream of content. In the book, we discover a German socialist named Niklas Luhmann created more content when alive than most ever could dream of. Then after he died, they published another 20-30 books. I can see why he was so efficient after using his techniques.
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I will breakdown the topic extraction on my niche. Then I will walk you through an example of using the triangle to create an original idea. My niche is financial independence. My topic extraction leads to these: financial independence mindset, retirement planning, investments, real estate, and business.
I like to go straight down the list when creating content. So day 1 is FI Mindset, day 2 is retirement planning, etc… Now that I have my sub-niches, I see them everywhere. I have websites that I visit daily in each niche. The notes that I keep are broken up into my 5 sub-niches, and I read books that I breakdown into these 5 topics. You will start to build a war chest of information, notes, books, sources, and articles on each sub-topic. But you don’t just want to regurgitate everyone elses words. Let’s look at how we can create original content using the triangle of creation.
1) Notes on a sub-niche. I recently read a book called “Growing Wealth in Self-Storage” by AJ Osborne. My main takeaway was to create additional revenue streams from your self-storage facility. Adding a retail center that sells boxes, tape, insurance, etc. will add lots of value to your facility.
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2) Combination with other topics. I have been seeing a lot of articles and videos on ATMs, vending machines, and laundry mats. I haven’t been able to leverage these particular items in my business life yet, but I am constantly thinking of ways to add these.
3) Me, My Experiences, My values. I know that I do not want to own a huge apartment building or create another job when I retire. However I do want to own a small multi-family building, maybe 4-8 units. I know from personal experience that many older people don’t drive. I know from living in the barracks that creating a nice common area for people will draw them there.
What if I bought a multi-family building and made a nice common area with large tv, fitness area, pool table, etc? Then I could also add a room for washers/dryers, a couple of vending machines, and an ATM. Or maybe I can add revenue streams to an Airbnb. There are lots of ideas to consider and “wargame” between.
Finally, I would create ideas on this idea. The article could be titled “How to Create additional revenue streams within a multi-family residence.” Remember, there are people everywhere conducting research, just like you conduct research. Adding an additional revenue stream to a multi-family may be the idea that they need to get a particular building to financially sustain. There could be someone planning to build from the ground-up and they see your article. They may have time to add in a common area.
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Your content will be extremely valuable to your audience. You are creating new ideas and bringing things to them that they have never thought of before. You are the reason that your audience visits your channel. However, you will need to expand your base of information in order to keep your audience coming back. You always need to be one step ahead of them.
I want to dig even deeper on this topic. The next article will look into my content creation laboratory. This way you can see how the triangle of content is used in real-life. Please let me know if you find this content valuable and if you plan on becoming a content creator.
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