How To Be a Successful Content Creator

PowerPoint PresentationOverview
Content creators, sometimes referred to as influencers, create much of the media that users consume
online. These professionals create media for their audience by using their creative and analytical skills.
Understanding what qualifies as success in the digital world for content creation can help you determine if
this is the career path for you. In this article, we discuss what makes a content creator successful and
share nine steps you can take to become one.
What Is a Content Creator?
A content creator is responsible for producing
written, audio, or visual information for content
marketing platforms, like social media or blogs.
We’re using the word “content” pretty loosely here.
Today, content could be a video on TikTok, a
Instagram testimonial, or a blog post for a website.
Regardless of type, content usually has an end goal
in mind. People often create content to target a
selected audience and evoke a response — like a
new follow, site visit, or sale.
Types Of Digital Content
Choose your industry
Digital marketing is becoming widespread globally, which means there are several industries you can
choose from to create content for based on your interests. Researching different industries can help you
understand what established professionals are already creating and what they haven't explored yet in the
field. By conducting research, you can also get a basic idea of the potential audience, topics and content
ideas for your desired industry so that you understand what to expect if you work in a certain area.
Here are some industries in which you might consider creating content:
• Retail
• Hospitality
Read news about your industry every
day
Get in the habit of reading by putting everything you
read in one place. You can set up an RSS feed with an
app like Feedly for blogs you know that contain
relevant industry news. Also, ask a few colleagues
what they're reading these days and follow suit.
Discover where your buyer persona spends time
online and snag those blogs, too. Ahead of the game
and have a few favorites already? Add 'em to the list.
Establish your voice and style
Differentiating yourself from other content
creators and engaging your audience can help you
establish your voice and style. An audience
primarily returns to creators for their personality,
meaning they enjoy how you deliver information
to them. Here are some ways to establish your
voice as a content creator:
• Read frequently
Try to practice writing every day to help you refine
your skills. Improving your writing skills can increase
your confidence in your creative abilities and give
you the motivation to keep creating content. When
practicing, you can journal, free write or create
drafts for upcoming posts. While writing, you might
even think of a potential project or post idea to use.
Consider doing this activity for at least 10-20
minutes a day to help you continually improve your
writing skills.
Study your industry's audience
You can analyze your target audience to determine factors like what they enjoy, how old they are, what
their average salary is, where they're from and what general education level they possess. Getting to
know your target audience can help you create better-curated content for them to consume. You may do
this by studying your analytics to discover what content is most popular with your audience.
Here are some other characteristics of your audience you can identify for yourself or for your employer:
• Age
• Gender
• Location
Make a list of content creators you admire, in or
outside of your industry, and study them. Identify
what attracts you to their content or what their
audience seems to engage with the most when
they post. You may also observe how they handle
any challenges they encounter or how they cover
more sensitive topics delicately while remaining
objective and informative.
your field, so look for opportunities to learn
from others and hear their success stories. You
can do this by attending events in your industry,
contacting others on social media platforms to
introduce yourself or using professional social
networking platforms. Consider following
you to continue improving your craft.
Add value to your audience
When you're creating content, try to add value to your work. This means providing your audience with
relevant and meaningful content that can be useful to them. Adding value to your work can include:
• Covering breaking news, if it applies to your industry
• Encouraging audience participation by asking questions or making a poll
• Incorporating different mediums of content within a piece, such as embedding a video in a blog post
• Telling your audience a story, if it applies to the message of your content
• Linking to external sources for your audience to learn more about a subject
Post often
updated with current content for your audience
to enjoy. You can make a daily, weekly or monthly
posting schedule for when you want content
published. A schedule can provide your audience
with an idea of when they can expect new content
from you. Additionally, posting frequently might
help you maintain your audience while potentially
capturing the attention of new viewers.
Stay updated with current trends
Staying updated with trends in your industry and
on the internet can help you remain relevant to
your audience. Observe what others are doing with
their content and how their overall content
develops with the general trends online, such as
memes or dance-challenge videos. Ongoing
education is often essential to creating well-
informed content that an audience wants to see.
Understand your KPIs
Modern KPIs include:
• Social media traffic, the number of visitors that come to your content from a social media post.
• Direct traffic, the number of visitors that come to your content by entering your website's URL
directly into their browser's address bar.
• Organic traffic, the number of visitors that come to your content from a search engine result link.
• Submissions, the number of people who visit your website and leave having submitted their
contact information in exchange for a resource you offered them (a form of lead generation).
Improve your skills
If you’re not a professional copywriter, you have to
do some work to get so close that no one would
know the difference. Start by avoiding common
business writing mistakes. There are also some
quick-read books available to help you overcome
very common missteps (like overwriting, awkward
phrasing, paragraphs that don’t flow, etc.).
Give examples
when you give people examples of what you’re
talking about. For example (no pun intended),
imagine you were writing about the difference
between commodity whey protein and functional
whey protein, and you wanted to describe texture.
Don’t just write, “Functional whey protein allows
you to replace cream in a bakery formulation while
maintaining the same texture.”
Don’t talk about yourself
Talk about your customers and prospects. When you talk about yourself, you’ve lost the opportunity to
demonstrate that you understand and can address your prospects' needs and challenges. Look at the
difference between these two blocks of copy:
• “Acme is the leading manufacturer of valves. We have better quality, better customer service, and
we’ve been in business since 1987.”
• “Acme delivers confidence to its customers who rely on our valves to reduce their downtime by 13%
compared to competitors. Customers are also able to eliminate overstocks and stock outs because
our supply chain management system is fully optimized to meet their needs.”
What Does a Content Creator Do?
• Brand and competitor analysis:
ideas later on, as well as gives you more
credibility when getting approval from brand
representatives ahead of the actual content
creation.
gives you a good starting point when working
with a brand as you decide what will be most
relevant and engaging for your or their
audience.
multiple stages as you work with the
brand to write or shoot content that
brings the campaign idea to life. This can
take anywhere from a few hours to
weeks or months, depending on how
extensive the final result will be.
• Editing and approvals: Editing photos and
videos to fit with the brand aesthetic and tone
can take some time but this is where the final
product starts to really take shape. What gets
left on the cutting room floor may surprise you,
but you’ll feel so proud of your work once you
hand it over to the brand for final approvals
before it goes live.
themselves but, in the case of influencers, this
is where the money-making happens. Content
will be shared across various digital channels
and tracking will be added to keep tabs on
how well the posts are performing.
Conclusion
There's a lot of pressure on content creators -- and every inbound marketer, for that matter -- to churn
out great content as part of their marketing strategy. Just know that being a successful content creator
starts with the habits you form, as they'll set you up to produce some seriously valuable content for
your target audience.