Let’s talk about creating

Breathe
To create you need to be able to breathe. We could all spit out five posts a day with no relevance to our journey or ourselves so that we can tick the box of content creation. Will it be a true creation, or just a piece of content? That’s your question to answer, my answer is it’s not creation, it’s a process.  Think like a recipe; prepare one pumpkin, half an onion, some nutmeg, stock, and S&P, and you have pumpkin soup. The five ingredients create something but you could also take the same elements and make a curry! Creating content is easy when you follow a process.

Create
To create we need space, for everyone it’s different. Some people can sit with headphones on and blow their mind with Linkin park and still be able to draw within the lines.  I need silence so I can hear the voice in my head, I need to have spent some time around other creative people to feel my soul. I need some excellent markers and a notebook and I need to give myself the gift of time. Figure out what a creation space means to you and create that space, sign yourself out of your daily life if that’s what you need. Do you know what you need to be creative?

Can you define quality content for yourself? Is it easy to read, talks to your target audience, provides social shares, enhances your blog posts, increases your search engine rankings, shared with your social media, or provide you value? Does any of that matter at the start?

Take a Lego brick and hold it in your hand, how big is it? It’s tiny, but add that to another Lego brick, and then another and then another and you have all kinds of potential.

It’s your concept you can choose whatever colour you want, whatever shape you want. Is it perfect? Does it have to be? Does that question make you feel vulnerable? It should because the internet is full of fake lives and you are lining your life up beside theirs, you will never measure up so why would you try?

Take your bricks, and create every day and I guarantee you that you will produce what you want, you will fall over, you will pick yourself up, and you will grow. You will become about each part of the content you created before. You will become a stronger human being, you will understand yourself more, you will care and share – authentic and real.

Show up for yourself daily and create what you want, not what you think people want to hear – you will be creating quality content because your passion is at the heart of it.

Create and put more of yourself in the world and don’t worry about what you should do or be, You need to live it, the best way to do it is to actually live it.  Are you ready to get vulnerable? Be brave and step away from perfection and show the world who and what you have to give!

Quality Content Creation

Define it
What is the difference between great content and high quality content? Some say that high quality content is defined by data that achieves marketing objectives. Why does it always have to be about the numbers? Doesn’t one life matter over one hundred?

Here is my definition:
1. Provides information, helps the creator and the audience understand the topic further.
2. Provides value, now we have to consider you and me but we also have to consider Google, after all he is everywhere! Google likes content that is relevant and bankable to the audience you want to target.
3. It’s entertaining to the audience and let’s face it to the creator – otherwise why would you? Some believe it has to be about the audience and Google, I contradict that. I understand it has to be about them at some point and your Google SERP position.  However, it has to be your passion and reason otherwise why would you bother?

On Another Point – Fake – Get Real!
The internet is full of people standing in front of swimming pools, with shiny teeth, perfect haircuts, bling on their wrists and digital cameras.  Some even run out and find expensive cars that are not theirs, or act like they do nothing but run around the world being fashionable and on fire. As you look at the image/content at that moment, it seems real, but is it quality and provide value? and will it stand the test of time?

Remember we not defined by the work we do and put out to the market, so just create!

Have a reason and make it your own
Never put your socks on in the morning and say ‘today I am going out to build an audience’, or ‘I am going to create xyz to get someone to buy into me so I can sell them something else’. That’s not being truthful to yourself or your audience. It is with true connection with the content that will propel you forward faster than any canned soup ever did. Quality content isn’t about Google, it’s about you, and it’s about the person who consumes it. The most important part is defining your content for you and your brand, finding the passion and then doing it.

Be authentic and get vulnerable the world needs you to find your unicorn costume and put it on! To be valuable you have to be unique

We will talk more about this I am sure.

On a more practical front, I am always asked when is the best time to post the content you create, well these guys have done all the work for that answer:

Are you struggling to make quality content, then go back to the start and reread this post, it’s about creating, the more you create, the more and better content you will create.  62% of marketers surveyed say that they are more successful now than they were last year. That will be because they have better mastered their craft. As Gladwell states in his book the The Outliers, we need 10,000 hours to be world class at anything, but let’s say you don’t want to be world class you just want to be average so let’s break that down:

5,000 hours / 12 months = 417 hours per month

13.73 hours per day? Well, do you do want to sleep? Make money, have sex, eat, love, relax, etc. We are in a world where we have to consider time and money. So, let’s make this goal more realistic.

5,000 hours / 3 years = 1,666 hours / 365 =  4.56 hours per day

4.56 hours per day! – Is that doable? Well for some maybe but for Joe well it’s going to take him realistically 10 years to become average or above average at his craft if he works at it daily.

You may say here, what is the point of this Christina, well the endpoint is, most of us are Joe, we want a life, and we want to be successful at something, that provides value. So it’s a balancing act of daily creation to get there, finding the space we need and with that will come the passion = quality content.

Maybe my next post should be about… how do we define average?