3 Amazing Marketing Strategies For Content Creators
Being a content creator can be one of the most fulfilling careers that there is. Seriously what other job allows you to go out there, create stuff, share them with the world, and make a living doing it.
Of course, it's not all sunshine and rainbows, as being a content creator can also be one of the most frustrating and painful and lonely existences out there. Especially if you're working hard every day. Putting everything into your content, and nothing seems to be working.
And that's why I want to share with you some of my best marketing strategies for content creators that are working right now to help you as a content creator to be seen and heard.
These are the things that I've learned being an author, a content creator, and a marketer for over ten years now. And it all starts with lining up three important elements which will either set you up for success or doom you to failure before you even get started, so let me show you how it's done.
Not only that, I'll give you a BONUS strategy as well so read on...
First Marketing Strategy
Starting with the first thing you need to nail down as a content creator, the single most important element to your success isn't the content you create but rather the people you created it for.
The very first thing you need to do is pick your people, your tribe.
The first step to becoming a successful content creator or to becoming a better content creator is really about identifying and selecting the kind of people that you most want to create that content for. And this is where a lot of people go wrong because most of the advice that's out there for creators is all about niching down by picking a topic or industry rather than the people. It's for this is why to succeed, you need to dig a little deeper. You need to take that next step to find out and uncover more about the people you seek to serve.
For example, let's say that you're going to be creating content around publishing, and let's say that your topic of choice is thriller fiction. Congrats, you've already narrowed it down one step by appealing to writers who write thriller fiction novels, but there's still a whole lot more you can do. For example, the publishing tips and tactics you can suggest for new authors with not much experience in publishing or who don't have a lot of money.
These are essential questions to answer because they're going to save you a ton of time, money, energy, and headache by not creating the wrong kind of content for the wrong people. The type of people that never engage, never comment, never subscribe, never click the CTA buttons.
Second Marketing Strategy
Once you've got that done, it's time to move on to the next thing - Pick your talking points. Now that you've got your people dialed in, it's time to figure out what kind of things you want to help them concerning your area of expertise or your area of interest.
In other words, what ideas, stories, information, and how-to or tutorial content will you create to help them. One of the biggest secrets to being a successful content creator has to do with creating content that's so good, so valuable that people can't help but to keep coming back and re-watching or re-reading or re-listening, sharing, and telling everyone they know that just how great your stuff is.
Fortunately, this is where a little good old-fashioned market research goes a long way. So look at what other creators in your space are doing. Use Google, Amazon, YouTube, Reddit, Podcasts, etc., for what topics, trends, keywords, and ideas seem to be getting the most traction. And if you can talk to your audience, ask them what kind of content they enjoy, what they need help with, what problems they're trying to overcome, and what type of content you can create for them. A few minutes of some basic market research will pay off for days, weeks, months, maybe even years to come.
Third Marketing Strategy
Once that's done, and you know who your people are, you know your talking points and what kind of content you're going to create, the next step is to pick your platform.
Now when I'm talking about the platform, what I'm talking about here is what distribution channel, what publishing medium are you going to use to get your content in front of your audience.
Now the odds are good that you probably already have some platform in mind. It's perhaps a platform that you enjoy yourself. One that you've thought about creating content on for a while and one that you regularly engage with.
So, while the options are seemingly endless, the big players in the space right now, especially for content creators that want to monetize and essentially make a living by doing this, are none other than Amazon, TikTok, Youtube, and Instagram. Of course, no one platform is necessarily better than any other. There are some pros and cons to each.
Amazon
For authors and storytellers, the first would be Amazon. Which is by far the biggest bookseller, and also 50% of books published on Amazon are from Indie authors or Indie Creators like Yours Truly.
If you are writing in a high selling genre, you can make money from your books in terms of royalty that goes up to 70% per sale. The things is that you need to understand covers, you need to understand branding, you need to understand book blurb writing, but above all you need to understand writing good stories that hook your reader. You can hire people for cover design, editing, or writing book blurbs, but without a solid storytelling skill, nothing is going to matter much.
YouTube
YouTube is by far most established both regarding its audience and its monetization. It's a tried and true method to becoming a full-time content creator, and while it is hard and competitive, it can still be done today.
YouTube is not going away anytime soon. It also has the benefit of delivering more longer-form content, which means you've got an incredible opportunity to build rapport and establish a relationship with your audience rather than, say, through a 15-second or 30-second, or even 60-second video clip like you have with other networks.
Next is Instagram. And Instagram is still very real and a very viable strategy and platform for creators to monetize and essentially earn a living by creating.
Instagram's recent push towards more video content shows their desire and willingness to stay as relevant and current as possible, especially with new competitors coming into space like TikTok.
So if your audience is on Instagram and you're happy to keep creating content for the platform, then, by all means, go for it.
TikTok
Next, we have TikTok. No longer the new kid on the block, TikTok continues to be growing faster than ever before. Now their monetization strategy isn't as well established as Instagram and nowhere near as established as YouTube or Amazon, but there's still a massive opportunity to build up a pretty good following there and monetize it later or start taking advantage of some of the other opportunities that are continuing to surface.
That's the thing with being a content creator is things are constantly changing. New strategies evolve and develop, and you never really know what's going to happen next. This again shows the importance of really starting with your people and your talking points, making sure you're creating the right content for the right people.
With TikTok, there's a massive opportunity to build up a huge following and do it very quickly. And if you are on TikTok, you can use the same shorter form vertical video content for the Instagram Reel and YouTube Short as well.
BONUS Marketing Strategy
With all that said, the next question is how can you set yourself up for long-term success as a content creator, and the answer is all about nailing the right balance between two different but often competing kinds of content.
Trending content is content based on a trend or a fad or a current event. This content is important to create as it typically gets a short-term hit of more views and more likes and more comments and more shares, and more engagement because everybody's talking about it.
The beauty of creating trending content is that the topics are pretty easy to find. All you need to do is check out or bestseller sections of Amazon, the trending sections of sites like YouTube and Twitter, or see whatever's getting the most views on Instagram or TikTok.
The problem with this approach is that it's typically short-lived. And this is why if you want to succeed long-term as a content creator, you also need to buffer yourself and buffer your content by creating more long-term and more evergreen style content.
Evergreen content is essentially anything that will be just as relevant one week or one month, maybe even one year or five years, maybe even ten years from now, like a fiction novel that stays relevant for more than ten years.
As a content creator, your job is to find the right mix between trending and evergreen content.
Now it's almost impossible for me or anyone to predict the right balance for you in the end, but as a starting point, you can use a 2:1 ratio between trending and evergreen content. Over time, you can change this ratio, as your content catches on and you start to realize what kind of content does better and what does not so well.
To continue, here is an excellent article on the one Truth About Generating Passive Income Right Now!