Great Content Needs a Great Writer, a Purpose, and the Right Approach
By Issac Thomas
Getting premium content for your business is no easy deal. Many businesses fail in their marketing strategies because they lack content that distinguishes them as a brand. Creating good content depends on three aspects:
I will talk about all three aspects based on my personal experiences and what I have learned in the past few years working in the Industry.
“Have a 360-degree Approach, Buddy.”
This is what my CEO said to me yesterday.
I was struggling for the past few days. I was at the helm of four marketing projects all in different niches. Things were spiraling out of control. There was too much content to be created. They were to be scheduled at specific times and they all needed to be in sync with a theme and a content bucket. I was working around the clock, but the output wasn’t great, just satisfactory. When you know you can give your best, better seems underwhelming. I knew there was a problem and had no idea what it was and how to cope with it.
As usual, I went to my CEO because he mentors me well and has a vast pool of experience to back what he says. I told him what I was going through and he resonated with my thoughts. He wanted to talk to me about my dipping form. He agreed there was too much work on my plate, he said, “I can do that with ease if I properly think through it.” He continued, “Issac, one of my problems is you have become a doer. If I wanted someone to write content and push through deadlines, I can hire freelancers from Upwork, it isn’t a difficult task for me. You are a guy with indefinite potential and just being a doer doesn’t suit you. Come out of your limitation and start strategizing what you are doing. You need to see through your work, organize it and plan the whole day before you enter your office.”
It takes just 15 minutes to plan, see through your whole day, decide the amount of time you must give to every brand and stick to it. If currently, you are working on four brands, give all of them two hours each. Do not mix all of them because that would create a confusing mess and take a lot of your time.
When you are writing a blog, have an outline ready, so that you never waste time organizing your thoughts and thinking what to write. Always strive to keep your mind clear and clutter-less that way you will have clear direction and you can work faster.
He continued, “Google Earth is one of the best tools I have ever used.”
I asked why? He said, “Because Google Earth gives me a 360-degree view to all the places I wish to see. Have a 360-degree approach to work,” he said, “look through all possibilities, think of the worst scenarios and be prepared.”
“Come out of your limitation and start strategizing what you are doing. You need to see through your work, organize it and plan the whole day before you enter your office.” #TheGrowthHackingBook #GrowthHackingMovement #GrowthHackingDay
If You Are Running a Startup, Have a Long-Term Vision
I have worked with a lot of startups as a freelancer. In this digital era, there are a lot of young entrepreneurs who are donning the hats of CEOs and Co-founders. Many aspire to start their venture someday and become a part of the big growing startup community. I am a firm believer that startups in coming days will be the antidote to a job crisis in our country. As a writer, after having worked with many CEO’s and co-founders, I see one glaring error in the whole working process of a startup. I am not saying everyone, but most startups don’t have a long-term vision or a universal theme.
Most of them would discuss how to get more leads. How do we get more engagement on our posts? Oh! Write and post anything from the latest trends? It is about daily posting something or other across different social media channels and just doing it for the sake of doing it. The whole social media and content marketing revolves around weekly impressions and profile visits.
Week after week, there would be pressure on writers on what to do next. Getting new ideas, each day, week after week makes it difficult for writers who in turn become restless, then rather than flexing their creative muscles, they take the easy way and go with what is trending.
You are creating content that everyone else is creating too, making the whole marketing process mundane and ineffective. Without a unique brand voice, how will a startup or a new business stand apart from the crowd? When your content looks the same as thousand of others in the market, you are part of the crowd. When you are part of the crowd, how will your audience recognize you?
This is what most startups face and because they do not find their unique brand voice, their whole digital marketing strategy falls flat in a few months. Now, as a CEO or Founder of a startup, if you are reading this, go through the Ted Talk, given by Simon Sinek on: How do great leaders inspire action?
As per Simon, most organizations know what they are doing, many of them know how they are doing it, but very few organizations know why they are doing what they are doing. By why, it doesn’t always mean making a profit or the results. Why means: What is the purpose of your organization? What are your beliefs? Why do you exist?
People buy from you not for what you do but for why you do it. Figure out the why of your organization and figure out why you are doing what you are doing and build a vision around it. Create a universal theme and make different content buckets around it.
Two days ago, I was giving a session on “Personal branding through social media” in Delhi. During the session, a girl named Gurpreet asked me, how can she grow her mother’s Instagram profile organically without going for unethical hacks like follow for follow?
I asked her, what kind of content does she post? She said her mother is into knitting. They post pictures and videos about knitting. I asked, why do you do that? So you can sell more sweaters?
She said, no. Her mother wants to teach knitting for free and wants to spread awareness about it.
I said, so do a few changes in your profile. Write your Instagram bio as:
Using knitting as a medium to empower women and make them self-dependent with the hashtags #empoweringwomen #fashion #women
This makes you seem in sync and pursuit of a bigger vision. Here, empowering women through knitting is your vision and a long-term mission you want to pursue. That way, it gives you a window to connect with a broader audience with a higher purpose.
I asked her to follow a few hashtags on Instagram like fashion, knitting, clothes, women empowerment and skills. Once she followed these hashtags, I asked her to like and comment on the top five posts of those hashtags, which will get more visibility to her profile. Here fashion, knitting, clothes, women empowerment, and skills are the content buckets that can be formed from the universal theme.
When you know what your vision and your bigger universal theme are, it becomes easier to form content buckets out of them. When you have the content buckets ready, you know what kind of topics you need to create content. That gives you a clear idea on what to develop. Once you become consistent with the type of content you create; you will develop your brand voice, and that will surely create an impact.
Your vision — Using knitting as a medium to empower women and make them self-dependent is a tree and the content buckets like fashion and women empowerment are your branches. When you water this tree with better content and add fertilizer in the form of ideas, it will give you fruits in the form of long-term engagement and a dedicated fan base who love what you do and why you do it.
Keep your Writers for a Longer Term
Yes, hire writers for a long term. When you hire a team of writers, hire carefully with long-term goals in mind. Put in extra effort to understand if they will sync with the culture of your company. Once you hire them, give them time to settle down. Let them know what your company is all about and start giving them work slowly. Let them grasp your long-term vision and the kind of content they need to create.
If you ask me why should writers be hired for a longer term? The reason is simple. The more a writer gets familiar with you and your company, the better content he or she can churn out for you. It is all about consistency and longevity. The more two professionals work together, the better their chemistry becomes with time. So, with time once they know you and understand you, they will delve deeper to create even better content, they will come up with new ideas, and better strategies as well. After all, experience counts, and as an organization, hiring and firing are only going to hurt your long-term prospects because everything takes time, money and other resources. Use your money carefully and treat a writer as a long-term resource. Give your writer the best salary and perks as per industry standards because if you want the best content to build a brand, you need to give the best to your writer.
A writer is the most critical aspect to creating great content. If you treat them well, not only will they bring a 360-degree approach to their work, they will bring your vision to life. As a brand, you will resonate across the whole digital realm.
Special Note: This chapter would be incomplete if I don’t share a LinkedIn post, that was widely loved by the writer’s community. Have a read. It is for everyone who wants to start a career in content writing.
How to Become a Great Writer?
If you are fresher and wish to get into content writing, I would suggest you do three things:
  1. Start a blog
  2. Write on platforms like Medium and Quora
  3. Create an Instagram handle and Facebook page
Show your expertise and pile up some views, likes and comments. Learn the basic three strategies:
Read some good articles on writing hacks, social media hacks and how you can improve your online presence. Apply them on your social media accounts, keep experimenting and trying. Have fun as you learn!
Stay longer on these two websites:
Follow some good writers, consume good content, read good books, understand the language and improve your vocabulary.
Once you do all the above for a month, check LinkedIn, and other job searching sites for some good job offers and apply.
Also, research and check out the startups in your city, see if they are into marketing and need a writer to create content for them. If they do, meet them and say, you would be glad to join their team.