It’s a content creator’s world.
As you well know, we are overwhelmed with online content. Everywhere you turn there is a new post, slideshow, infographic or live stream coming at you. It’s why content marketing is such an insanely competitive field. Everyone is producing content and using every optimization trick in the book to beat out their competition.
Still, I tell you to write; as much as possible and even daily if you’re serious. Even if you don’t know anything about SEO (although THAT is something about which you should, at least, learn the basics). This may not make much sense to the sole proprietor or thought leader trying to make a name for themselves. How will your content be seen in such a crowded marketplace? Why bother?
Here’s why:
When you are found, what you have said over time matters.
You may not be stumbled upon by your dream client. It may be that you don’t earn a single gig because someone just happens across your post and decides that you are so brilliant you must be hired. That’s not what this is about.
Apart from writing, I can safely assume you are doing other things to grow your brand, right? You’re not just sitting in the office waiting for things to happen are you? So, when you’re out there making waves, networking in real life or online, what is the first thing that people are going to do when you spark their curiosity? They’re going to look you up, and you’d better have something interesting waiting for them when they find you. And I mean more than an active social media life – I mean concrete, well thought out expressions of your business acumen or area of specialty.
Even better if you have gobs and gobs of content on your area of expertise. And you won’t get that by making plans to someday sit down and put it all together; you’ll only get there by writing with discipline. Short posts, long posts, videos with your greatest ideas – it doesn’t matter – just keep creating.
That content will be useful down the road.
I have a client, Anthony Iannarino, who just penned his 2,500th blog post. That is him writing every single day for years. You know what he has now, apart from 54,000 email subscribers (he writes really, really good stuff daily)? He has a ton of great content that he has been able to build into other things; books, online courses, video etc. And his subscription list and blog has become a main lead generation site for him. That was not necessarily his intent, but that is his reward.
2,500 blog posts sound like a lot of work doesn’t it? Well, it is, but it is also the most valuable thing that client has when it comes to his personal brand.
Of course, the cobbler’s daughter has no shoes, right? You won’t find 2,500 blog posts here on my blog, but if you Google me you will find my guest posts all over the interwebs and I’ve committed to building more and more of them here because that prolific client has reinforced for me how important writing down my thoughts on a consistent basis is to the future my business.