Every day, you are likely producing an enormous amount of content. You just may not be aware of it, much less thinking strategically about making sales from sharing your content.
In the connected economy, we get our work done and connect with people online or with our mobile devices as part of our workflow. All the while, you are producing content, perhaps not for yourself, but for a narrow or passing audience.
Here’s an assortment of ways we produce content on a daily basis:
- Sending and receiving email. We all get hundreds of emails a day. When we write responses or compose new threads, we are typing a lot of content. We have to think a lot. The email is a one time use and serves a one-to-one conversation.
- Talking about our brands. When we explain what we do and how we bring value, we are sharing content verbally. For the salesperson, they rely on this to persuade and influence the buying decisions of those they are in front of. The problem is that much of what is said is not captured somewhere to position the conversation.
- Posting on social media. When you are using Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, guess who the content creator is? It is you. You are helping to build the value of their platform by writing your thoughts and sharing. The more the better for them. It’s not your asset. It’s theirs.
- Texting. Your texts are a one-to-one medium. They are efficient but imagine them being transformed and used for a broader purpose.
Moving from One-Offs to Content Assets
If you are merely aware that every time you type on your keyboard or thumb on your iPhone that you are creating content, then think about all that effort and how it lives or is merely expedient but disposable.
When you are continually educating people with the same knowledge you have a hundred times before, how about positioning your thoughts with an article that lives online and can be reused multiple times and get found? Then it becomes your asset rather than someone else’s. It works for you perpetually and grows your brand.
It takes a bit of a habit change. You have to stop yourself from doing the immediate and capturing your knowledge deliberately and consistently.
After a while you will see a foundation of content that becomes part of your workflow. It’s more efficient in the end. Even more important, you are actually building something rather than just getting through the day.
