I never realized how difficult content marketing really is. I have seen people like Nathan Barry, Hiten Shah, and others build followings and assumed it was a piece of cake. I kept that assumption until I decided to start blogging again and I realized how difficult it really is to build traffic and create a following. It’s damn hard.
So what? How do I get better? I can either read book after book of rehashed “guides” and “how to’s” that will teach me how to get better at content marketing, or I can take a look at what the guys who are good at content marketing actually do.
I have a strategy. It involves a series of steps that I need to achieve in order to get better at content marketing.
- Tweet and blog more frequently
- Tweet and blog more targeted content
- Find people who will help me share that content
Tweeting and Blogging More Frequently
I want to have more total output. Besides creating more content, I also want to build more apps. I want to do something similar to what Pieter Levels (check out his blog at levels.io, it is very inspiring and contains lots of great “how I did it” posts about his recent projects) is doing (he is creating 12 high quality startups in one year). Not only do I want to create more content, I also want to create more web applications.
Since I am also trying to create more of a personal brand for myself, I figured I would build applications that will help me create more of a personal brand and improve at content marketing. The first step is consistency. I want to find a way to tweet every day and write a blogpost every day. I thought it would be easy to remember how to tweet, but I was wrong. If you don’t remember to do it nightly (fill your buffer) or during the day (tweet interesting things you’ve found), you aren’t going to tweet. I believe the key is to be consistent.
I also need to figure out how I’ll be able to write everyday. I thought having an iDoneThat email would help me start writing more everyday. After reading Authority by Nathan Barry, I told myself I would start writing 1,000 words everyday. That never became a habit and I stopped writing everyday completely after about a week or two of consistent blog writing. At this point, this is the first thing I’ve written in about two weeks and I’m struggling to get through this post.
I will focus on the other two aspects of my plan, but for now, I have to focus on the first part of this plan. If I don’t start creating content consistently, it won’t matter if I create great content. It won’t get to that point. I have to start creating content first, and then I can focus on if I’m creating good content and how I can promote and share that content effectively. You have to learn how to walk before you can run.
If I haven’t been writing, what have I been doing?
Part of the answer is spending more time with family, and part of the answer is working on an app to help achieve my content marketing goals.
I have my first wedding anniversary this past weekend. The time I have spent with my wife, Lara, have been some of the happiest years of my life. I’m really glad our paths crossed while we were both at Rutgers.
I’m also nearing the end of a chrome extension called ForgetfulRiver, which is going to help me remember to tweet more often than I remember now. This app records the URL’s you visit in chrome, and randomly pops up a tweet window throughout the day to give you ideas about links to share and things to tweet. This is going to be the first app I create to help me create more content. There’s a really crude version of it under a different name in the Chrome App store that you can find if you really look hard. I tested that version for a few days, found it to be annoying, and I have been actively working on iterations 2, 3, 4, and 5 over the last two weeks.