Fresh is not really Fresh!
“If you steal from one author, it’s plagiarism; if you steal from many, it’s research.”
– Wilson Mizner
The other day I was talking to a LinkedIn expert.
In fact I have been following him for quite some time now and I even took a course on growing on LinkedIn.
I should say that the course is extremely informative with a lot of simple and implementable tips.
If you have ever read any of his posts, you will know why he has so many followers on LinkedIn. His authority speaks and that is what he delivers in his course as well.
The name of the course is LinkedIn Operating System. It is a low cost course and if you are into any form of business, or want to do business with professionals then I would absolutely recommend this course (you can check it out here).
Anyways, back to our discussion.
So this creator runs a solopreneurship (a one person business) and has scaled it up to more than $1 million.
And he did all of this using a single channel – LinkedIn.
Since I have been following him for some time, I know his posting schedule. He posts twice a day on LinkedIn.
I was curious as to how he manages to generate so much content and that is exactly what I asked him.
And you will be surprised at his response!
He doesn’t generate fresh content. Instead, he repurposes his best content and keeps cycling them every 60 days, 120 days and 180 days.
That essentially meant that if he created content for a full year, that would be his content repository for the lifetime and he will keep repurposing it and recycling it.
I have been following and researching some of these top creators on LinkedIn for the last 6 months.
(If you are wondering as to why LinkedIn, then it is because there are some decent tools out there that helps me do it for LinkedIn and Twitter. This is something that is not available for platforms like Instagram which is why I hate it)
So, in this process I found that there is another top creator on LinkedIn who has a simple framework to create content.
She uses a simple tool that can show you some of the top posts on LinkedIn. She takes inspiration from these posts, customizes it for her niche, follows the exact same formatting, call to action etc. and posts it.
And, the fun part!
These posts do really well, exactly the same way the original post did.
And why wouldn’t it?
It is following a formula that has found success.
Do you know what is the biggest mistake that we beginner creators on the internet do?
We try to reinvent the wheel!
We try to do everything from scratch.
Why waste your time and effort when you know what is working and you have a proven formula out there?
Just copy it!
The Only Art I’ll ever study is Stuff that I can Steal from!
David Bowie
Almost all the top artists in the world have spoken about it.
There is no original art!
Art is always a copy but with a unique perspective.
And in such a competitive world, if we don’t understand this now, then you are surely going to burn yourself out.
As a podcaster, who talks about podcasting tips, I realize that I am in an ultra competitive niche.
And to create something new every week is going to be extremely taxing if I don’t find innovative ways of generating content.
I implemented some of the strategies I learnt from all of those years that I have spent in digital marketing and that is what is helping me ensure that I am able to find content for my show.
Here are a few things that I do and recommend, if you are into any form of content creation:
Research
Researching is an integral part of content creation.
My research process has very clear objectives –
- Find what is trending – I use Google trends to see if there is anything that is trending and which I can use in my content
- Discover content gaps – There is a lot of content out there and there are a lot of gaps in all of this content that is out there. Your job is to find these gaps and fill them with your content.
- Find what is working – If you are able to find out what is working, then your journey becomes easier. So I look for episodes that are popular and are being listened to
- Cross platform research – I research topics on other platforms like YouTube, blogs, social media etc. to see what I can create content on. If I can create an episode on something that is available on the internet but in a blog form, I can tap into a new audience using a new medium
Find frameworks
Content creators are always trying out new things.
If you are on Instagram, you will find that memes are trending right now. And pretty much everybody is replicating memes that are already popular and giving it their own twists.
If you can spend some time to find frameworks that work, then the entire process of becoming viral becomes easy.
Find these frameworks and use it by customizing it to your requirements.
For e.g.: a framework that I found, used and found success with was using a teaser for my next episode in my latest episode. It helped build anticipation and listener retention.
The one thing that you mind want to keep in mind is that not all such finds will be successful for you. But there will be some that will go viral and that is what you are looking for.
Get Inspired but Don’t copy
Copying is plagiarism. But deriving inspiration and recreating is not.
I tried this on LinkedIn very recently.
My posts had very low engagement. So I picked a very popular post from Justin Welsh (the creator that I spoke about at the beginning of this post) and recreated it by giving it a spin for my niche.
The post saw a 3000% better engagement than my usual posts.
It works.
The only effort you need to put in is to figure out how you will be able to use it for yourself.
Build Your Repository
This is another big mistake that we beginner content creators tend to make.
We are so much into creating content that we create it, post it and forget it.
Have you ever thought about the amount of work, hours and effort that goes into creating that content?
All of that goes waste in about 30 days. In fact, the shelf life of content today is even lesser than that.
I have released about 150 episodes on my show till date.
That is 3 years worth of content!
Do you really think that a new listener of mine will go back to my catalog and listen to episode-1 of the show?
Not really!
It is my job to ensure that he is made to listen to it.
This is an experiment that I am trying out in the next few months – repurposing old podcast episodes!
Use those older pieces of content. Send them in emails, create social media posts, do whatever you think works best for you.
But use that content!
Remember, that the key to success is in working smarter and not in working harder
Over to You!
Content creation is fun!
But the problem with people who get started with it is, that they are not told about the part where they can do it, have fun and enjoy the process.
They are only told about the grind.
The steps that they need to follow to survive.
And surviving is not succeeding.
Succeeding is about living and enjoying.
And that is what I am trying to do with this newsletter.
I hope this edition helped you in that endeavor to some extent.
Go ahead, create and have fun doing it!
I put in about 18 hours every month to create this newsletter, starting from researching to writing and editing it.
So, If you enjoyed reading this Newsletter, I would sincerely appreciate it if you could recommend it to others. You can send them to https://theloudspeakeronline.com to subscribe to it for FREE!
What am I reading?
The last book that I read was “Feel Good Productivity” from Ali Abdaal is to a great extent about enjoying the process of productivity and having fund with.
This is so much in alignment with my philosophy of content creation.
I would absolutely recommend it, if you haven’t bought it yet!
You will be able to find it at the link below!
If you would like to check out some of the books that I have read in the past or, some that I have in my to-read list, you can find all of them on my Amazon page.
Go ahead and check it out!
You can check the book out here!
That’s it for this week!
Do let me know your thoughts, feedback, and opinions about this newsletter.
If you have a question or, simply enjoy reading this, I would sincerely appreciate it if you could write a recommendation for me on LinkedIn. You can use this link to do that.
If you are comfortable writing a review for the newsletter, you can do that here. Your support would be sincerely appreciated.
