When you’re trying to build an online business, it doesn’t take long before you start hearing the same advice.
You need to create content.
Write blog posts.
Post on Facebook.
Send emails.
Make videos.
Stay visible.
And there’s nothing necessarily wrong with any of that.
The problem starts when creating content becomes the goal.
You begin thinking about what you need to post today instead of why you’re posting it in the first place.
I’ve certainly fallen into that trap.
You sit down because you haven’t posted anything for a few days and think, I really should put something up.
So you try to come up with something.
Anything.
And that’s when content can start becoming just another job on the to-do list.
These days, I’m starting to look at it a little differently.
Instead of asking:
“What should I post today?”
I’m trying to ask:
“Do I have something useful to say?”
Because I’m beginning to think that might be a much better place to start.
More Content Isn’t Necessarily Better
There’s a lot of pressure in online business to be constantly creating something.
Post more often. Write more articles. Send more emails. Be on more platforms.
The thinking seems to be that the more content you put out there, the better your chances of being noticed.
But I’m not convinced it’s quite that simple.
If you’re creating something simply because you haven’t posted for a few days, who is that content actually for?
I’ve done this myself.
You start looking around for something to write about because you feel like you should be posting.
You find a topic, put something together and get it published.
Job done.
Except you haven’t necessarily helped anyone.
You’ve just created another piece of content.
And if you keep doing that, it’s easy to end up with a collection of posts about all sorts of things without any real connection between them.
You might be creating more content.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re creating something useful.
Audience Comes Before Content for a Reason
One thing I’ve started to understand is that coming up with content becomes much easier when you have some idea who you’re creating it for.
That’s why Audience comes before Content in the Five Pillars.
If you’re trying to talk to everybody, it’s difficult to know what to say.
But once you start paying attention to the people you’re trying to help, things change.
What are they struggling with?
What questions are they asking?
What keeps confusing them?
What have they already tried that hasn’t worked?
Those questions can give you far better content ideas than sitting in front of a blank screen trying to think of something to post.
And you don’t necessarily need to have all the answers.
Sometimes something you’ve experienced yourself, a mistake you’ve made or something you’ve only recently figured out might be exactly what somebody else needs to hear.
That’s where I’m starting to think useful content really begins.
One Good Idea Can Go a Long Way
Something else I’m beginning to appreciate is that every piece of content doesn’t need to start with a completely new idea.
A worthwhile idea can often be explored in different ways.
A blog post gives you room to think something through properly.
Part of that same idea might make an interesting Facebook post.
Another part might eventually become something worth sharing in an email.
You’re not simply copying and pasting the same thing everywhere.
You’re looking at the same idea from different angles and using it where it makes sense.
That’s quite different from sitting down several times a week and trying to invent something new because another empty space has appeared on the content calendar.
And perhaps that’s a more sustainable way of creating content.
Not more ideas for the sake of having more content.
Just getting more value from the ideas that are actually worth talking about.
A Different Way to Think About Content
I’m still learning what works and what doesn’t.
But one thing I’m trying to leave behind is the feeling that I have to keep feeding the content machine.
I’d rather publish something because I think it’s worth sharing than because it’s been three days since my last post.
That might mean I publish less.
But if what I do publish has a reason for being there, I think that’s a pretty good trade-off.