July 14, 2023 2:34pm
Venice, Florida
What exactly is content creation and why is it so awesome?
To me, it’s kinda like planting little seeds all around the world. Except these seeds grow up to be money trees instead of normal plants/bushes.
I create a lot of stuff. Everything from content for social media, blog posts like this one, videos, images to sell to stock photography websites and even books. I am addicted to it.
Here are a few resources for each of those:
- Publishing Books Is Way Easier Now…
- What I’ve Been Working On April 2023 Edition
- How Do YouTubers Make Money? The Ultimate Guide
Once you realize that the stuff that you make can create income for you, it’s hard to stop. A switch kinda flicks on in your mind and you wanna just do more of it.
The way that I look at it, the more of these money seeds that I plant, the more of a chance I have that some of them will turn into money trees.
If you’ve ever planted anything, you know that some of the seeds work and others don’t. Understanding that at the most simple level possible (it grows or it doesn’t) is difficult to accept. We of course want everything to work perfectly 100% of the time… but that’s not what happens.
So we plant more seeds, right?
The same thing happens when you create content online. When you are just getting started, most of the things you create aren’t going to grow into anything. I think of it the same as if you were a beginning gardener. You don’t really know what you don’t know yet.
How much do I water it?
Does it need more or less sun?
Is it too humid? Not humid enough?
Does it even grow in this type of soil?
You kinda test stuff and learn as you go. The same happens with content creation. You’re going to be awkward on camera when you do your first 50 videos for your YouTube channel or TikTok. It’s just how it is. Your first blog posts are going to suck. Your first of everything is going to suck, that’s just how it is.
But when you stick with it, you’ll get a little bit better each time.
The same thing is true with planting these money seeds. It took me about 6 years to ‘figure it out’ to earn an income that sustained my life from the internet. But once it really clicked, I just kept doing what worked… and then I added a little bit of other stuff to see if it would also work.
Most of it doesn’t. But some stuff does… and that keeps me going back to create more.
For example, I know that building an audience online is one of the best ways to create income in my experiences. You can build a community of like-minded people and give them products that help make their lives better.
You can also make YouTube videos and earn income from them. Are you an expert at some specific thing in your job? Turn your knowledge into YouTube videos and teach people exactly what it is you know how to do.
You can get approved to earn money from YouTube once you build up a big enough audience, and in the process of doing that, you can sell affiliate products and receive a commission for sales you generate. I’m currently using Opus Pro to create short form video content from longer videos and it’s working great.
The Long Form Video Content Strategy
Something I figured out a few years ago was that it’s great to create long form video content. With long form video, you can cut out clips for short clips for YouTube shorts, Tik Toks, Instagram posts, etc.
You’ll set up your camera and then talk to the camera and teach as much as you know in that video. You can have somebody hold the camera for you, or you can get a tripod. I use my SwitchPod all the time. It’s a cool little tripod that I just set up and click record and talk.
You can rip out the audio from the long form video and have a podcast. You can transcribe the long form video and turn it into a blog post. It really is one of the best forms of content creation in my opinion.
Start off with an outline of what you want to teach/talk about. Sit down (or stand up) and teach the camera about the subject matter that you are an expert in. Just record the whole thing, hiccups and everything. Just keep talking and teaching for at least 10 minutes. Ideally you’ll get to 15 or 20 minutes.
Once that is done, upload the video to your computer and put it onto YouTube. Then head over to Opus Pro and submit it there. The app will automatically go in and cut up that longer content into shorter form content that you can use. Right off the bat you will probably have 4-5 different clips that are short and catchy to help you with building up an audience from that first video.
That one piece of content basically just multiplied into 3-4 different money seeds. Remember, the more of these you plant, the more likely your videos take off and grow your audience.
It really can be that simple. It’s simple, but not easy. You still do need to put in the work up front.
What’s this mean to me now?
So at this stage in my life, I just want to plant as many of these money seeds as possible.
I’ve been trying to document a little bit more here on the blog. I’m not 100% sure who this is for, but I’m hopeful that in the future it will be great to reflect back on this time.