What is content creation? And what does it mean for your small business?

A big part of the world went digital in 2020. Unfortunately, it took a pandemic to reach there. If you run a small business, you must have witnessed the crazy surge in online shopping. And like most small business owners, I am assuming you are puzzled and overwhelmed with content creation. What is content creation? Why do you need to do it for your business? Why is everyone in the world suddenly creating content or talking about content creation? Well, you’re not alone my friend.

30-second summary

Here’s a 30-second summary of content creation for you (if you’re really busy and don’t have the time) but I highly recommend going through the entire post for your benefit.

• Learn what comes under content
• As a small business owner, now, more than ever, you need to know how to create content if your business runs online
• There is a 3-step process to create content
• Finding the right content ideas
• Creating content using the content creation starter toolkit
• Choosing the right platform to publish and distribute your content

What is content creation?

Ok, if you know me and my blog, you know that I never beat around the bush. (By the way, I am a living breathing example of content creator, in case you are wondering who creates all that content. Yeah, its creators like me).

Before we dive deep into what is content creation, let’s first understand what the heck is content (I made a supercool infographic too, eh, send me my coffee☕️ now).

Are you a business owner looking to create content?

If you are not running your business from under a rock (if you are, call me, I need a vacation), chances are you must be present on some online platform and you own a mobile phone 📲 too.

Every time you go online or use your mobile device, anything and everything you see is some form of content. Here are a few (actually lot) categories that comprise content:

What is content?

1. Written text (just like the one you’re reading now)
2. Emails (just like the one you’ll read when you get an email about this post)
3. Newsletters (emails but packaged differently)
4. Images (just like the cool infographic below)
5. Video (yes, all those cute puppy and cat videos are content too)
6. Audio (any and every form, from songs to music to podcasts to radio shows)
7. Presentations (like the one you hate to make for your boss)
8. Data (any form of data in any form of document, basically stats, numbers etc)
9. Digital books (usually consumed in ePub or PDF formats)
10. Digital courses (usually delivered as a mix of all the above)
11. Reports (from surveys, polls, summary of projects etc)
12. Animation (films, comic, cartoons)
13. Illustrations (icons, drawings, paintings, digital art, line art etc)
14. GIFs (yeah, those vintage good morning greetings too)
15. Memes (don’t tell me you don’t love them)
16. Diagrams (charts, bar, graphs, smart art etc)
17. Infographic (basically images but with a certain style of content)
18. Live streaming (like the ones you see on YouTube, Instagram, Zoom, Teams, etc)
19. 3D content (yeah, movies, art etc)
20. AR (augmented reality) and VR (virtual reality) (this is gonna be the future of all content)

Whoa! Didn’t I tell you there’s much more to content than just text, images, and video. There are more but they can essentially fall under one of the above categories. Now that you know what is content, take note of it the next time you are scrolling online. Notice how different types of content come together to create something I call a ‘Digital Experience’ (more on this later). 

What is content creation?

I know, you came all the way to this blog to figure out what is content creation. But oh boy, can you bake a cake until you know what goes into baking a cake? Nah, right? The same goes for creating content too. If you are not aware of the basics, the building blocks of content, you will not be able to realize the immense potential of content creation for small business.

Let’s get started with the process of creating content! There are three essential elements that go into content creation.

Content creation is the process of translating ideas into something that you can read, see, listen or experience.

Dev Matharia

Step 01: Finding content ideas

Now, I made a whole ebook about finding content ideas. If you are a small business owner looking to come up with content ideas that your customers and prospects would love, your search ends here.

I’ve created stupidly simple ways to come up with a ton of ideas in just a few hours. And the best part is that its unlimited. That means every time you run short of new content ideas, just open the book, do the exercise and voila!

Get your free ebook here.

If you can’t come up with unique content ideas, ideas that your ideal customers are talking about thinking about, worried about, then you can’t move to the next step.

Its not about any content idea, its about the right content ideas, the ones that will pay you back in the long run.

We’re all here to make some money. And especially you, you’re a small business owner, you want to sell your products and services.

If you choose not to use my free ebook, don’tcha worry my friend I got you covered. Here are some proven ways to come up with content ideas that work for your business:

• Make Google your best friend (even Bing or Yahoo or DuckDuckGo)
• Search for the keywords related to your business, the words that your ideal customers would search and you hope they find your product/service
• Make a big list of all keywords, look for suggestions from Google on related keywords and add them to your list
• Search for same keywords on Pinterest
• Make a list of all related keywords from Pinterest too (remember, Pinterest is a visual search engine and can massively help you in selling your product/service)
• This list is your list of content ideas that you can convert to content (you see, its not vague ideas, it’s the ideas that your potential customers are already searching for)

Step 02: Creating content

Wowza! Look at you. You came here looking for what is content creation and here you are, already rolling with a ton of content ideas. Isn’t it amazing? Didn’t I tell you content creation is easy, provided you have a great framework to follow. Let’s get to the highway now. This is the step that matters. This is what will define and present your business. Ready? Let’s roll, ninja!

Pick your content style

Don’t get bogged down by the endless types of content you can create for your business. Yes, you can definitely create a blog, social media posts, YouTube videos, Podcasts, TikToks and much more. But think about it. Do you really need to do that? Do you really need every single type of content? 

Probably not. Pick something that takes you the least amount of time to create and start with that. Pick something that you can be consistent with. Pick something that you can create for the next six months.

Choose the tools

No, you don’t have to be a pro writer or designer or editor to create great content. In today’s age of content marketing, anyone can create content with literally zero dollars of investment. My advice: start with something that takes the least amount of time to create, and costs you less. In essence, save on time and save on money.

Here’s a list of content creation tools you can explore by medium.

Create

Awesome! With just a handful of tools, you can create a ton of content without ever spending a penny. Really, all it takes is a well-researched content idea, a content creation tool you can easily handle and a content calendar. Voila! That’s it. You are all set to market your product/service and start getting your audience interested in what you have to offer.

Step 03: Content publishing

Bravo! You’ve done it, ninja! You have come up with relevant content ideas that work, created your content bank, and created your content too. Now what? Come on, give yourself a pat on the back and celebrate. This is the biggest roadblock for any business owner, creating content. And you just overcame that.

Well, now that you have the content arsenal, its time to share it with the right audience. Yes, the right audience. Not just any audience or else all the effort you made up here will be a waste of your invaluable time. As a business owner, time is your biggest currency and most of it should be utilized towards scaling up the business and not creating content.

You are a business owner, don’t turn into a content creator. Use the right strategy to create content that helps you sell.

Dev Matharia

Here’re the best platforms to publish your content for maximum exposure:

1. Facebook (use videos, stories)
2. Instagram (use Posts, Carousels, Reels, Stories)
3. Twitter (use Fleets)
4. Pinterest (redirect to blog)
5. LinkedIn (redirect to blog)
6. Blog (WordPress)
7. TikTok
8. SnapChat
9. YouTube
10. IGTV

There are multiple other platforms where you can publish your content. The key is to make those platforms work for you, for your goals. Everything you post, add a clear Call to Action or CTA. Always include a link to your main website (if applicable). Your ultimate effort when publishing content should be to redirect as much traffic as possible towards the platforms you own, where you sell, where you list your services. 

Here’re a few CTAs to consider:

Conclusion

• First, learn about everything that comes under content
• Second, use my ‘Unlimited Content Ideas Generator’ to come up with the right content ideas or use the alternate approach I recommend
• Third, download the content creation starter toolkit and decide on your preferred tool for creating content
• Create content
• Finally, publish the content on the right platform

That’s all folks! These three steps, ideation, creation, and publishing are the answer to what is content creation. From here, you can break them down into as many detailed steps as required, simplify, complicate or whatever it is you need to do for your business. But the basics remain. And that’s what you should intend to master as a small business owner. 

If you liked this post, don’t forget to leave a comment, share it with someone who would be all smiles to see this or leave a feedback. Did I miss something? What else do you want to know? Your feedback would mean the world to me.

PS: Part 1 of the content series ‘Everything about content creation: Basics’.