You know that creating content can make a big difference in your business or organisation, but the thought of creating it is daunting.

When you’ve tried content creation in the past, it’s turned into an all-day endeavor, and ain’t nobody got time for that!

I want to ease your fears, help you work through some problems and give you a few easy ways to quickly create and repurpose content.

So let’s get creative and get started!

Problem #1: Constantly creating content is draining and requires a never-ending supply of ideas. Where will I get ideas about what to create?

It’s hard to constantly think of something new and fresh to serve to your audience. Sometimes you put a lot of energy and effort into an idea only for it to flop. Where are you supposed to get a never-ending flow of ideas?

Solution #1: Maintain a never-ending supply of inspiration to fuel your content creation

1. Create a notebook, where you can brain dump every time you get a new idea or get inspired by something you see. It may be a TV commercial, an Instagram post or something you see on Pinterest. And don’t worry, if pen and paper aren’t your thing, opt for an app like Notes or Evernote to capture your thoughts. This will allow you to borrow from yourself when you feel uninspired. (I did a lot of borrowing from myself when I wrote my book, Fish Food).
2. Keep a collection of articles from complementary brands that you know will interest your audience. Some of the articles can be curated and shared directly with your audience on social media and others can be used to inspire you to develop a new article idea
3. Keep a collection of articles and inspiration from brands that are totally outside of your area. If you’re a doctor, read an architecture blog. If you’re a childcare professional, delve into science. Give yourself permission to dive down a few rabbit holes.
4. Foster your curiosity. Instead of telling your inner child to be quiet, encourage him (or her) to pipe up and express curiosity. See where your curiosity takes you. Write down any inspirations you have in your notebook so you can explore those ideas later.
5. Similar to the idea we discussed in my article It’s Not Too Late to Start Your Online Business, visit sites like Quora.com, Answerthepublic.com, related Reddit threads and Facebook groups to see what questions people in your area of speciality are asking so you can create content that answers those questions.

Problem #2: It’s hard to stare down a blank sheet of paper and create something out of nothing

Some people are understandably intimidated by a blank sheet of paper. Creating something, when you’re starting with nothing can be overwhelming. How can we make the content creation process easier?

Solution 2: Find easy ways to create content

1. Understand what you’re trying to achieve with your content and it will be easier to understand what to create.
2. Record a voice memo of your ideas and then type them out or use a voice-to-type feature to help you get your ideas out of your head. Sometimes the hardest part is capturing your thoughts.
3. Use Post-It Notes to write down your ideas and organize your thoughts. Rearrange the Post-Its until you have a piece of content that makes sense.
4. Before you create a piece of content, decide what you want people to do or the main idea you want them to walk away with. Keep that in mind as you start outlining the content
5. If you’re recording a video, do it with a plan. Decide what you’ll say and plan out the scenes. You’ll save so much time and make the process so much faster
6. One of my favorite ideas is to get a whiteboard that you use to brain dump. The bigger the whiteboard the better. Use it to organise your ideas, write down inspirations and use it to “steal” ideas from yourself when you start creating
7. After you’ve organized your ideas, connect the ideas to create an outline, then fill out the skeleton of the article with content and make a comprehensive article. Use the article to create multiple pieces of content. (You can learn more about this process in my article, “How to Turn an Article into Multiple Pieces of Content”

Problem #3: Constantly creating content is time consuming.

Creating content can be mentally draining, and it can take complete days on end. I know, as I sit here and write multiple articles that I know will serve my community (I’m talk about you!)

Solution #3. Find time-saving methods of creating multiple pieces of content at once

I’m not going to lie to you. Creating content can be time-consuming – says the woman who’s spending loads of time writing this article for you. But looking back, I can see that I haven’t always been the most efficient when creating content. I now know there are ways to take my investment of time and multiply it many times over the get the most out of my content creation.

1. Batch create your work
2. Repurpose content
3. Use a content calendar
4. Ask a friend or family member or anyone you can afford to help you
5. Find ways to collaborate with other people so you can create more options for content.

Problem #4: How do I know my audience will be interested in what I’m creating and that they’ll engage with it?

One of our fears as content creators is that we’ll invest an enormous amount of time in creating a piece of content that people won’t engage with because they’re not interested

Solution #4: Create content that directly aligns with your audience’s expressed needs and have a plan to promote it

Using some of the methods we mentioned above, you will realise the needs of your audience and be able to create content that will interest them. This isn’t to say that sometimes, even after your best research, that ideas won’t flop – sometimes they will. But you’ll be able to go in the right direction when you do your research first.

Secondly, having a plan to promote the content you create is very important! We’ll give you more details on how you can do this in a future article, but for now, learn the content promotion rule. You should spend 20% of the time creating content and 80% of the time promoting the content.

Problem #5: I’m a perfectionist so it’s hard for me to get content out because I want it to be the best quality possible

It’s understandably hard for you to get content out of the door. It has to be exactly right because it’s representing you and your brand.

Solution #5: Create systems to create quality work so you’re staying true to your standards and getting things out the door efficiently.

It’s totally understandable that you want your content to be as perfect as possible because it represents you and your brand. However…however (and hear me clearly here)

If having an exacting standard is getting in the way of you ever pushing any content out the door, then your perfectionism isn’t serving you, you’re serving it.

With many types of online content, you can correct the content that’s been posted if you need to. Also, you’ll never improve the quality of your work if you don’t put it out and allow yourself to improve upon it.

A few things you can do to address this problem is to:

1. Develop a series of quality checks for content so you know when you’ve finished the checks, you know the content is ready to go out the door
2. Engage help – paid, friend, family or volunteer. Getting a second set of eyes to look something over is one of the quickest ways to do a quality check. They’re not emotionally attached to the work and they’ll be completely honest with you.
3. Have a schedule when you want things to go out. This will create some boundaries and expectations for yourself to get things out the door.

How to get people to see your content

Okay, now that you know some ways to efficiently create content, you may be wondering how to get people to see your content?

I’ve come up with 50 ways to build your audience from scratch with no money.

If it sounds too good to be true, it’s not. The only thing you need for this list to work is a little bit of hustle! So, click the button below to download “50 Ways to Find Your Audience from Scratch”.

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