5 Questions for Endless Content
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In today's issue, I'm going to show you one way to create 5 pieces of content from 1 idea.
If you can learn to implement this technique, you'll immediately see a few benefits:
- More content
- Faster content
- More diversified content
- Content that makes sense together
By following this 5-question process, you're more likely to stay consistent and on message.
Unfortunately, most people don't have a system for squeezing out different content from one idea. Because of that, they talk about several ideas and confuse their readers.
They end up saying 1,000 different things, 1 way. You want the opposite.
Learn to say 1 thing 1,000 different ways.
The best creators on the internet are able to take their content and push it through a number of different lenses to make everything seem "new".
Today, I'll show you an exercise that you can go through by asking yourself 5 different questions:
- What can I teach someone?
- What did I observe during the journey?
- How is this different than what others say?
- What tools or lessons can I share in list form?
- Why did all of this happen?
I'm going to show you how I wrote 5 Tweets in two days, all based on one idea, and then published them over the course of 7 months.
Let's dive in.
Question 1: What can I teach someone?
My favorite content is educational.
People love to learn how to tactically do something they've always wanted to do.
Many people come to me and ask, "How did you build out your business over the last 3 years?"
So, I started by writing my flagship Tweet thread, which breaks down how I did it over 14 steps.
Question 2: What did I observe during the journey?
After writing "step-by-step" content, I like to think through all of the interesting observations I've made during that journey.
One observation I had was that a lot of solopreneurs were attempting to build online courses before they even worked with clients.
So, I decided to share an observation about how I believe it's better to build a service business first. So, next came this Tweet:
Question 3: How is this different than what others say?
Observations are one thing, but presenting a contrarian viewpoint is another way to stand out.
This is often called creating "non-obvious" content.
Most content that you read online is super obvious. "Sales is hard", "Networking is good", "Treat people nicely", etc., etc., etc.
If you want to stand out, try bringing a contrarian viewpoint to the table. And to do so, you don't need to say "unpopular opinion". You can just state your viewpoint.
One of the most common pieces of advice is to go "all-in" on your business. To not have a "plan B". I flip this because it's what I believe in:
Question 4: What tools or lessons can I share in list form?
Sure, building my business past $1.3M was an interesting story, but what were some things related to that build, that I could list out for my audience?
The first thing I thought of was the different tools I use to support my business.
And since the first Tweet thread did well, I used a similar opening Tweet but listed the tools instead.
Then I updated the revenue number before publishing.
Question 5: Why did all of this happen?
The last question I ask myself is not how I did it, what tools I used, or what I observed, but...WHY did this all happen?
The answer for me is a pretty simple one: I started writing online.
That led to another really simple, short Tweet thread about how I write online.
And that's it.
TL;DR
5 questions to ask yourself around 1 idea:
- What can I teach someone?
- What did I observe during the journey?
- How is this different than what others say?
- What tools or lessons can I share in list form?
- Why did all of this happen?
If you want to set up a content system that consistently and predictably produces 1 newsletter and 6-12 pieces of unique content each week, then join 6,000 other students in my course, The Content Operating System.
Whenever you're ready, there are 4 ways I can help you:
1. The Creator MBA: Join 4,700+ entrepreneurs in my flagship course. The Creator MBA teaches you frameworks for building a lean, focused, and profitable Internet business.
2. The LinkedIn Operating System: Join 30,000 students and 70 LinkedIn Top Voices inside of The LinkedIn Operating System. This comprehensive course will teach you the systems I used to grow to 675K+ followers and be named The #1 Global LinkedIn Influencer 5x in a row.
3. The Content Operating System: Join 11,000 students in my multi-step content creation system. Learn to create a high-quality newsletter and 6-12 pieces of high-performance social media content each week.
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