As a creative business owner, you are always on the hunt for new content that will inspire and engage your community. But the truth is that regardless of how diligently you plan, things can go wrong, and you can find yourself in the midst of a content creation crisis.
So, what can you do when this happens?
Here are 6 tips you can use to prevent a content creation crisis:
Tip 1: Get to know your community
When you know your community members well, it’s much easier to create relevant and engaging content for them. It’s also much more likely that they will stick around because they know you are willing to create the content they want to see.
Tip 2: Be prepared
One of the best ways to prevent a content creation crisis to have a plan and be prepared. Make sure you set up your content calendar so that you always know what you need to create and when it needs to be published.
Tip 3: Be flexible
Pivoting has been a big thing in the last couple of years and being more flexible with the content you create – blog posts, social AND products is necessary to keep up with our current economy. So, if you feel like you’re in a content creation crisis, embrace being flexible and change up the content you offer your community.
One caveat here… don’t pivot so far out of the box that you lose your community in the process. Listen to what they’re telling you, and change things up in a way that meets both your needs and theirs.
Tip 4: Transparency can be a good thing
To quote a very popular poem by John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892), “When things go wrong and they sometimes will” then it’s important to be transparent with your community. Honesty and openness are a huge part of the know, like and trust factor, and your community wants to know you’re human too!
Tell them what happened, and why you’re changing up your content creation strategies.
Tip 5: Have a Plan B
Having a Plan B is essential when it comes to content creation. You want to know you have options in case something goes wrong so that you’re never left in the lurch for something to post. That’s where having an idea list comes in handy, because you can always choose something different, do create your content in a different format in a pinch.
Tip 6: Always be learning
It might sound cliché, but the best way to improve your content creation and avoid any crises is to always be learning, and to especially learn from your mistakes. And if you do find yourself in a content creation crisis, give yourself the time to reflect on what went right and what went wrong. Doing this helps you know what to do more of (the right stuff) and what you can do better next time.
Ruthie’s Pro Tip: Keep a record of what happened in your content crisis, the good, the bad, and how you resolved things in the end and you can turn that into a case study product that you can sell.
Final Thoughts
If you are a content creator, it’s a given that you are going to have creation crises just as a course of doing business. But, as you can see, there are things you can do to help you keep them to a minimum, and to alleviate them quickly. Planning ahead, being flexible and adaptable, and having a backup plan are all key to preventing a content creation crisis. Plus if you keep a record of what happened, you can not only learn from your mistakes, but turn it into a case study that helps others learn from your mistakes as well.
This is Part 10 in a 10-part series on Using Content in Your Marketing Strategy. Other posts in this series include:
- 7 Reasons to Make Content a Key Marketing Strategy for Your Creative Business
- 6 Good Reasons for Using a Content Calendar
- Got Creators Block? 5 Common Reasons Why This Might Happen to You
- 7 Tips For Getting to Know Your Community
- 7 Tips for Generating New Content Ideas
- 8 More Tips for Generating New Content Ideas
- Four Ideas for Creating a Content Idea List Using Data
- 8 Tips for Using Social Media to Gather More New Content Ideas
- Five Reasons to Outsource Content Creation
- 6 Tips to Prevent a Content Creation Crisis (this post)
