We’ve now got our messaging in place and some basic content pillars sketched out.

Now it’s time to get to the actual work of creation - taking the message and getting it out into the world.

Let’s get started:

✍️ Summary

Turning on the creative machine

• Choosing your platform

• Choosing your format

• Preview of our repurposing machine

We are now taking our messaging (from the last Part) and broadcasting it into the world.

To do this we use content marketing.

Content marketing is obviously a big topic! I’ve got multiple Playbooks on various aspects of content marketing. I’ll link them in where relevant.

For this Part we want tom make two big decisions that, once made, make the rest of the process simpler.

Namely:

• Choice of platform

• Format

Choice of platform

Ultimately you need to be where you customers are.

Importantly, not people like you necessarily. But your customers.

For example my peers are on X/Twitter. But my customers are on Tiktok and LinkedIn.

You need to identify where exactly your customers hang out.

Before you can do this you obviously need to know who your customers actually are. If you don’t have any yet it’ll be an iterative process and you’ll be able to hone in on your ideal customer over time.

A shortcut though is looking at competitors or, more accurately, other people and companies who service your market already. Research the biggest creators and find their accounts on multiple platforms.

You’ll start to notice that they’ll all have a primary platform and then smaller less active platforms. For me for example my primary is Tiktok but I have content on every other platform - more on this shortly.

You need to identify where there’s already a groundswell of interest in your subject. This will be your primary platform.

Competitive concerns?

Worried about the competition? That’s fair. It’s scary when you see creators who have been doing this for years and the sort of audience figures they have.

Remember though that they were once where you are today. We all start somewhere.

A useful exercise is to look at their first videos or posts. Chances are they’ll be rubbish. Everyone is!

Remember also that these people are not necessarily competitors. They only are if you see them that way. Otherwise they are people you can cooperate with and create together with.

I’ve met loads of friends via social media, creators that should be “competitors” but because we have a similar vibe we instead work together.

Also, and this is a bigger point: finding no competition is a bad thing. Competition means that the market exists.

If you find that no-one is talking about the topics you want to there are two alternatives: i) you’ve stumbled across a rare blue ocean, devoid of competition or ii) people have tried to build an audience and business here but the market didn’t exist.

The latter is much more likely.

That’s “market risk” - the fact that the market doesn’t exist or isn’t large enough to support businesses.

I’d always choose to tackle competitor risk over market risk anyway. Competitors we can work with (or against!) whereas if a market doesn’t exist your business is dead in the water before it starts.

Choice of format

Your next big decision is the vehicle for delivering your message.

There are only a handful of options here realistically:

• short form writing (X/Twitter + other social media platforms)

• long form writing (blogs, newsletter)

• audio (podcasts)

• short form video (Tiktok + other social media platforms)

• long form video (Youtube)

• live video (Twitch and Youtube)

Yes there things like Clubhouse, X Spaces and Airchat. There will always be new formats. But the list above are the ones that have been around for a while and will (according to the Lindy effect) stick around. By all means play with the new formats but don’t build a business on them.

All of the above formats also seep between the different platforms too. Increasingly all the platforms borrow from one another and allow you to post in different formats to their “primary” format. It’s all a little grey.

If I had my druthers you’d go for short form video.

It’s the most effective and easiest to build an audience with quickly.

It’s also one of the most difficult because it requires you to get on camera, hone your communication skills and be vulnerable.

This means a lot of people don’t do it - even though it’s the most effective format. Know what I call that? Opportunity.

Basically all the major platforms are pushing hard on short video right now. Why? Because that’s what their users want! So…give it to them.

You can build your audience and thus creator business using any of the formats of course but short video will give you the fastest results.

Here’s a part 1 of a Prompt Playbook all about it: Short video Playbook.

Saving grace

Here’s a big bonus of starting with video- you can repost and repurpose it to multiple platforms. This makes your choice of platform above less critical.

The first step here is reposting. Once I shoot a video I make sure it goes to all the other platforms that accept video. That gives me more reach immediately.

The second step is repurposing.

Video is the richest format in terms of information. It has both image and audio. And because it’s spoken it allows you to deliver information much faster than if you were writing.

This sheer density allows you to change your video content into lots of other formats.

This is an intricate process. I personally take longer videos and chop them into short videos which are posted. Then the short videos are transcribed into text posts. And the text posts are converted into graphics.

Here’s a part 1 of a playbook as it’s a complex process! Video repurposing Playbook.

First get started

The above is an outline of the entire process, complete with additional Playbooks for reference.

Obviously there’s a lot there.

Right now though your task is much simpler. It’s just to start creating.

In particular it’s to choose a topic from your content pillar and just shoot a first short video and post it on your platform of choice. That’s the only step. The rest comes later!