In a technological age where creating content plays a huge role in a business’ day-to-day, it’s highly important to consider your personal creative process and be able to fit it with business goals and expectations of the content. This takes learning and unlearning of what works and what doesn’t for you, your business, and your audience.
Here are some considerations to think about when taking on the creative tasks of developing and/or curating content:
DO: Put All Ideas on the Table
Brainstorm and take note of any and all ideas you have. Even the “bad” ideas set the tone to help you figure out what content will generate the most success for both you, as the creator, and the business.
DON’T: Overwhelm Yourself
Ultimately, even if you have a million ideas at once, the ones to keep in mind are the ones that add the kind of value you and your business are aiming for. It’s important to remember your own limits in order to refresh your mind to overcome obstacles like burnout or creative blocks.
DO: Organize Your Thoughts and Ideas
You’ll want to build up a pile creative content for future content pieces. Starting your brainstorm with more general ideas and moving toward the specifics can help make the path a lot more clear moving forward. For example, setting up your content on a timed basis (weekly, monthly, etc.) with themes or overarching topics can help provide some kind of structure or creative foundation to build your future ideas off of, as opposed to trying to pull ideas out of thin air at the last minute all the time.
On the other hand…
DON’T: Forget to Trust Your Instincts
There will be times when an amazing idea just comes to you, so don’t underestimate the power that can come from that. Sometimes the best ideas start with an epiphany and that’s awesome. If the content meets the needs and goals of the business and its success, don’t hesitate to use it.
DO: Re-purpose Your Content
If you did it correctly, the original content you’ve already created can be adapted to suit the future content gaps you want to fill in, or take the opportunity to reiterate messaging that’s important for your business and your audience. Remember who is consuming your content and listen to what they want and what value it adds for them. That’s how you can determine what content you may want to repurpose.
DON’T: Force Ideas on Yourself or Your Brand
Feeling the need to constantly pump out brand new content all the time can turn out to be quite unproductive. While viewers, readers, audiences, and consumers want and expect consistency, you, as a content creator, are not a robot. The idea of coming up with new content all the time is a lot less complicated than the actual creative process.
DO: Think About Your Audience
Try to create content with a specific person in mind. If an ideal audience member’s name doesn’t fit with it, keep trying until it makes sense.
DON’T: Hesitate to straight up ask the people what they want to learn from you
The quickest way to figure out what is going to resonate with your audience is to get out there and ask. Better yet, give them a few choices “this” or “that”. Instagram story polls work great for this one. Easy for people to respond, is content itself, and gives you a better idea of what you can create next.
The creative process is different for everyone. Don’t be discouraged when finding yourself in times of an idea drought. Think about all the ways you get yourself into a creative mindset and use the obstacles as motivation to figure out what it is you want people to get out of that content and how they’re going to get it.