Creating social media content is one thing, but it's another to create content that does what's it's meant to - i.e engage! Content that is really valuable and interesting for your audience, that is fun and that connects and resonates with them, while being fun for you to create at the same time!

Sounds like a lot, but trust me - today's blog will help!

I'm going to dive into the fundamental human psychology behind content creation and give you lots of ideas for what kinds of content you can create to connect with your audience and build your book platform, business or brand.

Now, there is a lot of information in this blog so definitely read everything with a mindset of “How can I make this work for me?” or “How might I adapt this to work for me?’ to get the most out of it.

Before you begin any social media content creation strategy you MUST get really clear about two things:

1. Want do you want to say? (i.e. What do you stand for?)

2. Who you want to connect with?

This here could be a whole blog all it's own!

Really getting clear about what you want to share and who you want to share it with will mean you are better able to create a social media strategy that is focused and cohesive. This makes everything you're doing more charged and clear - whether for your target audience or for other people who don't fall in to your main demographic.

Trust me on this and do take the time to answer those questions.

Next is a huge key to audience connection:

It's about the principal modes of learning. Basically, we all learn in different ways and there are 3 key modes of learning: visual, auditory and kinesthetic.

These are pretty self-explanatory – we learn by watching how something is done (visual) or we learn by listening to an explanation of how something is done (auditory) or we learn by doing something ourselves (kinesthetic).

Obviously, we learn through a mix of all 3 of these modes of learning, but ordinarily each of us is more dominant in one than the others.

For example, my preferred mode of learning is auditory. I’m a musician and songwriter so that probably stands to reason. I love to put on a training video and then do something like clean a room or something. I don't bother watching the training, but I find that when my body is focused on a robotic task like tidying up my brain really focuses intently on what I am listening to and I learn really well.

@@Do you know what your preferred mode of learning is?@@

You may be wondering how this relates to content creation...

Well, it means that it’s important to create a few types content so you can connect with the widest possible amount of your audience. This serves the duplicate purpose of providing variety and a demonstration of your authority in relation to your topic.

So what types of content can you create to connect with your audience?

Some examples of Visual content are...

· Video clips of interviews or demonstrations or similar

· Photographs (or yourself or of something that is meaningful to you or your audience)

· Infographics

Some examples of Auditory content are...

· Video clips with audio

· Podcast interviews or interview clips

· Meditations

Some examples of Kinesthetic content are...

· Quizzes

· Polls/Surveys

· Fillable PDFs

Since this is a writing site, let’s talk about how you might create content for your audience if you are a writer…

Ideas for Visual content

· Video interviews with an author you respect or a clip of yourself speaking about your writing process

· Photographs of yourself writing or doing something relevant to what you write about (for example hiking if you write about something health related)

· Infographics (Here's an infographic I created, “6 Simple Steps to Kick-Ass Heart-Centered Writing”, which you can download for free.)

Ideas for Auditory content

· A clip from a podcast interview with you or someone you admire

· A meditation if that is relevant to what you do and write about

Ideas for Kinesthetic content

· Quizzes (Especially related to your topic)

· Polls/Surveys (Ask your audience what types of information or content they most need from you)

· Fillable PDFs (Here's a fillable PDF I created, “Book Creation – A Simple Step-By-Step Strategy ”, which you can download for free.)

The Rule of 7.

Lastly, I want to mention "The Rule of 7" which you may be familiar with as a Marketing and Investing term. I’m not sure who came up with this, but the key idea behind it is that we need to be exposed to something (for example: a piece of content) 7 times before we take action on it.

I definitely notice that phenomenon in myself. The more I see something pop up in my Facebook feed, for example, the more my curiosity is piqued and when I've noticed it a few times I am more likely to click on it or sign up or whatever the case maybe.

So, the rule of 7 is all the more reason for you to not only create a variety of content, but to be consistent in creating and sharing.

What it's all about!

This is all the tip of the iceberg, but really when you are creating content to share, the intention is generally twofold:

1. To share, generously and truthfully, what really means to you in the world.

2. To create connection with your audience. You may want to inspire your audience or educate your audience or share about someone else’s valuable work with your audience or promote or sell to to your audience. Ultimately, all of that is about connection.

Connection begins with sharing and you can share in a way that is in integrity with who you are.

For example, selfies are a wonderful way for your audience to feel connected with you. They get to see your face, to get a sense of the person you are sharing selfies is a really effective way to connect with your audience.

Some people hate selfies, through. If you're one of them, don’t feel under pressure to take them. Much better to share something that is really meaningful to you, for example a picture of something you are reading at the moment that you love or you could write your favorite word of the day on a piece of paper and take a picture of that and post it.

Trust that your audience, your true audience, will appreciate and resonate with what is meaningful to you.

There’s so much more to all of this that I can share with you, but hopefully this has been a great start for you and is really helpful!

Try it! See how it feels, watch your results and you can always make changes.

Last of all today... I want to remind you that this is the last week for you to claim a full $100 off my “Write Your First Book - VIP Intensive”. This is crazy value because not only will you get a 90 minute session with me, you will also get a detailed eBook/Workbook “Build Your Author Platform’ and a detailed PDF, “Self Publishing vs Traditional Publishing”. Both of these are only available through the “Write Your First Book - VIP Intensive”.

In addition to that I will be increasing the price on the 1st February.

So if you want to write your book in 2018 and you want to claim $100 off my “Write Your First Book - VIP Intensive” check that out HERE.

As always, thank you for being here at My Message Is Love!

Happy Writing,

Aoife

P.S. Here's that link again for the $100 off my “Write Your First Book - VIP Intensive” but this is ONLY available throughout January 2018. So do check that out HERE.