Create your own disciplined rhythm of Content Creation

Most successful content creators have some rhythm or schedule for creating & sharing content.

What about you? What is the discipline of content that you've committed to?

May this blog post encourage you and give you some guidance to create a consistent rhythm of content creation... 

One of the heroes of content is Seth Godin, who has consistently blogged every day for more than 10 years. If you look at his amazing archive of posts, it took 2 years of consistent blogging (2002-2004) before his posts began to find consistent fans and sharers.

It wasn't until about his 8th year of consistent blogging, that his blog starting getting popular! Today, he is known as one of the top leaders for how to do marketing and leadership in a generous way.

(By the way, it doesn’t have to take you 8 years. You can shorten the time by diligently doing your content creation and distribution!)

How might you have that kind of staying power? Don’t do it for the fame or money (yet). You’ll need internal reasons to keep going. For me, it’s about growing my creativity, practicing expressing myself publicly, and simply the benefits of discipline.

What about your purposes for creating content? (If you have my book, Authentic Content Marketing, re-read the chapter about the Purposes of Content.)

Here is the key discipline to create:

Practice a consistent rhythm of content creation.  

"Habits are cobwebs at first, cables at last." (Chinese proverb)

It may take some time (maybe weeks or months) to come to a personally sustainable routine of creating content, but keep experimenting and see what you can realistically commit to.

If you’re not sure, then my guidance is as follows:

• If you are serious about (1) growing your muscle of confident creativity (overcoming creative discomfort), (2) deepening and expanding your ideas more quickly, and (3) testing the market by offering more options, then I recommend that you start with a daily habit of content creation, whether that be writing, video, or podcast recording. 30-60 minutes a day should be enough. At this rapid rate, you don’t have to publish everything, but aim to publish at least 50% of what you create. And you can take the weekends off if you’d like, or whatever day(s) you rest from work each week.
   
• If you have your hands full already with a full-time job (or business) and/or caretaking for family, then commit to at least once a week publishing a blog post or video.

When I first committed to consistent content creation in 2015, my rhythm was simple:

• Each day Monday through Friday, I recorded a short video (3-5 minutes) and wrote a short blog post accompanying the video. At that time, I posted everything to my old Facebook Group, though starting 2016 I’ve been posting to my Facebook Page instead.
  
  
• I made the video before writing the blog post, because back then I was still dealing with writer’s block and it was easier for me to talk out my ideas, then summarize in writing what I had said in the video.

Once I made 100 videos and blog posts (took about half a year), I feel I had gotten into a rhythm of consistent creation, so I decided to focus a bit more on quality. Therefore, I switched to 3 videos/blog posts per week.

After about 3 years after starting to create content consistently, I started to focus more on re-purposing, instead of always creating new content, so now my rhythm is:

• 1 re-purposed blog post/video per week -- Tuesdays -- posted to my website blog, to Medium.com, Facebook (as a Live video), Youtube (the FB live video), Instagram (new live video), and on Linkedin and Twitter I post the links to my blog and my Youtube video.
  
  
• 1 brand new blog post/video per week -- Fridays -- sharing it to the same places as above.
  
  
• 2 additional social media posts per week -- Mondays and Thursdays --  that are previous blog posts which have been shortened, and these are posted to Facebook (text-only status update), Instagram (image quote with long caption), and the image quote is also posted to Youtube, Linkedin, Twitter, with a read more link to my Facebook post.
  
  
• On Mondays, my Newsletter goes out to my Email Subscribers. I keep my newsletter very simple: snippets of my blog posts with a link to read more. See samples here: www.GeorgeKao.com/Monthly

You don’t have to post in all the different social media channels. Just starting with Facebook can be enough.

Also, you can do planned breaks, such as several weeks of vacation where no content is created or posted, but let me warn you: it’s challenging to get back into it!

If you don’t yet have your own sustainable rhythm for consistent content, then get started right away to experiment with what might work. Then, be sure to allow your rhythm to change over time.  

Stick with your rhythm, until you feel the need to tweak it. Once you tweak it, stick with that new rhythm for awhile.

​Keep coming back to the purpose of your content so you can stay inspired... until your content rhythm becomes a habit.