Why should anyone consume your content?

This is why people are not hooked to your content

It’s May 2020, and over 60% of the world’s populace is on the internet. Usually, when online, there are three groups of people you will find with regards to content: those creating, those curating, and the ones consuming.

As with most things in life, the ones creating will always be smaller in terms of numbers to the ones curating and consuming. However, we’re in the social media age where people send a tweet or image of what is happening or videos around things they think about just because they can; and that my friend is CONTENT.

For added context, 527,760 photos are shared on Snapchat; 511,200 tweets, 55,140 photos on Instagram, and 752,314 messages on WhatsApp and these do not include blog posts, email newsletters, videos uploaded to YouTube and other VOD sites. Consequently, over 2.6 billion individual pieces of content are shared on the internet every day.

With 4.54 billion internet users globally dealing with the choice that comes with content overload, the question is “why should anyone interact with your content for the first time, and more importantly why should they keep coming back?” becomes very significant.

What does your content give that they can’t find in any other place?

We put together this article because we’ve noticed the surge in content creation over the last two months, no thanks to the coronavirus, and we’re also aware of the time and effort it takes to produce excellent content. No one wants to put in the work without seeing the results, and essentially that is what happens when you spend time creating content no one interacts with.

By highlighting some of the things you might be doing wrong, we hope to help you think through ways you can create better content.

It’s just another me-too piece: For the most part, what we see when people are churning out content is they have gone and researched other people’s works and re-written it, or maybe changed the colour of the graphics without actually changing the content. As a creator, before pushing out new material, ask yourself, “what am I adding to what is already existing? Is it an extra bit of information, updated stats or breaking it down so more people can understand?” If you can’t find anything different or can’t figure out a way to elevate what’s already in existence, you’re better off not creating.

You’re focusing on the design, not the content: This might be a hard pill to swallow, especially when we think aesthetic is everything. However, if you look through the internet, you see more people focusing on what the content looks like a lot more on the value of the material itself, which is counterproductive. In reality, if people found your content useful, they will connect with it, share and come back for more regardless of aesthetics. Look at Mark Angel Comedy (YouTube) and Gary Vee (Instagram)

You’re trying to be many things to many people at the same time: Knowing who you’re talking to will help your content creation process. Are you speaking to someone who’s just starting in their career or someone who is a middle exec? Depending on who you’re targeting, the topics covered, and tone automatically changes.

You’re not part of the process: If content creation is just a job to you, you will probably struggle with it. Rather than view it from an “I need to create content” or “I need to post” point of view, you will make better content when you think about it like “it’s another day to help the people I create for; how can I do that/what do they need to know.”

Consistency – The person who became a “hit overnight” did not start working or creating overnight. Instead, they’ve spent countless hours putting in the work, and one of the things they created became popular, causing a ripple effect on the popularity of previously created content. It’s, however hard to know what will become popular and as such, your responsibility to keep creating useful content.

You’re treating your content as an individual piece as opposed to pieces that make up a puzzle: While content should be complete in itself, it should also be part of a whole. When you treat your materials this way, viewers are more likely to get “sunk in” as they keep consuming different things that are part of a whole, they are interested in.

People would only interact with things they find valuable, make sure your content is valuable to the people it’s intended for.