7 purposeful goals to create your own content
If you’re not creating content for one of these reasons, you might be wasting creative energy.
Everyone creates content these days. It’s free to start a blog. Anyone can make a social media account, and you can find a podcast or YouTube channel on pretty much anything.
If you want to create your own content (or you’re already creating original content), what’s your reason? What do you hope to accomplish with your content? What goal are you striving toward?
Content should educate, entertain, convert, or inspire. Above all else, your content should engage your audience. How it engages is completely up to you. If you’re not aiming for one of these goals, then why are you creating content?
Knowing why you create content can help you:
Focus on your purpose for creating
Come up with new content ideas
Set reasonable content goals
Re-centre your creative energy
Here are some compelling reasons to create content for your audience.
1. Spread awareness
People will pay attention if you can say it first and say it well. They will look to you to learn the latest trends. Creating content that spreads awareness builds anticipation and trust between you and your audience.
If your goal is to increase awareness, make sure you cite your sources and get your facts straight. If you’re unsure about the future of your subject, be honest about it. Share your thoughts and invite your audience to join you on the journey. People value transparency above most anything else.
2. Provide deeper understanding
Clarity is a compelling reason to create content because some topics are complex. Think about content revolving around insurance, legal matters, or scientific discoveries.
If you can explain complex topics in simple language, your followers will enjoy what they can learn from you. They’ll come back to learn more. Clear content is easily understood, remembered, and shared — that leads to free advertisement!
If your audience is already an expert, how can you take their understanding to the next level? Make sure you consider your typical follower, so you don’t waste time explaining elementary topics or risk “speaking down” to them with your explanations.
3. Offer unique insight
Very few content creators have new things to say. Content is often recycled and retold with a twist. (Just don’t plagiarize!)
Knowing this, how can you shed new light on a familiar subject? No one has your story, background, and insider experience. How can these elements help you offer unique insight? Then ask yourself why you’re the best authority to share these insights. Build your case as a thought leader from there.
Sharing a new angle can challenge your readers to think differently and stimulate engaging conversations.
4. Solve a problem
People like easy solutions for their problems. Can you offer the best, quickest, or simplest solution to a real, actual problem your audience faces? Can you back up your solution with a promise? How about offering it for free?
If you want to catch your audience’s attention, focus on the solution right away. Lead with the outcome in your headline to build interest immediately. Content that offers a promise will intrigue your followers. If you deliver well, your audience will grow to trust you.
Great content creators will tell you that you can never give away too much information for free. The more generous you can be with your insights, the more your audience will trust you and look to you as their go-to resource.
5. Uplift and entertain
Clickbait is the worst, but if you can take a boring subject and give it an entertaining twist, readers will remember you for your clever content.
If humour and wit lead your content strategy, people will love to follow you for the positive vibes.
When readers see you in their feed, they know a surprise is ahead or maybe a good laugh. The more your content can release those happy endorphins in people’s brains, the more your audience will want to engage with your posts and hear what you have to say.
6. Build a community
If building relationships, growing your following, or creating your fanbase is your goal to create content, great! As you attune to your audience’s needs, you can shape a welcoming space for followers to join and feel at home.
Your content can beckon readers to interact, whether by dropping a comment or sharing their email with you, as a way to continually build your community.
If you’re not sure what to share next, just ask your community! Use the network you’ve already built to your advantage. They would be happy to share.
7. Increase demand
You might create content to increase demand for a product you love, a brand you adore, or a cause you endorse.
However, your content should never sound ‘salesy’. Here’s the trick. If you want to sell a product or get buy-in for a brand or service, you need to emphasize its benefits. What will the reader gain from downloading your ebook, signing up for your webinar, or handing over their credit card? What will they lose if they don’t?
If you want people to get involved or to make a purchase, ask them. Tell them how it will change their lives forever for the better.
Why do you create content?
Are you a forward thinker who shares the latest trends?
Do you explain complex topics so the average person can understand and feel empowered?
Does your content solve a problem and provide a solution with a promise?
Do you like motivating or entertaining your audience with surprises?
Does your content build a family of like-minded followers?
Are you increasing demand for something that people need?
The best part is, your goals for creating are unique to you! Your reasons might switch with each piece you create, but knowing what goal drives your work is what’s most important.
Once you know your why for creating content, you can remember your purpose for creating, brainstorm content ideas more easily, and set reasonable content goals. Your why can recenter your creative energies and keep you creating for a long time.
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