There are four main purposes for creating content: 1) Audience building and Engagement. 2) Relationship and Network Building, 3) Thought Leadership, and 4) Organic Reach and SEO. Any of these CAN lead to sales, but none of them have to.

Audience Building and Engagement

This is one of the most common reasons to get into content creation. You make the content, get it into the world, people see it and like it, and join your list or buy your stuff! If you’re starting from scratch, you'll be on the Audience part before the Engagement part – which means getting your content in front of as many people as possible. On the engagement side, you already have an audience and are giving them something to enjoy, learn from, and talk about.

Now, Audience Building and Engagement is a good reason to create content. But if you don't have the audience, expect to invest a bit of time building it. This doesn’t make sense for all businesses. And that’s fine. There are other reasons to create content!

Networking and Relationship Building

This is where you create content that puts you directly in touch with other people, either during or after creation. Interview podcasts are a great example! You need to interview people to have episodes to air, and so you’re effectively using the podcast as a tool to open doors and meet people. You’ll see the same kind of effect in a round-up blog post, or when you create a virtual summit.

Thought Leadership

A lot of people want to be thought leaders. And you know what? A lot of people are. Being a thought leader in your content means that you have something new in an industry where things seem almost entrenched, slow to change, or on the wrong path. In other words, focusing on your own thoughts, opinions, knowledge and expertise in what you publish.

Organic Reach and SEO

People use search engines to find information – and a staggering amount of search requests are totally unique. That means no one has ever typed them into Google before.  But if you don't have content out there, then you'll never by found by people searching for you! When you have a lot of content, you’re *going* to get more search – but you’re also going to have resources for your clients when they have questions. Demonstrations of how well you know your area of expertise, and mountains of content to draw on when it comes time to repurpose content for new initiatives like books, courses and podcasts.

Broadly speaking, most of your content should be in one of the first three categories, and also doing number 4 – SEO and Reach. It’s absolutely fine to shake it up, of course, or even use different channels for different purposes, but for the most part – pick a real goal, and stick with it.

Which strategy is best for you? There are a lot of variables that go into this kind of decision – but the key takeaway is to be consistent with the purpose for the content on each channel.

Your Action Step for this Episode is to think about your goals as a business. Are you looking to generate more business? Do you need to elevate your brand? Do you need better organic search? Do you have an audience craving more connection with you?

Whatever your most immediate goal is - think about the kind of content that will help you achieve it!

Make it easy to decide:

If you like this episode and want some more details about how to choose the right content for YOUR business, check out this handy infographic we made to simplify which content is best for which revenue-generating goal!