How to create content that people actually want to consume
Welcome to the future for campus industry Insider. Now we all heard the term content is king.
And since the world is shifting more and more online, having a strong online presence profile and a strong communication is getting more and more important, but the question is, where do we even start, and this is why I'm so excited to be joined today by Nina Christian who lives and breathes the content.
Funnily enough, we've actually met initially online based on her presence and her communication.
And then we've connected since then, also offline in person.
And this is also the power of you creating content.
Now, what I really love about Nina is her concept of using content in marketing to make it more human. And this is what we're going to talk also more about how can you use content to build your personal brand to be your authority and become the thought leader in your fees?
Now, with no further ado, I want to hand over to Nina, Nina, who are you? What do you do? And how did you get to where you are now?
Nina Christian:
Yeah, thank you. So good to be here, Petra, and Hi, everyone. It's great to be here. So I'm a marketer. And I've been a professional marketer for 25 years.
And I've had my own agency for 20 years of both. And I'm also very much active in the entrepreneur space. So I had my first con startup in 2000. And yes, so that in 2008, so while I'm a preface, professional marketer, and I'm the state Chair of the Australian Marketing Institute in Victoria, and I run a marketing agency, etc, I also understand the whole building your own business thing.
And I really love to transverse between this corporate and professional environment where I'm very at home with the grassroots digital entrepreneurship space as well. So, you know, in terms of agency, my agency is called Aveda, it's once a nice a world Ward's like Australian marketing agency of the year.
It's had in its iteration, because it's been 20 years, various evolutions, and big based on where the marketplace is, at the moment, there's actually a really heavy focus on content marketing, because that's an area that, you know, I believe, is the future of marketing.
So I've decided to go all in on that. And, and also taking that a step further, there were a lot of services that we were providing in the agency that were were great for businesses that could afford that. But the reality is, they're services that everybody needs to do in their life and work these days.
And, and so more and more, I've taken on that role of teacher and educator, empowering people for how to create their own content, but not just any content, because there is so much noise out there in the marketplace, it's actually content that's going to truly connect, and really cut through in an increasingly crowded place, and then be served a really strong strategic objective where that content has a purpose, and it actually lead some way.
So we'll talk more about that, because I'm very passionate, as you can see about all things content. But that's basically me in a nutshell, from a professional perspective.
Petra:
I love it. And I love your take on that you don't just create content for the sake of it and add more noise to this very noisy world already, but content that has a purpose. And that also connects with people. Now what exactly does make a good content strategy? Or how can we measure if we connect with somebody or not? Is it just the likes? Or the comments? Is it what is it?
Nina Christian:
Yeah, sure. So it's all of the it's all of the above and it really depends on what your your business objective is at like beginning year ago, like parent phrasing or quoting Stephen Covey beginning with the end in mind when it comes to content is so important.
And there is a time and place for just putting things out there when you don't know the end when you are just starting out.
And I'm sure we'll touch on that as well.
Because not everybody when they start out, has a clear idea of where they want to end up I know I didn't when I started building my personal brand more actively, and you have to go through various iterations to kind of find yourself and, and really discover who you are, who you are online and what you really want to do and things like that. But so there's a time place but by and large, when you're actually in a in a lane where you have a clear destination.
Having that picture of where you want to go helps you then to reverse engineer, what needs to happen for you to get there, which is aka your business goals and your business. strategic objectives.
Then from there you go get more how does how is marketing going to support that? And what is specifically content marketing. And if I mean, we're talking to people who are building brands, so presumably, you know, everyone here is likely focusing on organic marketing, and content probably makes up like 90%- 95% of organic marketing.
So when we talk about marketing, we really are talking about content, there's not a whole lot that sits outside of content, because you've either got, you're talking about content production, or content distribution, or something, and it's relating to content.
So even things that are not strictly content are leading to your content, like, you know, search, search engine or whatever else is going on.
Having an idea of where you want to go with your career, or your business or your personal brand, then helps you think, Okay, so what needs to happen for me to get there?
What are the stages I need to go through? And how can I craft content that is going to inch me forward, because like, and don't get me sad, I could talk all day on t
he fact that content marketing is extremely powerful, it's extremely effective, but it does take time, it's like growing a tree, you have to plant it, you have to water it, there's a bit of action under the soil there where nobody sees anything, you don't even see anything, you just have to have faith that it's growing.
And then one day, you start to see this little chute, and then it starts to grow. And then it starts to grow. It has kind of like your digital footprint, even if you're a personal brand. It's still a little while until it's these big, strong fruit tree that's actually bearing fruit.
And if you think of the fruit, like the commercial benefit, which is you know, your, your your dream career, or your dream business, or whatever it is, there's going to be that process to get there. And so content, the earlier you start planting the seats, the longer it's like compound interest, the longer you had for it to really work for you.
And that's the amazing thing about this digital footprint, it doesn't go away, like most of the time, we think of like, a time as something that's kind of we're working against.
But when it comes to content that flipped on its head, because con time actually works for you when it comes to content.
The earlier you can get it out there, obviously, obviously, the better.
So and the more focus or the clearer you are on your objectives. It will help you craft the right type of content that's going to get you there the quickest. And I'm sure you have some questions for me around that around what type of content will get you there the quickest?
Petra:
Yes, and I love that you mentioned you cannot start early enough because it's a compound effect. And especially now we are ruling people and we make up our mind based on what we see online. And if we like them or not away before we actually meet them.
And it goes also for getting in touch with them for in Korea, or for a job opportunity or for a speaking engagement or for a board role. Or for a business project, it doesn't matter, we already make up our mind if this person is for us, or this company or not.
Now, you also said you cannot start early enough, but especially if we've got the big, big goal. So for example, we are a marketing manager or a project manager, but we want to become a CMO or the program director. Yeah, what where do we start? Because we obviously can't necessarily talk about as if we were ready, but at the same time, we don't want to stay where we are now.
Nina Christian:
Yeah, absolutely. So there, if so let's take that example of a marketing manager, or you could replace marketing with any, you know, department, you know, marketing major HR who wants to then elevate in that career.
So one of the things that's going to impact obviously, on the opportunities that are available to you, your value or perceived value in the marketplace, is going to be your, your digital footprint.
And it's going to specifically impact the number of opportunities that are available to you.
So in the sense that you you can be the most awesome professional, and you can communicate that in a one to one environment, you are then only limited by the number of people that you can have that one on one conversation with and if you're talking in a career context, then it's going to be your recruiter or the jobs that you apply for all the jobs that you hear about, not the broader macro opportunities that certainly could come your way or that a very expensive network could introduce you to so how do you do that and position yourself as an authority as an up and coming person as someone that other people want to be connected with, without being kind of tacky, sleazy, self promotional, and I think we all hate that.
And that's why, you know, I love that picture said, Because something that I'm really big on is bringing the authentic and human back into marketing. I mean, in in my time, I've really, I feel like, you know, I've seen it all.
And a lot of it repulses me as well, in terms of, you know, but a lot of the tactics that I used, and they may have some short sighted benefits, but they don't serve for that long career, and that long, the long playing the long game.
And so when it comes to building your own brand, if you're especially if you're in a corporate role thinking, well, if I don't have a digital business, why should I be putting out content?
The thing is that you as a person, you need to treat yourself like a brand, you need to see your own future, your own career, your own value, as something that gets to be expressed in the marketplace. And so your content is an opportunity for you to do that.
Now, I'm just gonna want to rewind a little bit, and really break it down for people who've never done content creation before and who are thinking yet well, that's all well and good, but I have no idea how to create content.
Can I tell you that everybody sucks when they first start creating content?
Everybody's video is cringe.
Everybody is nervous the first time they press publish on an article.
I remember the first time I wrote an article, I was so nervous. I remember the first time I did a video, I was so nervous. You know, I got trolled on my very first time someone wrote a horrible comment on my first video, and it didn't take took me all morning to get the courage to do it. I think it put me off for about like a year before I had another crack at it.
But the there's a saying and it couldn't be true, you have to be prepared to be bad at something in order to be good at it. And understand that it's going to be tough, those first few months of creating content, but he's what you're going to learn, you're going to learn what not to do. And anything that doesn't go your way that is not a smashing success. don't see it as a failure.
Just see it as something that you now know, doesn't work. Or you've just put that down to experience. I do it all the time. Like I'm a professional content creator. I'm always experimenting every week. And sometimes I'll just do something. And I just want to see what happens. Sometimes I followed like a proven formula, and it works. But if I do that all the time, I will get stale. I need to experiment, I need to push the boundaries, I need to evolve and see what's coming next.
So for you, if you're starting out, understand you just going to start some way and key is going to be working out. Ideally what you want to talk about and that doesn't have you don't have to overanalyze it when you're just starting. Because the the key in this is to give yourself an outlet to find your voice.
Once you start to find your voice, it will become easier, and it doesn't really matter. Initially, what you're talking about the fact that you're talking will allow things that you are naturally passionate about naturally good at the things that your audience will resonate with to come through.
I would advise people when they are completely new and not you know don't have a particular you know, end goal and they just are starting out is to find something that you're good at something that you enjoy talking about and something that you think is going to help people and stick around that and work out what mode of communication is going to come most naturally to you in the beginning.
If you've never created content before, if written is the most comfortable stick with written first and then later on look at something else.
If going on a video is easiest for you do that and again, you know be prepared for all of these to suck at it before you get good.
If audio is is your thing, you know there are a lot of great professionals who are doing podcasts now and they could be about professional things they could be about, you know personal things. A lot of it is also about getting that confidence. going and getting that art and that skill around communication going.
So when you're first starting out, the, the fact that you're doing it is almost more important than what you're actually doing. And then through the doing, you'll start to get the clarity.
That will help you shape as you're observant, and you lean into what works and you lean into what feels good. And you lean into what people comment that you're naturally good at, you start to get more clarity. And if you do it consistently for three to six months, then before you know it, you will be a competent content creator.
Petra:
Everyone starts somewhere, but most people give up because after the second process, you don't have all the thousands of likes and engagement. But that doesn't happen. Is there any tips or tricks or tools that we can actually get more engagement on our own post?
Nina Christian:
Yep, definitely. Um, you just asked me about my favorite topic, which is how do you create content that people actually like to consume?
And it's, it's really not that complicated, but a lot of people miss it. Okay.
So there's three types of content, there's content that educates, there's content that entertains. And there is the third type of content, which is the content that transforms.
Now, education, it's, you know, that very, very broad, but it's basically putting out information, and it's fine, it's a great place to start, because like I said, you need to start exercising the muscle. But the holy grail of good content creation is something that can affect some sort of transformation in the reader or audience, because and the thing is that, and this is the most exciting part, that transformation does not even have to be huge, it can be tiny.
But if it is some sort of movement forward movement in the direction that that person wants to go in, they will attribute that forward motion to you and what you said and what you did. And there will be an
it's almost like this, some unexplainable connection between you and them, because your content was the one that actually inspired them to think differently, do things differently, take that first step. And it doesn't have to be a physical action, it could be to see something in a new way, oh, I never thought of that before. Ah, that person's content enlighten me. So then your content is, you know that that principle of reciprocity is attributed as being the catalyst for your new horizons being opened.
And saying, you know, you can hear the particular you can eat information about the need to do something or the importance to do something of doing something like for hours and hours and days and days.
But I guarantee you, it's that one post, or that one person or that one podcast, or that one inspirational thing that just grabbed you and flip the switch and actually got you to do it, you remember that moment. So you can't always guarantee if that your content is going to be that moment for someone else. But what you can do is greatly increase the chances of that, by always having those lenses on whenever you approach content is how is this serving the reader or the viewer, a consumer of this content is this something that if they stop and listen or read is going to have a good chance of helping to move them somehow further on their journey, giving them some sort of transformational outcome.
If you put every piece of content through that lens, even curated content, where if you're sharing and this is a great shortcut, when you're getting started to build that muscle of communication and starting to express thoughts, if you're not confident of expressing your own thoughts, fully just yet, is to take someone else's good thoughts and just bolt on an extra thought or two onto that.
If you can, rather than just sharing this with a one liner, I found this really interesting and you thought you might too, or something like that, which, you know, it's still good content, but you're not really adding anything to it.
Add a few lines to that about what impacted you what was really awesome and why someone should read it. That's like the baby steps beginning of how to start to express thought leadership in the marketplace, because you're coming at it from where other people are at rather than just you know you standing up on a soapbox saying what you're, you know, whatever it is that you're wanting to say you've always got this lens of:
How will this help someone?
How will this serve someone?
Now, when I, when I write when I publish all this, what I, you know, teach and encourage others is everything you write, put it through this.
So what test is like, so someone reads that, so what like, are they going to get something out of it, if they're not going to get anything out of it, like, just, sometimes not always, but often don't bother, like, sometimes you may post something.
And it's not necessarily jam packed full of value, but it's serving a different perspective, which is around showing vulnerability, connection, and that sometimes seems random, but it can be strategic to, you know, because, like, people want to see what's behind the person and what makes them tick.
And you can actually help them by sharing that part of you, because they say, well, you, hey, you're human too. And, you know, you go through this, or this is what you found, etc.
So the point is, always be thinking, how this, how could this help someone else, whether it's a story, whether it's something that you've learned, whether it's a tip, think of it from their perspective, and if they get something from it, they will remember you, and they will not just respect you. But I believe that the connection is way stronger.
I think that at the risk of going on a whole nother tangent here, that the medical, metaphysical things that are happening in the marketplace, where people are connected in other other ways, besides just physical like in other rooms, is strengthening and even starting to become a thing in marketing as well.
So people in the same way, people's bs detectors are really, really high, when they just scan on posts and spin on scrolls and things like that. It's really, really hard. But then when they actually do receive something, it's like, cool. And there is a greater level of connection that can come through that. So that's why it's really, really healthy and important to be so intentional, through your content.
Petra:
Love your explanation, because in the end, everyone is a publisher these days, or we can be a publisher anyway. And I see so many just having literally hot air out there. And that can also backfire on your own reputation.
Because in the end, if nobody engages with you, it's like are this boring person, even though we don't know them yet, but perception is reality. And based what I'm seeing, you know, I make up my mind, and when I just see somebody sharing it, for the sake of it, I think it's lazy, there's no thoughts, they don't care about me. So that's all negative, even though it could be the nicest and you know, smartest person, but it already does the negative or the opposite of that.
So this is a great explanation, also, starting with curated content, but adding your spin on it, and then slowly testing out what works for you What style resonates with you, what's easy for you, what gets engagement and do more of that, but it's definitely a bit of a journey.
Nina Christian:
Yeah, absolutely.
Now, also, there are some concerns as to I need to have so a certain amount of experience, or I need to be in that senior role already to actually do that. What is your take on it? When can we start creating content?
Okay, so I didn't mention at the beginning, but I also run a membership of young marketers, and many of those, are they just still in university or just graduating, and already at that stage, I am drooling into them the need to create content, the need to be creators, and you don't have to be, you know, an academic professor or the CEO of a company to actually a have thought leadership, you just have to be experienced and knowledgeable in the thing that you are talking about.
And the other thing is, at that stage, where you're still exploring the world, and or if you're in a more junior position, and you don't have a wealth of experience, is to keep in mind that documentation is a very, very powerful way of creating content.
It doesn't have to be always, you know, shouting your knowledge from the risk tops, but it can be focusing on the learnings along the way.
And that's a really powerful type of content as well, because that's extremely helpful to people. You don't have to be the world's renowned expert to help someone, if you can be a step or two ahead of them, you're in a place where you're able to help them.
We see this time and time again, even within our ecosystem of young marketers, is the ones that just apply this consistently within a very short space of time, then are able to turn around and give a hand up and through their experiences share with the younger ones. And a lot of that has come through through content as well and being starting to get courageous and putting things out there.
I've seen young marketers that were You know, be quite frank really struggling with, you know, then they wouldn't be your stereotypical professional marketer, they would be some of your your harder cases, but because they applied themselves diligently to you starting to document their progress, I noticed a real difference in the ones that do it consistently, they get better results than the ones that do it.
Well, in my opinion. In a year, I've seen some extremely talented ones, they kind of just start and don't do it, then they lose momentum. They don't get that buy in from other people. But people who do it consistently, a they improve, and people observe the improvement. And it's like they're cheering you on. Like, if they start reading your stuff when you suck, and then six months later, you're half decent. They're like, wow, you know, I remember that person. And I'm just cheering them on. I'm a fan, you know, they were not afraid to put themselves out there. And yeah, and just share something. I think people admire that more than you know.
Petra:
I think this is also connecting us much more when you document what you're doing. Why are you doing it? What kind of podcasts did you listen to? What did it trigger you? What did you remind you of, because this in the end connects us with the personality type.
It doesn't always need to be the three steps to do the five mistakes to avoid that, blah, blah, blah, because we don't always want to be taught or lectured either. So I think I totally agree with that. And we can just, you know, document and be livid more personal again.
Nina Christian:
Yeah. And even, you know, being vulnerable, sometimes talking about a stuff up and what you learned from that? You know, and not just like a boohoo, feel sorry for me, but always add the so what to it? So what does a person take away from it? So what did you learn from it? That can be one of the most inspiring type of content or posts that you would put out there?
Petra:
Yes. So good. Now, can you share a few maybe tools or apps that you like to use every day? What are your favorite tools? Anything that you can share with us?
Nina Christian:
Yeah, absolutely. Um, look, I don't I, I have access. And I'm familiar with a lot, a lot of apps and tools. But I think rather than putting the answer on the tool itself, I think, actually, the the process, I think I would, I feel like I would serve your listeners more by giving a couple of like disciplines, rather than hacks or tools, because you can go and get yourself a fancy scheduling software.
But if you don't have anything much to put in, it's not going to help you much. You know, I can tell you my favorite, but you know, I mean, I've probably tried a dozen of them.
And but what's gonna work for me might not necessarily work for you. And, you know, and thinking about that probably some of my favorite, let's call it apps, or sorry, my favorite practices. One would be to have a centralised repository somewhere to capture your ideas.
It could be as simple as a spreadsheet. And in fact, one is one of mine is a spreadsheet, I have a spreadsheet and a OneNote folder to capture different types of ideas.
And then I have a system for what works for me.
So what I do when I want to put a batch of content through a process, and again, you know, the system that works for me, you know, may not necessarily be the one that works for you.
But what I do encourage is that you start very, very gently and find one thing that works like experiment with one mode of communication on one platform, if you're just getting going and get good at that. And make sure you're doing it consistently for a month before you add in another mode or before you add in another platform and build from there.
I think a really good skill for a content creator to have is video editing.
And now I didn't like as a marketer really know how to edit videos. I'm like, I'm not an editor. I'm not like a super techie marketer thing person or in that, like I wouldn't have ever put myself in the video production video editing space, but I feel that as a creator, it's extremely empowering to be able to edit your own videos. And so it's a skill that I you know, if video is your mode, I think is a great one to get. It doesn't really matter which tool I like Camtasia I think it's great.
Probably the best one of the best investments I've ever made.
I absolutely love being able to edit things for writing apps such as Grammarly, and Hemingway a great in terms of just sub subtly helping you to lift the bar and make sure that you're stretching yourself with regards to your writing capability.
But look, at the end of the day, I think just working out a very, very basic system of what you're going to do.
And then what tools do you need to do that.
So like a scheduling software is great. But if you're just starting out, and you're only going to be posting one or two or three times a week, you don't really need to know that I would rather invest the time getting more intimately familiar with the platform that you decide to use, whether it's LinkedIn and get to know all the features, make sure your profile page is, you know, optimized, as best it can be experiment with different types of content, once you've got your baseline, and put, put your effort and energy into that rather than into different tech tools, which they can serve their purpose.
And don't get me wrong, I probably use about 30 of them in my business. But I don't feel like I would be serving.
You know, the audience here, if I were just to rattle off a list of names of different apps, when you don't really have the basics like honestly, I think between a Word document and Excel spreadsheet, Canva. And potentially, like iMovie, or Camtasia, or something like that, you pretty much got what you need to be a good content creator, and everything else is then just going to improve what you're doing.
Petra:
That's such a good tip, because so many get caught up with the fancy tools and the shiny object syndrome, but then you're not getting anywhere with the content creation, in the end, capturing your ideas that come up, when you go for a walk, when you have a shower, when you lie in bed, whatever it might be, is a good starting point to then move on from there and actually set aside maybe a half an hour, an hour, whatever it might be and write something.
And also try Hemingway, which is an app that it basically shows how well your confidence written or what you could change if it's easy to understand if it's a sixth grade level, or you know, it's a great tool to just get a bit of a third party feedback without having to ask a person. Now maybe to wrap it up.
You mentioned your first video got a troll now, what are we doing with trolls and negative comments? And how can we overcome the fear of Oh my god, what if somebody says something bad about us?
Nina Christian:
I probably shouldn't have said that. Should I put people off? And look, frankly, I don't think I've had hardly any sense. And that's probably going back about four or five years ago. And I probably count on one hand, the number I've had, if any. I just must happen to have nice people in my network.
That honestly, if someone so like, I don't think, Okay, first of all, accept the fact that it's going to happen, because there are people out there that have issues with themselves, they issues are with them, and not with you, if they're issues where if they didn't have issues with themselves, they wouldn't be, you know, projecting the issues onto you.
There's great features in social media, which is, you know, delete block, depending on what the content is, you may decide to write back and engage but 99% of the time, if someone's genuinely trying to be constructive, and you feel like it, you may decide to write a considered response, but understand that that's a time suck and an energy suck.
And you know, what's in the feed today?
You know, the old saying, today's news is tomorrow's fish and chips wrap are seriously like, what happens on a post a month ago is like neither here nor there.
So think is it really worth your energy to go down that rabbit hole?
Probably not, unless it's really horrible, in which case, you probably just delete it anyway. But don't be afraid of that, because 99.9 of the posts that you will get are going to be encouraging.
And if you feel fearful of putting out your content, because of the 0.1%, think of the 99.9% who are going to get blessed by what it is that you share who are going to be helped to again, be encouraged, all who are going to be inspired.
And they may be inspired because of what you say, or they may be inspired simply because they see you doing it and it gives them courage that will she's doing it or he's doing it, I could do that too. And so your encouragement may go in ways that you may not expect so don't be afraid of the the negativity, you know, especially when you come from the perspective of what we've talked about today. From purely wanting to help, I believe truly, that there is a lot.
And I don't know if this is why, you know, I don't have a lot of experiences with negative feedback. But when you really come from a place of truly wanting to serve and truly wanting to help, I do believe people get that. And you know, and I think anything that, you know, is, as we know, we've given you some strategies for what to do if something happens, but it's, it's not going to happen all the time. If it does pat yourself on the back, it's a rite of passage, and you're getting more visibility quicker than you expected.
Anyway, that's a good tool and tip, because in the end, it doesn't happen that often either. And it would be a shame to hold your self, your growth, your developmental progression, your visibility back because of a potential negative comment. And this is a great quote, If you don't want to have negative comments or feedback, then don't do anything like literally do not speak up to not show up, this is the best way to avoid it.
Petra:
But if we want to make an impact, if you want to become visible, if we want to become the authority, then we need to ruffle some feathers every now and then. And in the end, we can't be everyone styling, it's not a bad thing to also repel. Some that don't align with awesome without videos. And this is just what it is. So it's a great tip. Yeah, excellent. Nina, where can we find you? Where can we connect with you?
What's next for you?
Nina Christian:
Yeah, so Oh, look, we've just come out of lockdown and Logan at the time of recording this. We're like two days one day out of you know, not being caged in our house. 23 seven. So what is next for me? Well, I like if you want to find me, you can find me at NinaChristian.com.
And that's kind of a good springboard for, you know, the different things that I do.
And what's next for me is some Yeah, really excited. I'm going you probably seen from this interview, I'm very passionate about what I do in this space.
And right at this point in time, I'm enjoying just going deeper, I'm redoing a lot of my own trainings to just bring it up to date. And I'm personally really enjoying that, because it's forcing me to really look and analyze, you know, what's going on in the marketplace now, where are things going?
And yeah, how can people best prepare for that? And so that's why I get really excited at opportunities like this, because I get to share, you know, knowledge like this with people.
So yeah, I think that's a kind of a bit of what's on the horizon, a bit more of that and a little bit more family time in the next, you know, month or two as well allow it and I see it loved the conversation so much because you literally she has so much wisdom and value.
And this definitely comes through that you are very passionate about this topic. So again, thank you so much for joining us, and I cannot wait to see more few.
For more details, check out: https://www.ninachristian.com/
