Think about the last time you shared a meme or saw a viral TikTok trend. Did you know that all these shares, likes, or comments can make you money? In 2024, making content is more profitable than ever, with creators earning an average of over $100,000 annually.
Moreover, almost 44% of content creators have their creator business as their family's primary income. Surely, these glamorous stories might not be everyone's reality, but many creators are still making enough to support their passions and live a comfortable life!
Guess what? You can make it happen too. We’ve put together the exact 8-step process that’ll guide you on how to become a content creator and make money.
Here's what we’ve covered:
- What is a Content Creator?
- How to Become a Content Creator?
- Find Your Niche
- Identify Your Audience
- Choose Your Platform(s) for Content Creation
- Determine your Brand Voice
- Get Necessary Tools
- Do Content Planning and Strategizing
- Create a Solid Portfolio
- Analyze your Performance
Excited to turn your creative skills into cash? Let's get started.
What is a Content Creator?
Do you remember the last post you liked or the reel you scrolled through? Behind every like and share, there's someone's creative work that makes the audience engage with it. So basically, a content creator is anyone who creates and shares content online, whether it's writing blogs as a content writer, making videos on YouTube and Instagram, or podcasts.
Similarly, depending on the content format shared, there can be different types of content creators, such as:
- Bloggers
- YouTubers
- Social Media Influencers
- Podcasters
Take the case of some highly successful YouTubers and social media influencers like Mr. Beast or Emma Chamberlain, who have millions of followers on the internet. These creators have turned their passions into content that millions tune into regularly. They're proof that with some creativity, dedication, and the ability to connect with others, anyone can become a content creator.
How to Become a Content Creator?
While the journey to becoming a social media content creator is unique for everyone, there's a roadmap you can follow. Let's explore how to become a content creator in 8 simple steps.
Step 1: Find Your Niche
The first thing to do in your content creation journey is to choose your niche; or in simple terms, the broad topic or theme around which you will create content. However, make sure you're not picking a random niche but actually matching your passion with your expertise.
Why? When you talk about something you love and know inside out, your enthusiasm shines through; and authenticity is ALWAYS the key to attracting and retaining an audience.
Ask yourself, "What topics can I talk about with confidence and genuine interest?" This reflection will help you narrow down your niche and get more clarity on your interests.
But let's be honest. As easy as this might sound, choosing your area of interest, especially for content creation, is not easy. How do you actually do this? To get started, you can use tools like Answer The Public to learn about what people are searching for related to a specific field.
Let's take an example to understand how you can nail it down. Suppose you're into fitness. But it's a world on its own, right? You've got everything from high-intensity interval training to yoga, but the trick here is to pick up a corner.
Let's say, you decided to talk about yoga for gamers, which means you're speaking directly to people who are sitting all day and need to stretch it out but love gaming. It makes your content a go-to because it's exactly what they need, and sticking to your core focus area makes sure people know what they're coming to your profile for!
How to Research the Demand?
Moving ahead, the next thing to consider is how to find what's in demand. To start with, do keyword research on Google Keyword Planner or other SEO tools. Actively look for questions people are asking related to your niche in forums, Reddit, Quora, or other similar platforms.
Let's say digital marketing is your niche. Through your research (checking out forums, social media, and comment sections of popular digital marketing channels), you notice a recurring theme. For example: There's plenty of content on SEO and social media strategies, but very few are talking about content creation for small businesses, especially those looking to establish a brand identity online.
Here, you can ask yourself, "Can I share some unique insights or strategies that cater specifically to improving the online presence of small businesses through effective content creation?" If you have professional knowledge in blending digital marketing with content strategy for small businesses, you've spotted a gap to fill!
This way, you can address these unmet needs and establish yourself as a go-to resource in that space. Remember, the goal is to find a balance between your interests and what people are actively looking for but can't find.
Step 2: Identify Your Audience
After deciding on your niche, the next step is to find out who is most likely to be interested in your content. At this step, you need to understand who your viewers or readers are and find out where they spend their time online.
So, how do you find your audience?
1. Explore Existing Groups and Hashtags
If your focus is on, let's say, content creation for small businesses, start by looking for online communities related to this topic. For instance, you can start by searching for relevant groups on Facebook, where you can find discussions, questions, and content about issues related to content creation and getting noticed online. This is a great way to understand where your target audience spends their time and the kind of content they're looking for.
2. Pay Attention to Engagement
Once you've found these groups, observe which posts get the most likes, comments, or shares. This can give you insights into the specific interests of your audience. However, don't be shy about joining the conversation. Asking questions, sharing tips, or even conducting polls can give you direct feedback and deepen your understanding of what your audience wants.
3. Analyze Competitors
Next up, look at what other social media content creators in the digital marketing niche are doing, especially those focusing on small businesses. What audience are they targeting? How are people responding to their content? This can help you get a good idea about who your audience could be and what strategies might work to engage with them.
Step 3: Choose Your Platform(s) for Content Creation
When you're starting as a content creator, it's easy to think you need to be everywhere at once. But that's like trying to shout in a crowded room and hoping the right person hears you. Instead, it's smarter to get strategic about where you should get started and share your digital content.
First things first, think about who's hanging out where. All social media platforms have their distinct vibe and audience. For example:
- LinkedIn is a professional network where it's all about business and industry insights. So, it can be an ideal platform if your content leans towards professional development, B2B strategies, or industry-specific advice.
- YouTube, on the other hand, is all about video content. From how-tos and tutorials to vlogs and reviews, YouTube can be the right choice for all sorts of video content.
- Instagram and TikTok are all about visuals and creativity. These platforms are perfect if you want to go for visual storytelling, brand aesthetics, and engaging with a younger audience that's attracted to trends.
Step 4: Determine your Brand Voice
Your brand voice is your signature style of communication. It's how you get your message across to your audience, basically, how you interact with them. The words you choose, the rhythm of your sentences, and even the visuals that accompany your content—they all play a crucial part.
Let's take the example of Hope Allen, better known online as HopeScope, a popular lifestyle and fashion YouTuber. Her online presence has a sweet and vibrant touch, which makes her followers feel like they're right there with her on every trial. This approach to communication is like chatting with a friend who's always got the best tips on where to find the most stylish and trendy outfits!
Similarly, depending on your niche, it's important to find the right tone for your online presence. But how do you do so? How would a successful content creator do it? What things to keep in mind? Let's understand:
- Start with your mission and values. Your brand voice should be a natural extension of your personality and the goals you aim to achieve. Reflect on these foundational elements as they set the tone for everything else.
- Understanding who you are talking to is crucial. Use analytics, surveys, and social listening to gather insights about your audience's preferences, language, and online behavior. This information will guide the tone, language, and style you pick up.
- Next up, look at what you've already put out into the world. Which pieces resonate most with your audience, and what does that tell you about the voice and tone they prefer? This can help you identify what works and what needs adjustment.
- Once that's done, outline the characteristics of your brand's voice with examples for clarity. Are you more formal or casual? Funny or serious? Innovative or traditional? Documenting this helps maintain consistency across all communications and platforms.
- Last but never really the least, always be ready to adjust and evolve. Your brand voice isn't set in stone. As your audience grows and changes, so too should your voice. So, regularly review and tweak your voice to ensure it remains relevant and engaging.
Step 5: Get Necessary Tools
When you have the right tools, creating content goes from being a chore to something you can actually enjoy. It makes the process smooth so you can focus on the fun part: creating content that you're proud of and that others love to see. Let's look at some tools you should definitely not miss out on as a content creator:
1. Invideo AI
If you are planning to focus on video content or, specifically, become a YouTube, Instagram or TikTok content creator, invideo AI can be your best buddy. It generates videos using text prompts, and transforms them into a full-blown video, complete with visuals, music, subtitles, and voiceover. It's like having your own production team at your fingertips, but all you need to do is type!
Here’s what all invideo AI offers you:
- Vast Media Library: With over 16 million stock photos and videos, invideo AI has the ultimate library to pull from to make your videos visually stunning. Plus, if you are looking to make faceless videos, it can make things all the way more simple!
- No Camera Required: If you’re thinking of starting a faceless Youtube channel and are camera-shy, invideo AI is an ideal choice. It searches through an extensive media library to match the perfect visuals with your script and gets a stunning video steady in minutes. This ensures that your videos look professional without any flaws!
- Seamless Video Production: Invideo AI creates videos within minutes without compromising the quality while enabling you to consistently update your channel with fresh content. This frees up your time to focus more on content strategy and channel growth rather than getting bogged down by the usual time-consuming video production process.
- Voice Cloning: One of the latest additions, the voice cloning feature, steps up the game by letting you create voiceovers that sound just like you. Simply record a 30-second clip of your voice, upload it, and voila! You have a digital twin of your voice ready within minutes!
So if you want to spend more time getting creative ideas and automate the entire content creation process, you can sign up for invideo AI.
2. Grammarly
Grammarly is a helpful writing tool that makes your writing clear, engaging, and correct by checking for errors related to grammar, punctuation, and style. Moreover, it now comes with AI suggestions for better writing and tools like personalized word lists, which make your writing work all the way easier.
Its paid version offers extra features like plagiarism check, understanding how readable your writing is, and giving advanced writing tips. This is great for making sure your blogs, articles, and social media posts look professional and capture your readers' attention, which can help you seem more credible.
3. Pixlr
Pixlr is an online photo editing tool that's known for its ease of use and flexibility. It comes with a wide range of features that cater to both beginners and experienced users. This makes it easy for you to edit images directly in a web browser without having to download the software. Pixlr comes in different versions, such as Pixlr X (aimed at beginners) and Pixlr E (offers more advanced features), which makes it the perfect choice for all your image editing needs.
Step 6: Do Content Planning and Strategizing
Once you've chosen your platforms and got the right tools, the next step is to make a strategy for your content ideas. This step is all about laying down a roadmap for what you're going to create, when you're going to create it, and how it's going to be presented to your audience.
But before that, let's get the basics right!
What's a Content Strategy?
This is your big picture. It's about figuring out what you want to achieve with your content and how it's going to help your audience. For example, if your niche is digital marketing and you want to help people get better at it, your content strategy might focus on actionable marketing tips, and SEO strategies.
Next comes content planning, which is your game plan. Content planning details the steps you’re going to take to execute your strategy. This includes the types of content you'll create (like blog posts, videos, or podcasts), when you're going to publish them, and on what platforms.
If we stick with the above example, you can post a new SEO strategy every Tuesday and a case study every Thursday on your socials.
Here’s the process you can follow to do that:
1. Set Clear Goals: First up, ask yourself, "What's my ultimate goal?" It's important because your goals shape your content. Suppose you're thinking of selling a cookbook. In that case, your strategy might include sharing informative content around mouth-watering sample recipes or quick cooking tips that speak for the value of your book.
You see, each goal demands a unique approach, so it's necessary to get specific. For this example, you may start with:
- Writing down your top 3 goals.
- Listing out the types of content that could support each goal (e.g., videos for cooking techniques, blog posts for recipes).
2. Get to Know Your Audience: Who's going to love your content? Find out their challenges, likes, and needs. Look through Instagram polls, observe the comments on similar content, or join forums and Facebook groups where they hang out (similar to what we saw in Step 2 above).
Say your target audience is ‘beginner cooks’. They'll likely appreciate simple recipes that don't necessarily need a culinary degree to follow.
Here's how you may proceed in such a case:
- Create a simple survey with tools like Google Forms and share it on your social channels.
- Spend an hour a week in relevant online communities and observe common questions and topics.
3. Craft Your Content Plan: Now, lay out what you'll talk about, how you'll talk about it, and when. This is where you’ll need to create a content calendar to plan which post will be uploaded on which day and at what time. For this, you can use tools like Trello or CoSchedule that can help you plan and visualize your content schedule.
4. Create, Publish, and Promote: Once you have your content calendar set, it's time to start creating and publishing content on your platforms. Don't forget to promote it across all your chosen digital platforms, be it through social media posts, email newsletters, or even collaborations with other creators.
Step 7: Create a Solid Portfolio
Whenever you're going through a job description to apply for a job or crafting a cold email to pitch to a potential client, your portfolio as a content creator must speak volumes about your work. In fact, a content creation portfolio can help you get collaborations and sponsorships.
So, everything you include in your portfolio should demonstrate your versatility and ability to meet different client needs.
No matter the piece of content you're putting out there – articles, videos, or design projects, make sure to include work that you're genuinely proud of and that aligns with the kind of deals you wish to crack.
However, one critical thing to note here is that your portfolio should be designed in a way that's easy to navigate and makes your strengths pop. To do this, use brief descriptions for each piece and explain the project's goals, your role, and the results you've achieved. This adds context and shows your thought process, which is likely to make your work more impactful.
Step 8: Analyze your Performance
Merely creating and posting content isn't enough to achieve your goals. Analyzing how your content is performing helps you check if your content strategy is on track or not. It helps you figure out what's working, what's not, and where you can improve.
For YouTube videos, you can use YouTube’s analytics tool to understand how your videos are performing. It can tell you how many people watched them, how long they stayed to watch, and what they decided to watch next. If you see that a lot of people leave your video quickly, it might mean your video wasn't what they were looking for or it wasn't super interesting to them. But if you see that lots of people are talking about your video or sharing it with others, you're definitely on the right track!
Similarly, for Instagram, there are Insights for business accounts. This feature lets you see how your posts and stories are doing in terms of likes, comments, saves, and views. It also tells you about your followers' activity – like ‘what time are they online’. This is super useful for planning when to post. For example, if your reels about day-in-the-life or tutorials are getting a lot of engagement, it's a sign to create more content in those specific formats.
Conclusion
And there you have it – your ultimate guide on how to become a content creator in 2024. Pick a niche you’re passionate about, and connect with your audience the right way. No matter whether you're aiming to supplement your income or looking to make content creation your main hustle, it starts with that first step. So, go ahead and give it a shot anyway. Who knows, someday, it might just pay off!
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