You might be asking why content creation is so important. After all, isn’t there already enough content available out there?
In reality, content creation is one of the most potent marketing tools for your online business.
As the saying goes, content is king. And having quality content is one of the most important factors in driving traffic to your website or blog.
It’s what keeps people coming back for more, and it’s what helps you build a loyal following.
This is why we’ve created the list of the top reasons why content creation is important in 2022 and beyond.
Service to Other People
When people consume your content, you are serving them. You are giving people what they want, and what they want is to be consuming content.
Without the content that you have spent your valuable time and energy creating, they would have to find other content to consume which may be less suitable for their needs and desires.
People are consuming content at an increasing rate.
Content can be entertaining, informational, transactional, inspirational or emotional, among other things. You can have a mix of types of content that you create and publish for the world.
The key message here is that you are creating something so that other people may receive value from it. You are servicing other people, and giving them what they want.
A tremendous bonus is that you are providing service to other people at scale.
You put in the effort one time, and the content may be consumed as long as it’s available. That could be years in the future, for people that aren’t even born yet!
Creating content grants you a form of leverage which we will dive deeper into soon.
Builds Authority
When you create content and share it with the world, you are building an authority with your target audience.
You are seen as an expert in your field, or at least someone with something valuable to say.
The more content that you create, the more authority you will build. The content acts as a foundation for your authority. It’s a way to show people that you know what you’re talking about and that you’re worth listening to.
People are more likely to listen to someone who has content to back up their claims. If you can share valuable information with others, they will be more likely to see you as an expert in your field.
The importance of authority should not be overlooked. Human beings have a tendency to form hierarchies, with one person being at the top and all other people being subordinated to them.
There has always been a tribe leader, King or Queen, or a President at the top that runs the hierarchy. There probably always will be. Humans are psychologically wired to form hierarchies and find their place in it.
A hierarchy exists on the Internet as well. The people at the top are the ones with the biggest Audience, the best search results and favorable algorithm placements. The people lower in the hierarchy are everybody else, and the audience.
Remember when we said content is King? Are you understanding the importance of authority now?
And of course as your authority grows, so does your audience.
Builds an Audience
When you create content and share it online, and people consume that content, you are building an audience.
People who consume your content will begin to follow you and look to you for more content in the future, provided your content is high quality and gives the person value.
The more content that you create, the more likely it is that people will find you and follow you. More people following you means more traffic and more successful content.
When you have an audience, people will begin to recognize you. When they search for a topic and find more of your content amongst the crowd, people are going to recognise you and they might choose your content over alternatives, even if your content isn’t as high in the search rankings.
Share your content on social media sites. Digital content is freely replicable.
As your audience grows, so does your authority. They feed each other.
Leverage
Creating content and publishing it online grants you a powerful form of leverage.
What we are talking about here isn’t financial leverage, it is more like social leverage.
When you create content, in the form of media or code, you are building an asset that has almost zero marginal cost of reproduction.
That means you put in the work once, and the asset will continue to produce while you are doing other things, even while you are sleeping.
Traditional products and services always have some cost to make the next product or service. In the case of content, after your content has been produced you don’t even have to think about what it costs for someone to consume it.
This is why content is so powerful for the creator.
If you work for someone else at a job, if you work for 9 hours you are going to be paid for those 9 hours. You aren’t going to get paid for more than the time you put in.
When you have created content, you can put in 9 hours of work and maybe it’s consumed for 9 hours by the sum of all people who found your content. Or it could be consumed for 9,000 hours all up. Maybe it’s consumed for no amount of time.
Even if your content has zero views right now, by leaving it published online there’s still the opportunity for someone to find it in the future and consume it.
Creating content and publishing it at scale decouples your inputs from your outputs. It doesn’t matter how much work you put in, what matters is the amount of attention that your work gets.
The key is to start creating content and putting it out into the world. The more content you create, the more your inputs are decoupled from your outputs and the more social leverage you will have created for yourself.
Builds Trust
When you create content and share it freely with others, you are building trust with your audience and creating loyal fans.
You are showing people that you’re not just putting out content to make a quick buck. You’re in it for the long haul.
You’re also showing people that you’re willing to give them what they want without asking for anything in return.
When you build trust with your audience, you create loyal fans. These are people who will stick with you and follow you no matter what.
They are also people who are more likely to support you and your business.
Creating content is one of the best ways to build trust with your audience. It’s a way to show them that you’re an expert in your field and that you’re worth listening to.
Valuable Assets
When you create content, you are creating valuable assets.
Think of each piece of content as an asset. If you aren’t already thinking about content in this way, you should be. Each piece of content is a valuable asset that is distinct, but related to the other content you have already created and put out there into the world.
Try to think of each YouTube video, or blog post, or Instagram story or any other form of content as an asset that is representing your authentic self in cyberspace.
Much of the world’s population can access your content at any time, and the more attention you are able to attract, the more valuable your brand will be. You will improve your SEO, get more links to your content, attract new leads and convert more visitors into customers.
And typically you only have to create the content once. Creating content is the gift that keeps on giving.
Say you write a blog article because you want more website content. You only have a few content ideas and not many articles on your website. So you do some research and then write about something interesting to other people.
People read it and the article stays on your site. In a year you have many articles which serve you as marketing content as well as you’re just plain giving away value to people for free.
Brand
Every time people consume your content they are becoming aware of your brand. The value of your brand essentially starts at zero, and with content marketing you are able to increase the value of your brand by building an audience and creating content that they love.
Brand value ties in with Authority level as well as content quality and quantity. If your content is really good, and you have a lot of it, people will start to see you as an expert in your field and your brand value will increase.
It’s like a self-fulfilling feedback loop. The more high quality content you create, the more valuable your brand becomes.
The more valuable your brand becomes, the more authority you have in your field. When you have more authority, you are increasing your potential audience size.
Feeding the Algorithms
It’s no secret that 80% of views on YouTube are suggested by their Algorithm.
Much of the time the next suggested video is by the same creator if YouTube thinks that the viewer will be interested enough to watch it.
The only way to have the algorithm suggest a video is to have relevant video content to suggest to the viewer.
The more content you create, the more likely it is that your content will be suggested to people.
And the more your content is suggested to people through algorithms, the more likely it is that you will be able to get your content in front of people that are interested in what you have to say.
Content creation is the key to feeding the algorithms and having your content seen by more people.
The more content you create, the more likely it is that your content will be seen by people that are interested in what you have to say.
It’s not just true for YouTube, it’s true for all social media platforms and search engines.
Don’t hesitate, create. Social media content creation ideas are everywhere. The key is to provide people with what they want. Sit down, get your creative juices flowing and produce content as best as you can.
SEO & Backlinks
The more valuable content you have created and published, the more likely it is that people will find you in search engines.
It’s pretty simple, the amount of content you create directly relates to the likelihood that Google will find your content and serve it to people searching for content.
Each piece of content is an opportunity to rank for new keywords and attract new visitors.
Not only that, but each piece of content is an opportunity to get new backlinks.
Backlinks are when other websites link to your content.
They are essentially a vote of confidence from another website. The more backlinks you have, the higher you will rank in search engines.
And the higher you rank in search engines, the more authority you will have in your field, plus more traffic you will get to your content.
Not to mention shares on social media platforms. When people enjoy your content they will think of people that they know that can also get value out of your content.
People will share your content through social media posts or direct messages to people they know.
The more of your content that is shared by others leads to more organic traffic, which results in increasing your target audience and having more potential customers.
It’s a pretty simple concept, but it’s one that is often overlooked.
More Qualified Leads
When you have an audience, authority and trust, you’ll find more qualified leads for the products or services that you sell. In fact, many qualified leads will come to you!
Remember that content marketing is all about providing value to others.
If you are able to do this effectively, people will want to buy from you because they know that you can provide them with valuable content and products or services.
These people have received value from your content, value that you provided to them up front for free. They have gained something in their life out of what you have donated to them. So people are willing to give back to you.
By building an audience of potential customers, content creation essentially becomes a form of lead generation.
And the best part is that you don’t have to pay for leads!
Better Conversions
Creating engaging, valuable content results in better lead conversions.
The reason for this is because you are able to build a relationship with your audience before they ever make a purchase from you.
You are able to provide value to them and help them without asking for anything in return.
You are building trust with your audience by giving them content that they enjoy and can use to improve their life.
This is the content marketing funnel.
The content marketing funnel is the process of turning strangers into qualified leads, and then into customers and finally, raving fans.
The content marketing funnel starts with attracting strangers to your content. This can be done through SEO keywords or social media posts, but the most consistent way to attract people to your content is to create high quality, valuable, engaging content.
Once you have attracted someone to your content, they become a lead. A lead is someone who has shown interest in what you do but has not yet made a purchase.
The next step is to turn that lead into a customer. This is done by providing more content that is valuable to them and helps them in some way.
You can do this through email marketing or social media posts.
Once you have turned a lead into a customer, the final step is to turn them into a raving fan.
This is done by continuing to provide them with valuable content and helping them in any way that you can.
You can do this by creating content that is so valuable to them that they want to share it with their friends and family.
Improves Your Craft
The content creation process requires deliberate thought and planning. Successful content creators put a lot of effort into their content strategy so that they can produce high quality content.
Great content creation tools are out there but what really matters is that you are putting in the work and improving at one of your skills, be it writing, making videos, coding, music, art or whatever it is.
To produce a variety of high quality content, content producers need to create many forms of content for their target audience.
This content format can include blog posts, articles, infographics, images, videos, and more.
Creating all of this content requires content creators to improve their writing, research, and communication skills.
Content creators also need to be able to effectively market their content so that it is seen by their target audience.
All of this content creation and content marketing takes practice and effort to master.
But the more content you create, the better you will become at it.
The key is to just keep creating content and improving your skills along the way.
Your content will never be perfect. You just have to put in your best effort, make sure it’s helping other people, and send it out into the world for others to judge and learn from. That’s why you are creating content in the first place, right?
Companionship
The world is more connected than ever before and the connectivity is increasing every day. The internet and smartphones have truly opened the world up.
But some of us feel lonely and disconnected. Especially in the post-pandemic era. Working from home and physical separation from others has amplified these feelings for many.
When you put yourself out there for other people to see, you are letting them feel a sense of connection to you. They don’t know who you are yet, but you are showing them and they are learning.
Have you ever listened to a great podcast? High quality podcasts can make you feel like you are in the same room as the people talking. It’s hard to feel alone when you are in the same room as others that you like.
Conclusion
Content creation is a powerful tool that should not be overlooked.
It has the ability to help people, build authority, grow an audience, build trust, create valuable assets, improve conversions and provide companionship.
If you’re not creating content, you’re missing out on a lot of potential benefits.
So what are you waiting for? Start creating content today and show it to the world! You know you can do it!