The Three Stages of Content Creation

There’s a common mistake I see from aspiring content creators:

You have an idea that inspires you… so you think that it must excite other people, too!

Therefore, you put lots of time and energy into packaging that idea into a book… or a course… or you create an amazing video, and after a lot of hard work, you share it with the world…

What usually happens?

There’s less response than you hoped for.

Why does this happen?

You fell in love with your own idea, without adequately testing to see if it resonates with other people — before spending so much effort on it.

Perhaps you think it’s a visibility issue, so you try harder to promote it…

Still, the result is baffling: why is something that’s obviously so good (in your mind) not a game-changer for others?

Why aren’t people getting it?

This can lead to resentment or cynicism… and if you keep experiencing this, you might even decide to quit, believing that it’s just “not your thing”.

I hope you won’t give up.

No matter what, your passion is a good idea… but how you share it will determine the response.

You need to experiment with different ways of sharing the idea — in the mindset of testing — until you discover a way that you ideal clients easily “get.”

I recommend to you The Three Stages of Content approach…

Stage 1: Casual Content

This is where it all starts.

For example, I casually make three short videos while on my long Saturday walks with my dog. In each video, I share an idea that I think might be helpful to some clients and audience members.

In fact, this very chapter was inspired by one of those casual videos from 2017.

Update: In the past few years I’ve switched to making videos from my office as it’s much easier than making them on my dog walks.

I have no expectations about how these casual videos turn out.

In stage one, I spend as little effort as possible. Therefore, I am not concerned whether the content gets any likes or comments.

Although I care about my audience, I don’t concern myself with how people respond, or whether they respond at all, because Stage 1 Content is meant to be exploratory and experimental.

The Principles of Stage 1 Content:

(1) Explore a new idea, or try a different way of expressing an old idea.

(2) Test the idea by sharing it on social media, and have zero expectations.

(3) Minimize your energy and time when making Stage 1 Content, since you don’t know if your audience will like it, no matter how passionate you are about the message. “Casual” is the word that helps me in this situation: relaxed and unconcerned; temporary or impermanent.

(4) Be prolific and consistent with your Stage 1 Content, so that you give yourself many opportunities to explore ideas and different ways of saying things, spending as little energy as you can for each piece. Remember, you are testing here, not trying to be perfect or polished.

Anything published for the first time is Stage 1 content, whether it took 5 minutes or 5 years to make. Stage 1 is all about the audience’s feedback to something they’re seeing for the first time.

I’ve noticed that no matter how unpolished my content is, it will be the choice of topic — or how I frame it — that makes all the difference for audience engagement.

Only if it gets good feedback do I then progress the idea to Stage 2.

What if you don’t have an audience yet?

Post your Stage 1 content wherever you can reach some people. Most of you reading this have some Facebook friends, so maybe you can post your stage 1 content to your FB profile. Or you could even invite a few supportive people into a private group to share Stage 1 stuff there, and ask them to only selectively like the ones that they truly resonate with.

Stage 2: Improve on What’s Liked

Once a month or so, revisit your recent Stage 1 content to see which pieces received the most likes and positive comments, especially from people who are your ideal clients.

It is these well-liked pieces that are worth bringing into Stage 2, which is where you:

• Think about how the piece can be improved.
• Integrate any comments or feedback.
• Consider whether another story/example would make it more impactful.
• Think about whether the headline/title can be improved.

Once you make these light edits, share the piece again, this time with a wider audience… on all the social media platforms you use, as well as to your email subscribers (if any). You might also consider using some advertising dollars to promote that content to more targeted people.

Besides improving and re-sharing, you might also consider re-purposing this content into another format — for example, turn an article into a video, or a video into an article.

Stage 3: Organize & Productize

Stage 3 is about turning your content into a product that can add to your income… and legacy.

Once every 3–6 months, take a look at your collection of Stage 2 content. Identify any themes.

You can then take one of the themes and turn the content into a product, such as a book or course.

In fact, each of my books is a Stage 3 piece. It combines my Stage 2 posts into a themed and sequenced package, with a designed cover and table of contents.

Michael Williams, storytelling expert, commented about these 3 stages:

In hindsight, I can see the 3 stages that led to the book I’ve just published on the art of oral storytelling. Stage 1: several years of coaching other storytellers and making notes of what resonated with my clients; Stage 2: writing and publishing articles in a storytelling magazine based on what resonated in Stage 1; Stage 3: expanding on those previous ideas and integrating and productizing them into book form and publishing on Amazon. During the process, I kept my audience up-to-date with the book’s development and, as a result, received many requests for the book. I kept a list of those requests and can now directly communicate with them. The 3 stages of content have been a great strategy, George.

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So many people ignore Stages 1 and 2 (or don’t even realize they exist!) and jump right into writing a book or creating a course, and are baffled when it’s not successful. Now you know what to do, and what not to do!

It’s also helpful to understand that what you see on social media is often Stage 2 content. We often don’t notice people’s Stage 1 content because the social media algorithms and search engines only show us what’s already getting above-average engagement.

And that’s good news for us too. We don’t have to be concerned that our Stage 1 content will get too much visibility because, if it isn’t actually good, it will be buried by other people’s Stage 2 content!

I hope this will encourage you to try many ideas, and discover what the world really wants from you.

By following these three stages, with a mindset of playful experimentation, you’ll enjoy your creation process even more.

Now, go create some Stage 1 content, with gusto!

Be casual, be prolific, be experimental. En-joy the process :)

The above post started as Stage 1 video in early 2017. My audience liked it, so I edited the writing and re-shared it as a Stage 2 article. Finally, I integrated it into Stage 3 by having it be a chapter in my book Authentic Content Marketing.​