The Information Age is here! This means the only real way to make money is by producing information, also known as content. Then you can sell the content, advertise around it, or sell access to it. The key of course is to produce meaningful content that people will actually want.
Information can take many forms. Since I’m fully on board with the Information Age, I’ll only share with you the electronic forms that information can take.
- Written – Wiki and Blog articles, white papers, and e-books.
- Audio – audio-Podcasts and music
- Video – video-Podcasts, short films, mini videos, Movies and TV Episodes.
Written Content
Remember back when you were in grade school or college. The essays and book reports are simply white papers by a different name.
Since the Information Age began a few decades ago, the world of content has changed to something easier to create and publish. Anyone can setup a blog in seconds and have their first article posted within minutes.
Nearly every newspaper has a website where this type of content is produced and shared. Some have pay-walls which prevent you from accessing the content without a subscription fee. Others get paid by advertisers that post ads on the content producers blog or website. I spend a lot of my time consuming written tech articles on techcrunch.com.
Audio Content
This type of content can also be generated by anybody with a microphone attached to their computer and something to say. Audio content took the shape of broadcast radio before the information age, now this form of content takes the shape of audio podcasts, internet radio stations, and music.
Websites like live.fm, pandora.com and others stream audio content. They are usually plagued by licensing fees due to the fact that they broadcast music created by someone else.
Audio content created by individuals and corporations alike can be published via audio-podcasts. Visit iTunes.com for a huge list of content created by individuals both amateur and professional.
Video Content
Here we’re dealing with something a tad more complicated. Video content can be created with a simple webcam and a simple video editing software. Both Apple and Microsoft include free video editing software with their operating systems, but it takes time to edit video.
There are tons of places online producing video content… Since Video can be both pre-recorded and live, there are different websites specializing in each.
For my live video tech content, I visit ustream.com or live.tv. For my pre-recorded video content, the place I visit frequently is iTunes.com or YouTube.com. Both allow for individuals and corporations to produce and distribute video for free.
So what does all this mean?
I explained all this so we’re all on the same page when I talk about some advice on creating lots of content from only a few ideas.
Lets say you want to demonstrate how to build a computer. This demonstration will be created in the form of an edited video which you’ll publish up on YouTube and share with all your friends. After the video is created, here is some recommended guidelines on how to get it out there and create several pieces of content from this one demonstration video.
- Convert your video into several forms. YouTube is only the beginning of publishing your video. Add the video to your website which displays the YouTube video for those who want to stream, and links for those who want to download it to some portable device.
- Create a few tweets which you will publish on twitter.com a few times during the week. Have the tweet worded differently so you can get the maximum number of click throughs.
- Transcribe the video into a pseudo-white paper which can be published or sold online.
- Separate the Audio track for another form of content. Then create a few sound-bite worthy quotes that can also be tweeted or published along with links on various social media platforms.
The idea is with every piece of content you produce, you have actually created multiple pieces which can be consumed by your followers at their convenience.
Have any advice or what to add your own comments… feel free to add them below in my comments section.
danielheth 