Digital MarketingI AM CEO PODCASTMarketingSEO
The Three Main Questions to Ask for Effective Content Creation
Special Episode with Dancho Dimkov
Gresham Harkless identifies the target audience and the importance of knowing where to connect with them.Gresham explains the three main questions for effective content creation, likening it to baking, and discusses balancing personal vs. business-focused content in social media.
Gresham covers the need for visibility and thought leadership through content creation, and establishing authority and credibility in business relationships.
He explains content re-purposing and its effectiveness in maximizing reach across platforms.
Gresham’s primary website (where you can find links to all of his services and resources).
Business Pillar: Visibility
Episode Link: Bizzbee Solutions
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Transcription:
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Gresham Harkless Teaser 00:00
And a lot of times when you tell and talk about your struggles, talk about your story and things that maybe didn't go well.
I think not only does that, I think give us a little bit of weight off our shoulders, but it also gives us that opportunity to connect with other people because you realize you're not by yourself.
Intro 00:25
Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO Podcast, and I wanted to share with you one of the episodes that I was a guest on for someone else's podcast.
I always talk about how important it is to build a media company. One of the next best things you could do is be on somebody else's media company.
So I had the pleasure of being a guest on this podcast and I wanted to share a little snippet with you because it would help support the 8 business pillars we've really been trying to focus on with a lot more of our content, a lot more of the solo episodes that I'm doing.
So make sure of course that you subscribe to our podcast, but of course you take some time out. Check out the show notes to subscribe to the podcast that I've been featured on as well too.
And get to learn about some of those 8 business pillars and how you can continue to kind of leverage and build that up. So you can go from builder to architect to a course at rock star and luminary.
So this is Gresh signing out. I hope you enjoyed this I AM CEO special episode.
Gresham Harkless 01:17
Part of like what I really preach and talk about is I say everybody is a media company. You are a media company.
And what that kind of speaks to is exactly what you said, is just understanding that the human aspect of business, I think is becoming more and more prominent.
People are becoming more and more aware of it. They want to use their dollars to support, not just a certain business and a product and service, but the people behind that product and service, things that they value or they don't value, they wanna use their dollars and their support for that.
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So I think right in line with that, we've started to see like the personal brand has become bigger and bigger, even within organizational brands, you start to see that there's people within the organization.
So you wanna know like their values, their interests, things that they're excited to do.
And I think right in line with the technology improvements, now we see that not only do people wanna know, but now they have Instagram, they have Facebook, they have TikTok, they have blogs, they have podcasts.
So now not only are they interested, but they can actually find that person to potentially like listen to their thoughts, their interests, things that they're struggling with, all those things.
And I think that's really the beautiful part is that you get that accessibility to be able to know somebody what it is that they do, but that can kind of translate into the bottom line, the business, because you get to support the people that you actually have that connection and that human interaction with.
Dancho Dimkov 02:33
Your spot on the multiple media makes it even easier. But as a CEO, it gets even scarier because before that is like, if you have Facebook profile, that's it.
Then we have Twitter, then we have Instagram, then LinkedIn along the way. Now TikTok, yeah, that's for the new generation, I assume.
But I was really curious as a CEO, but I think other CEOs here, they are willing to start, but in that chaos of multimedia, there are different podcasts, vlog cast, video cast, online shows and everything.
How to get some clarity out of that? I mean, I really believe it's not a simple, straightforward process.
And unless you know what you're doing or you're following at least some kind of a framework or something, you could get lost quite easy or you can do a lot of effort without any results.
Gresham Harkless 03:24
Yeah, you're absolutely right. And it's funny, like part of what I talk about with being a media company is I really say there's like 3 main questions you should really kind of ask yourself and continue to ask yourself throughout the entire process.
And I even compare like the whole process or framework to like I say baking your favorite dish mine's is my mom's like sweet potato pie absolute favorite dish.
But it could be anything could be apple pie it could be chocolate cake but the reason I like that analogy is because it allows you to kind of go through the process of baking and preparing, picking and choosing the correct ingredients.
But again, the 3 main questions that you really wanna get kind of clear about are first of all, your target market.
Like who are you targeting? Like you said so well, if you're a CEO you're not potentially using or trying to connect with a target market that's younger, maybe you're not gonna spend time on TikTok.
Maybe that's not even something you're going to do at this point, but it could be something you experiment with for 5 years down the line or 2 years down the line.
Really understanding that target market and creating those avatars is absolutely huge because it lets you know which ingredients or platforms and different ways you want to market yourself that you choose. Probably right.
And alignment with that is I say, being honest about your resources and resources. Most times people are thinking about, the money that they have, the budget that they have.
But it also depends on if you're doing things internally, maybe you're gonna do it yourself if you're a coach, or potentially if you have a marketing team and your marketing is really strong as far as writing.
So you're gonna basically leverage the tools that they have, or if you're gonna hire externally, maybe you have an idea, okay, this is how much we have.
So it's really, I think the sweat equity, but as much as the equity that you actually have, in your budget that you're doing.
And the last thing I say, you really wanna be clear about, and I think this is the thing you have to lean in the most about is what I like to ask on my podcast, which is for everybody's secret sauce.
So that's your unique selling proposition, your differentiator, what you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique.
A lot of times you can lean into that by figuring out like what that human aspect might be that makes you unique as an individual.
But essentially what that is probably what you're going to lead with more than anything else.
That secret sauce is a thing that's going to help you break through the noise. And more often than not, it's usually just it's talking about who you are, what you do, things that drive you crazy as much as things that you love.
You start to realize that you get to be connected to other people as a result of that.
Dancho Dimkov 05:57
Many times some people are like, yeah, I can create content and all the content is about personality and me myself.
Well, there is another group that are saying, well, yeah, you shouldn't create content about your personality should be more about the business and about the authority.
And people get confused. They don't know who to follow and what kind of content they actually need to create?
Gresham Harkless 06:19
Yeah, I think it's a really valid question because I think especially with the initial emergence of social media, especially, it was pretty much a lot of push-back from business owners in the business community saying, hey, I don't need to tell everybody that I'm making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at lunch.
They don't really wanna know about what it is that they do. They don't wanna know about like what time I'm going to sleep and things like that.
But I think that we've seen on platforms like LinkedIn, but really all platforms, even TikTok to some degree, you see that there's first movers that are in the business world that are creating content there to talk about what it is that they do.
So I think it's essentially kind of emerging in the middle, for lack of a better term, where, like I said, like you want to talk about like who you are.
And if you have a business, if you're an entrepreneur, your business owner, a CEO, whatever title you might give, you want to talk about that.
This is part of your life. This is part of your blood, sweat and tears that you're doing.
But you also don't want to be so siloed that you don't talk about the human part of what you do.
Maybe you're a mom, maybe you're a dad, maybe you're just starting your business and you're going through the blood, sweat and tears of like getting it off the ground.
Dancho Dimkov 07:27
The struggles, the struggles. People are usually like ashamed to talk about how hard it is to actually run a business, if you ask me, or juggling between family and work and extracurricular activities.
And I mean, people find it embarrassing, uncomfortable talking openly about their struggles.
Gresham Harkless 07:49
Yeah. And I think that's the beautiful part of kind of life in general. And I think that's what it gets to like business and life is like life basically consists of struggles.
And a lot of times when you tell and talk about your struggles, talk about your story and things that maybe didn't go well, I think not only does that, I think give us a little bit of weight off our shoulders.
But it also gives us that opportunity to connect with other people because you realize that you're not by yourself.
And I think like you said so well, that's one of the beauties of being able to kind of use these platforms to do that is to talk about these human struggles.
So that you have that connection and that opportunity to maybe build a stronger connection, which might result in more opportunities for your business.
Dancho Dimkov 08:29
Nice. But here, again, it is to build relationship, but business relationship in order to get more clients, in order to get how it's called.
Once you are a celebrity, clients will chase you actually, instead of you chasing them.
And Gresham, I think that even at BizzBee, 3 months ago, we introduced the content aspect in our services, but it was by request of clients.
I mean, we work with a lot of consultants and we do outreach for them and they're like, well, you know what, now I need some visibility, I need some thought leadership posts on LinkedIn and we're like, we'll cover you.
Then he said, but I need some expert content, like I need to block 1500, 2000 words block.
And we're like, okay, we'll cover that. But then I need some nurturing, some newsletter, something to stuff.
And we actually created like a separate department. We actually got 5 copywriters and then a project manager in order to satisfy, but we don't advertise, we don't sell it.
It's just to support our outreach process because it's not just going cold to people engage into conversation.
But I realized the more the celebrity you are, the easier is to actually, people to recognize you and to have much success in the conversation.
Even if it's not pitch yourselves, if it is just conversation starters, when they see, ah, but he has, I don't know, Dancho has been part of the I AM CEO Podcast.
He has a blog, he has X, Y, and Z. You got that instant credibility, instant authority to talk about.
Gresham Harkless 10:02
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that we, again, like in our pockets, we literally have tools that allow you to kind of search whoever you want to connect with, whoever you're thinking about doing business with.
And like you said, if you searched Dancho, you could see our podcast, you can see the book, you can see all these things that you have that you've been able to kind of do and build.
And I think that builds that authority. But as much as we try to silo those things, the world is getting smaller and smaller and smaller, and the content is also getting smaller and smaller and smaller.
So it is becoming one of those situations where, especially from an SEO standpoint, if you're doing one thing, to be honest, it's affecting other things.
So you can start to have that rising tide if you are more active and you are spending more time getting your name out there and creating that celebrity status as you said.
Dancho Dimkov 10:50
Nice, nice. Gresham, is there any trick how to win this, not war, but content strategy? Because at the end of the day, a lot of platforms, a lot of content to be generated.
And you put it right, you need some financials first, but then also a lot of sweat. I mean, doing these recordings and editing and everything, is there any shortcut that we're not aware of or something that could save at least some of the sweat?
Gresham Harkless 11:19
Yeah, I think I say it often on the podcast is that what they say the secrets of the overnight success is it takes 10 years.
And most people definitely don't want to hear that. I think there is ultimately like no magic bullet, no shortcut.
I think you could be a lot more efficient and effective in the way that you're doing things. Like for example, I'm really big into like trying to pick 2 or 3 of the, I call them ingredients.
And by ingredients, I mean the different platforms that you're using or different ways that you're marketing your business, you try to hone in and own like maybe 2 or 3 of those.
One of them might be experimental that completely is a little bit more long-term, but I think that allows you to be a lot more efficient because these platforms are changing rapidly.
SEO is changing at a snap of the finger every single day. You have the algorithms on Instagram and Facebook.
So all these things are changing. It's becoming more and more important to kind of be native and be a quote-unquote expert, or at least have your team be an expert in these platforms.
But I think the really big thing that people, wanna keep in mind is definitely bad and stay true to those 3 questions.
Because if you understand those 3 questions, then that'll allow you to make sure that you're staying true and kind of going with the goal that you ultimately have.
Because there's always kind of be going to be that shiny object syndrome where there's always something new that you want to try to take advantage of but you want to lane into like who you are your strengths and those things like that.
Dancho Dimkov 12:45
Nice nice where the content is more important whether it's B2B world where you're reaching to companies or it's more into the B2C, where as you said, people want to know the company now that they're paying, giving their money in.
So just curious your perspective on B2B versus B2C and content?
Gresham Harkless 13:04
Yeah, I mean, I'm very much so B2B. And I think me just the business that we do, like every content we do is a lot more B2B.
Those lines are definitely being blurred overall. But I think if you know that you're B2B, that's going to determine like, OK, you're going to spend maybe more time on LinkedIn.
Because even though it's become a lot more broad, it becomes more of a platform that's focused on that.
So I think it's not so much if you're going to be on social media, it's just more in terms of like what platforms you're gonna be on.
And I think one of the things that you start to realize, and the reason I say ingredients is because you wanna keep in mind like what you're trying to make, what your dish is, what success is and how you define success.
And then you find out those ingredients that are in alignment with that success. So like I mentioned, the sweet potato pie, you're not gonna go to the grocery store, you're not gonna get ketchup to put in your sweet potato pie, at least not my sweet potato pie.
But I think it's all in understanding that, okay, I'm not going to spend as much resources on TikTok because I have a B2B focus versus somebody else who has a strictly consumer business.
And they're gonna say, okay, well, we, first of all, maybe I love music, I love singing, I love dancing and all those things. I'm gonna be doing everything myself.
And I wanna target a younger demographic because I'm selling something to teenagers or something along those lines.
So maybe I will spend more time on TikTok. So it's just being a little bit more strategic related to how you're kind of executing that strategy.
Dancho Dimkov 14:33
Got it. Got it. Yeah. That's why I wanted to hear your opinion because I know you're much deeper into the area.
And one more question that I just had now that we discussed because you said too many platforms at once, it can be a headache.
Did I read it or did I listen somewhere about content re-purposing, content redistribution, content read something and then doing it again? Can you tell us a bit more about that? Is it worth it? Does it work?
Gresham Harkless 15:04
Yeah, it definitely works. And I think that what you have to realize is that most of these platforms are built for you to natively spend time there, you're going to get better performance if you're posting directly and natively on Instagram, for example, rather than do constant re-purposing.
But you definitely could use tools like later.com, Hootsuite, I call them hacks. All these hacks that are available to you to basically save you that time and energy.
And I think ideally every business wants to be in as many places as possible, as quickly as possible. So I think the real decision that everybody has to make is like, what's the trade-off?
So if LinkedIn is gonna be my main content generation, this is where my target market is.
Maybe I'm gonna spend more time there, but maybe I'm gonna repurpose that content by clicking another button within Hootsuite so that it also goes out to Twitter.
So while I'm posting something natively for LinkedIn, I can click another button and it can repurpose to a site like Twitter or it could repurpose to Facebook.
Even though that's not where my target market is, I still get that opportunity to be there and knowing that I won't have the organic effect.
Exactly, but you take that trade-off because you know that you don't have unlimited time. You don't have unlimited resources.
But this is where I'll get the most bang for my buck or my resources or my time and energy.
Outro 16:39
Hello, hello. This is Gresh again. And I hope you enjoyed that special episode of the I AM CEO Podcast.
Just like I mentioned in the beginning, we're really trying to laser focus on these 8 pillars and show you as a builder, how you can leverage these 8 pillars and really level up there.
So it helps to level up your business and organization. So hope you enjoyed this episode and definitely please check out the show notes.
So you can learn more about the pillar, learn more about the person that I guested on their episode and of course learn more a little bit more about us as well too.
This is Gresh signing out. I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.
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