Detailed Notes
The past few years have included us creating content channels across a number of outlets. Â That has led to a request to provide a presentation on how to go about such tasks. Â The goal is to focus on the content portion more than just list technical tools and platforms. Â We talk about approaches to producing content and considerations if you want to start down any of these paths.
Creating Content Channels - Many Options, Similar Approach One thing that was apparent in creating this presentation was how similar many of the channels are. Â That gives us some overarching steps to take and then refinements based on your channel. Â All of this combines to give you a thoughtful approach to creating content channels. Â Likewise, it provides some checklist material to help you get started.
Transcript Text
[Music] again books probably more so than blogs and others is what is my approach what is my tone if you vary if you've got like a podcast or a blog or a youtube channel and from time to time you vary the tone if you you know sort of step out of character for a little bit and do something that's a one-off or that's a little outside of the norm that's okay if you're writing a book or an audiobook then it's going to be more jarring because it's not gonna feel quite right uh unless that's part of your you know what you do you know breaking the fourth wall or something like that like you see in uh certain stories and characters but that's also that's because that's their thing they do that from time to time even though you're writing a when you're writing a book or an audio book something that's and this may even go to [Music] longer or full-length video type things is working on it on a regular process now maybe your release schedule is not going to matter as much if you're releasing once a year it's not going to matter as much if you're off by a day especially if you're off by an hour or two but doing the work on it you actually working on it i i think it is very important to make that a regular process if you're writing a book you know it's something like hey i'm going to spend 15 minutes a day writing my i'm working on my book um two hours a week you know whatever it is and do that schedule it just like you would anything else like a release kind of thing so that you have the the habit and the momentum of doing that work if you're talking about a book or an audiobook it is probably more critical to consider editing tools or resources you know people things like that what groups what items what resources am i going to use to help make this look better to you know to do the editing to do the cleanup to make sure that it's it's it's not just spelling and grammar it's that it flows right things like that with a book or an audiobook you need to consider things like your you know obviously the title uh what's the cover going to look like where or how are you going to get it published and even if you're self-publishing there are rules but there's definitely steps that you're going to take so you're going to want to walk through that and there are great ways to do self-publishing but you need to think through those just as you need to think about your branding for your um for your your blog or your podcast or your youtube channel and then publishing and promoting if you self-publish you you have to deal with all the promotional stuff if you actually get a publisher out there they are going to provide you some of this stuff they are going to you know send you on a book tour or whatever it is there's they will help be part of that and help promote it but there's still going to be some of that's going to fall on you so how am i going to go about this am i going to send out emails am i going to try to go on some get some speaking engagements and talk about it am i going to i don't know paint my car with advertisements about my my book and things like that there are a lot of options for that so it's it's nice to think of it holistically through all of these is sort of what does this look like when it's done what would ideally be my goal for this so your education platforms these are a little different but also you're going to find out somewhat the same now the difference with these are you really have more of a you have a more specific goal if you're on an educate if you're doing anything else of these that we've talked about it's really about just communicating i want to get my ideas across in an educational type platform it's not only do i need to get my ideas across but i want to give the the reader listener viewer a way to assess and maybe myself i want to assess if they have properly absorbed the content that i'm i'm producing there's a difference between saying hey here's an example of me coding in java and trying to make sure that the person that is watching that learned about collections in java those are different goals different things that you want to do and different approaches maybe you're going to take so in a platform an educational type platform is first think about how do you because audiences are going to learn different ways but for yourself since you are the teacher how do you best teach or communicate is it easiest for you to teach by writing or by talking or by sitting in front of a whiteboard or sitting at a keyboard how does that what is best for you what is most comfortable for you and then considering your audience is your approach better suited to a class is it better suited to more like a one-on-one kind of approach and if it's both then which you know how do you want to how do you see this moving forward do you see this as being something where there's a group and there's a discussion or uh and is it more uh say live or pseudo live or something that's very fine finally it's very easy to do that uh in an offline manner where you're just like you know you you record yourself doing stuff you send it off some student looks at it later and it's going to be fine they'll be able to pick it up a syllabus is always critical for a class it tells the student what are you going to learn what are the items we're going to learn how we're going to learn them as a you know as a content creator as a teacher how am i going to progress from point a to point z the things that i want to that i need to or want to cover as part of this this lesson is it uh am i gonna do like a one hour you know sit down for an hour and they read about a lecture and stuff like that and then they're off and running or are there uh maybe some checkpoints along the way you know they maybe learn for a little bit spend a few minutes learning and then there's a quiz or a laboratory session or something like that that helps them it really is like helps that information sink in what's your target market uh what do your what do your students look like are they computer savvy are they not computer savvy are they would they know about like if you put it on udemy would they even know what a udemy is would they even use that are they already there or are you gonna have to attract them to that platform as well which sort of that last point is how does that platform help you bring in students or or impacted in a way maybe negatively you know maybe that the the way you want to produce in the way the tools that are there for you to produce your content are targeted towards a platform that your users almost never will see so part of your process part of your thought process needs to be how am i going to bring these customers these students that i so think will benefit from this to this platform because this is really where they need to be to learn this so some key points through all of these because i did i batched this stuff you know i sort of grouped all this stuff together in one presentation where they could have easily been a half dozen presentations and gone in depth into each of these so some things to think about as a whole always need to consider like your focus your approach your theme and thinking about how you communicate how your topic needs to be communicated or is best communicated and also the audience when in doubt you want to cater to the audience not make the audience cater to you and so i for example i think of like a you know nightly newscast if the guy or girl that's the the news reader is in a clown suit it's it's not going to jive with news of the world particularly if it's about you know murder or war or theft or whatever you know dark stuff it's not going to it's not going to jive so consider you know your audience what do they expect what do you how do you best communicate whatever your content is and use that as your you know sort of your foundations to build out your theme and your your style and your approach regular work momentum habits are key to any of these things you need to go into if you're going to create a blog if you really want to do a blog you know there's a difference i guess between like recording yourself a couple of times versus a podcast or writing a couple a couple articles versus a blog and those things are really around scheduling releasing is doing it on a regular basis if you were if you could claim you're a writer if you wrote a book but really you're not a writer unless you're writing on a regular basis you know probably daily it's the same thing with being a blogger or podcaster or whatever is that you've got to have that regular cadence it will your audience will appreciate it your audience will grow because of it and it will make you better and it's one of those skills that you're going to learn is how to schedule your world in a way that you can do that on a regular basis it's sort of a note i didn't really hit on this too much it always takes longer to prepare and present on a topic than it does to simply talk about it if you wanted to sit down and like i you know i mentioned her like have a little java session that's about collections in java maybe you could sit down and do the five examples you want to do in five minutes but if you're going to record that and turn that into a session it's probably going to take you a lot longer to do that i would say you know in that case probably at least 15 minutes or half an hour and part of that is too there's like there's a minimum amount of time that's just required to set up and do anything even a blog to get yourself set up to be in the right frame of mind to get your tools up to start writing to go through the editor the editing pieces of it to put your thoughts down to type it out and all that kind of stuff and you'll get better as you do it uh the first couple times i did podcasts they probably took oh gosh easily probably three or four times the content length to do it you know so it was and probably more than that it's like if it was a 20-minute podcast it probably took me two two and a half hours to do an episode and now again it depends on your topics and all kinds of stuff if you're doing research and all that there may be pre-work but just the the doing it technical part of of putting your content into your form uh it's gonna take time so and there's there's almost always there's snags there's delays there's all kinds of stuff that can occur so prepare for it assume it's assume the worst and then prepare for it you put in the work on these say this is if it sounds like there's work involved there is i mean these things are they take time and effort and if you're going to go through all that make sure you take some time like pat yourself on the back use it put in a resume put it out on you'll let people know that you know that's something that you do don't be afraid to look at ways to monetize it don't be a look be afraid to look at ways to to use that to help emphasize that you know what you're talking about on that topic or some of the related topics you know like if somebody says would you know how to create a a community or launch a website and say yeah here i've done it don't be afraid to make use of those things and and benefit from it because you've done the work you've you should earn the kudos as well with all these i've mentioned you you're like your theme your your personality your style your approach i would warn you if you select something that's not you if you're the voice that you use the theme that you use is something that's a little that's not really that doesn't come as natural to you that's okay but just remember that you have to be comfortable with that or you've got to be able to grow into comfort with that if you look at um for example it goes back to actors and actresses but you'll see some that you can tell that they're in a role that is very much themself and then they're granted really great actors and actresses it's harder to tell but then you can also tell where there's stuff where they're as they call stretching themselves so you made somebody that does like i don't know white-hearted comedy over and over again and then suddenly does this serious dramatic role and if you're going to do something like that that's outside of what's your normal personality just realize that that can be taxing that can be draining to do and it can be more complicated because then you have to step out you have to step into that role in order to figure out how to communicate and still be true to that role or that theme and it's not a it's not impossible but it's just one of those things that you know if you're stepping into this work you want to make sure that you you go in as much as possible with your eyes wide open you
Transcript Segments
[Music]
again
books probably more so than blogs and
others
is what is my approach what is my tone
if you vary
if you've got like a podcast or a blog
or a youtube channel and from time to
time you vary the tone if you you know
sort of step out of character for a
little bit and do something that's a
one-off or that's a little outside of
the norm that's okay
if you're writing a book or an audiobook
then it's going to be more jarring
because it's not gonna feel quite right
uh unless that's part of your you know
what you do you know breaking the fourth
wall or something like that like you see
in
uh certain stories and characters
but that's also that's because that's
their thing they do that from time to
time
even though you're writing a when you're
writing a book or an audio book
something that's and this may even go to
[Music]
longer or
full-length video type things is
working on it on a regular process now
maybe your release schedule is not going
to matter as much if you're releasing
once a year it's not going to matter as
much if you're off by a day especially
if you're off by an hour or two
but doing the work on it
you actually working on it i i think it
is very important to make that a regular
process if you're writing a book
you know it's something like hey i'm
going to spend
15 minutes a day writing my i'm working
on my book um
two hours a week you know whatever it is
and do that schedule it just like you
would anything else like a release kind
of thing so that you have the
the habit and the momentum of doing that
work
if you're talking about a book or an
audiobook
it is probably more
critical to consider
editing tools or resources you know
people
things like that
what
groups what
items what resources am i going to use
to help make this look better to you
know to do the editing to do the cleanup
to make sure that it's
it's it's not just spelling and grammar
it's that it flows right things like
that
with a book or an audiobook
you need to consider things like your
you know obviously the title
uh what's the cover going to look like
where or how are you going to get it
published and even if you're
self-publishing there are
rules but there's definitely steps that
you're going to take so you're going to
want to walk through that
and there are great ways to do
self-publishing
but you need to think through those just
as you need to think about your branding
for your
um for your your blog or your podcast or
your youtube channel
and then
publishing and promoting if you
self-publish you you have to deal with
all the promotional stuff if you
actually get a publisher out there they
are going to provide you some of this
stuff they are going to you know send
you on a book tour or whatever it is
there's
they will help be part of that and help
promote it but there's still going to be
some of that's going to fall on you so
how
am i going to go about this am i going
to send out emails am i going to try to
go on some get some speaking engagements
and talk about it
am i going to i don't know paint my car
with advertisements about my my book and
things like that
there are a lot of options for that so
it's
it's nice to think of it holistically
through all of these is sort of what
does this look like when it's done
what would ideally be
my goal for this
so your education platforms
these are
a little different
but also you're going to find out
somewhat the same
now the difference with these are
you really have more of a you have a
more specific goal if you're on an
educate if you're doing anything else of
these that we've talked about it's
really about just communicating i want
to get my ideas across in an educational
type platform it's not only do i need to
get my ideas across but i want to give
the
the reader listener viewer
a way to assess
and maybe myself i want to assess if
they have
properly absorbed the
content that i'm i'm producing
there's a difference between saying hey
here's an example of me coding
in java
and
trying to make sure that the person that
is watching that
learned about collections in java those
are different goals different things
that you want to do
and different approaches maybe you're
going to take
so in a platform an educational type
platform is first
think about how do you
because audiences are going to learn
different ways but for yourself since
you are the teacher
how do you best teach or communicate
is it easiest for you to teach by
writing or by talking or by sitting in
front of a whiteboard or sitting at a
keyboard
how does that what is best for you what
is most comfortable for you
and then considering your audience
is
your approach better suited to a class
is it better suited to more like a
one-on-one kind of approach
and
if it's both then which you know how do
you want to how do you see this
moving forward do you see this as being
something where there's a group and
there's a discussion or
uh and
is it more
uh say live or pseudo live
or something that's very fine
finally it's very easy to do that uh in
an offline manner where you're just like
you know you you record yourself doing
stuff you send it off some student looks
at it later and it's going to be fine
they'll be able to pick it up
a syllabus is always critical for a
class it tells the student
what are you going to learn what are the
items we're going to learn how we're
going to learn them
as a you know as a content creator as a
teacher
how am i going to progress from point a
to point z the things that i want to
that i need to or want to cover as part
of this this
lesson is it
uh am i gonna do like a one hour you
know sit down for an hour and
they read about a lecture and stuff like
that and then they're off and running or
are there
uh maybe some checkpoints along the way
you know they maybe learn for a little
bit spend a few minutes learning and
then
there's a quiz or
a
laboratory session or something like
that that helps them
it really is like helps
that information sink in
what's your target market uh what do
your
what do your students look like
are they
computer savvy are they not computer
savvy are they
would they know about like if you put it
on udemy would they even know what a
udemy is would they even use that are
they already there or are you gonna have
to attract them to that platform as well
which sort of that last point is how
does that platform help you bring in
students or or impacted in a way maybe
negatively you know maybe that the
the way you want to produce in the way
the tools that are there for you to
produce your content
are
targeted towards a platform that your
users almost never will see
so part of your
process part of your thought
process needs to be how am i going to
bring these customers these students
that i
so think will benefit from this to this
platform
because this is really where they need
to be to learn this
so some key points
through all of these because i did i
batched this stuff you know i sort of
grouped all this stuff together in one
presentation where they could have
easily been
a half dozen presentations and gone in
depth into each of these
so some things to think about as a whole
always need to consider like your focus
your approach your theme
and thinking about how you communicate
how your topic needs to be communicated
or is best communicated and also the
audience
when in doubt you want to
cater to the audience not make the
audience cater to you
and so i for example i think of like a
you know nightly newscast
if the guy or girl that's the the news
reader is in a clown suit
it's
it's not going to jive with
news of the world particularly if it's
about you know murder or war or
theft or whatever you know dark stuff
it's not going to it's not going to jive
so consider you know your audience what
do they expect what do you how do you
best communicate
whatever your content is and
use that as your you know sort of your
foundations to build out your theme and
your your style and your approach
regular work
momentum habits are key
to any of these things
you need to go into if you're going to
create a blog if you really want to do a
blog you know there's a difference i
guess between like recording yourself a
couple of times versus a podcast or
writing a couple a couple articles
versus a blog
and those things are really around
scheduling releasing is doing it on a
regular basis
if you were if you could claim you're a
writer if you wrote a book
but
really
you're not a writer unless you're
writing on a regular basis you know
probably daily
it's the same thing with being a blogger
or podcaster or whatever is that you've
got to have that regular cadence
it will your audience will appreciate it
your audience will grow because of it
and it will make you better
and it's one of those skills that you're
going to learn is how to schedule
your world in a way that you can do that
on a regular basis
it's sort of a note i didn't really hit
on this too much it always takes longer
to prepare and present on a topic
than it does to simply talk about it
if you wanted to sit down and like i you
know i mentioned her like have a little
java session that's about collections in
java
maybe you could sit down
and do the five examples you want to do
in five minutes
but
if you're going to record that and turn
that into a session it's probably going
to take you a lot longer to do that i
would say you know
in that case probably at least 15
minutes or half an hour
and part of that is too there's like
there's a minimum
amount of time that's just required to
set up and
do
anything even a blog to get yourself set
up to be in the right frame of mind to
get your tools up to start writing to go
through the editor the editing pieces of
it
to put your thoughts down to type it out
and all that kind of stuff and you'll
get better as you do it uh the first
couple times i did podcasts they
probably took
oh gosh easily probably three or four
times
the content length to do it you know so
it was and probably more than that it's
like if it was a 20-minute podcast it
probably took me two two and a half
hours to do an episode
and
now again it depends on your topics and
all kinds of stuff if you're doing
research and all that there may be
pre-work but
just the the doing it
technical part of
of putting your content into your form
uh it's gonna take time
so and there's there's almost always
there's
snags there's delays there's all kinds
of stuff that can occur so prepare for
it assume it's assume the worst
and then prepare for it
you put in the work on these say this is
if it sounds like there's work involved
there is i mean these things are
they take
time and effort and
if you're going to go through all that
make sure you take some time like pat
yourself on the back use it put in a
resume put it out on you'll let people
know that you know that's something that
you do
don't be afraid to look at ways to
monetize it
don't be a look
be afraid to look at ways to
to use that to help emphasize that you
know what you're talking about on that
topic
or some of the related topics you know
like if somebody says would you know how
to
create a
a community or
launch a website and say yeah here i've
done it
don't be afraid to make use of those
things
and and benefit from it because you've
done the work you've you should earn the
kudos as well
with all these i've mentioned you you're
like your theme your
your personality your style your
approach
i would warn you if you select something
that's not you
if you're
the voice that you use the theme that
you use is something that's a little
that's not really that doesn't come as
natural to you
that's okay but just remember that you
have to be comfortable
with that or you've got to be able to
grow into comfort with that
if you look at um
for example it goes back to actors and
actresses but you'll see some that you
can tell that they're in a role that is
very much themself
and then
they're granted really great actors and
actresses it's harder to tell but then
you can also tell where there's stuff
where they're
as they call stretching
themselves so you made somebody that
does like i don't know white-hearted
comedy over and over again and then
suddenly does this serious dramatic role
and if you're going to do something like
that that's outside of what's your
normal personality just realize that
that can be taxing that can be draining
to do and it can be more complicated
because then you have to step out you
have to step into that role
in order to figure out how to
communicate
and still
be true to that role or that theme
and it's not a it's not impossible
but it's just one of those things that
you know
if you're stepping into this work
you want to make sure that you you go in
as much as possible with your eyes wide
open
you