Q&A Session: Content Pillars, Short form vs. Long form, How to start a Podcast - Teacher: Juma Bannister

Hello and welcome Useful Content Creators. My name is Juma Bannister. I am your host and your useful content teacher.

And today in the Useful Content Classroom we have our very first question and answer lesson.

so I asked people who follow me on social media for questions and now I'm going to take the time to answer all of those questions.

I ask for questions specifically surrounding content strategy and also video because that's what we do. 

I've gotten back about 15 responses with some very very good questions and unfortunately I wouldn't be able to get to all of them today.

Some of the questions were so good I had to reserve them for me to do a full episode on getting to those bigger questions in the future. I got questions on podcasting, I got questions on content pillars, and I even got questions asking what are the biggest mistakes digital entrepreneurs make.

And so I think today is going to be a really good session.

and keep your eyes and ears, peeled because someone may even even make a secret guest appearance.

So let's get into those questions and answers right now. Here we go. 

So the very first question I want to tackle from Rory Doon, now Rory I know your name, I'm seeing it in front of me. But I don't know how to properly pronounce it, so I'm not going to take that chance. So let's call you Rory HD. And Rory asks, which is more effective short form or long form content?

And like any responsible content marketer, I'm going to have to answer the most boring answer ever and say, it depends.

And it mostly depends on who you are talking to. And what stage of the customer journey they are at. And not so much who you're talking to from the perspective of the persona you should have developed for your marketing plans. But who you're talking to in this instance really kind of refers to how does your audience like to consume content? Do they prefer short or long form content?

I'm also going to assume that you're referring to video here because of course we could have short or long form audio and short or long form text, but I'm going to assume video here 

And so an important part of knowing which one is more effective is knowing your customer very, very well. And that should be a standard thing in anybody creating any content strategy or creating any marketing is talking to the customers to find out how they consume content, whether they prefer video or text or whatever it is. And then of course, you have a ton of questions you can ask about your products or services for the people who have bought it already. But the main thing is finding out how do your customers consume content?

What are their habits like? And if you discover those things, then you'll know whether you should be using. long form or short form. In addition to that, depending on certain demographics of your audience and specifically their age, that will determine whether or not they're more likely to like short form or long form content. Studies have shown, it's been proven, that younger people tend to want to consume shorter form content and when you're slightly older you go for the longer form content.

So which one is better? You have to do your customer research to find out. I personally like both. I think they're both effective depending on what you want to do. But in your case, it has to be very specific. For any client, it has to be very specific. And each person has a different reason or a different goal.

And you have to know what those goals are and how you're going to navigate to those goals in order to know what type of content that you should make. So the boring answer is it. Depends.

And while we're here, let me just talk a bit about the customer journey and the short form and long form content as well. So it's highly likely that in the start of the customer journey, when you're building awareness, because people who really know you and they wouldn't want to sit down for a long time to consume your content it might be better to make shorter form content because top of funnel content is kind of like to grab the person to make them aware so you might want to produce short form content for that and that's better suited to building awareness in the customer journey or what i like to call the what we do phase of the customer journey so that could be used for short form content as opposed to long form content which is better suited to the consideration and the selling phase because by that time if people are aware of you and they're in the phase of consideration they might want to find out more it's more likely that they would stick around for a longer form video if it's done well, if there's a good hook and a good setup and the body content is nice and it's edited well, and then there's a strong call to action as well, that is the better way to do it. It's more likely that they're going to stick around for that if the content is done really well. Lastly, it also kind of depends on what you want to make, you don't want to try to make content that you're not ready for, and you might have to put extra efforts in to do something that you don't like to make. So short form or long form, it depends on what you want to make.

And I would say that long form actually is a lot more difficult So in summary, it depends, know who you're talking to and know what stage of the customer journey they are at. Okay. Good question from Rory.

Now the second question is from Nikesha Maraj, Nikesha is one of my faithful followers on LinkedIn. Thanks for the question Nikesha. She asks, how do I start a podcast, the beginner friendly version? Well, I can safely say. From my own experience, and from hearing other people talk, I've had experts on my podcast, talking about podcasts, and I can safely say that podcasts are a lot of work.

Most people quit before they get to the eighth episode. The stats are people quit around the seventh episode or so. So, you know, the first question I would ask is, Do you really need a podcast? That's the big question that I would ask. Some things go in style and out of style and people jump on the bandwagon because they feel like they have to have this because everybody else has it, but it may not be necessary.

So you have to know based on your marketing plans, your goals, and your content strategy, whether or not that fits. Into where you are going so you don't waste time trying to develop something that you don't need and of course There's a question of what else can you do? What other type of content can you make that will fill the space of a podcast?

You might want to make mid form video and not make it a podcast You might want to make shorter form video not make it a podcast. Not everyone needs a podcast

With that said, I am not a podcast pro, and I think there might be somebody else who might be better equipped to answer this question.

If you didn't recognize him, that was Neil Vellio from Podnos Podcasting. Thank you, Neil, for your expert input on that question. 

And the second question that Keshia asks is how does a podcast generate revenue? I don't know that many people even generate revenue from their podcasts, but I know some of the bigger names out there, you can have things like sponsorships, you could have things like ads running on your podcast if you live in particular parts of the world.

You could have affiliate stuff as well going on. So your podcast really is a place that you can send people to other places so that you can generate money from those places. The podcast itself might not generate money directly. There are very few people who are downloaded enough, well known enough, who have enough traction.

To place ads and place different things inside of their podcasts in order to generate money from directly and they are very elite few That podcast platforms pay them to be on there and we all know them by name. So Generating money from a podcast directly. I don't think it's an option for a lot of people Although there are other options around that and you can take in order to get money from the content That you're making 

all right, on to the next question. So Lyndon Batiste, I was on Lyndon's podcast some time ago, he asks I love to hear actually he, he says, I love to hear about the impact of podcasting on your business. Now, I forgot to mention earlier that I'm, I kind of grouped all of the similar questions together.

So all the podcasting questions got grouped together. And that's why this one came right after the one before. So Linda wants to know about the impact of podcasting on my business. And I do have an answer for that. So the first angle I like to take it from. is the business angle. Now, before my podcast was an actual recorded podcast that went onto YouTube and went on to the, these podcasts, hosting platforms and audio version. I used to have a live show and a live show was my way of doing long form content. And I know for a fact from that live show, we got at least two business opportunities that panned out to be good revenue for our business. So it wasn't a podcast as yet, but the idea was the same. Somebody saw the long form content and contacted us based upon what I was sharing, in the long form content. So in fact, we did get business from that. Of course, out of the podcast recording and the live show recording, I create content, I repurpose it into content and that content allows for us to generate more business. So three of the recent new clients we got were from sharing content on social media platforms, and that would have included clips from the podcast as well.

So while they may not have come from listening to the podcast, repurpose content, allow for people to get to know us and trust us, and of course like us, And so they contact us when they had a need that lined up with the things that we were sharing. So the next way in which the podcast has impacted our business is by building relationships with people. In our industry and around the industry. So some of the people who came on to the podcast as guests, they were peers. Some of those people were people who are pros were leaders in the industry, and we're able to build relationships through having them as guests on the podcast.

So now I know them. And if we need to. Do something with them. I can have an ask, or if they need something from me, they can ask. And some people can even send work our way, depending on the type of relationship that we have. So it was big in terms of building relationship in the industry, as well as building relationship with our audience, that is both our potential customers or ICP and our fans that we have on the social media platform. So the podcast worked in that way. As well.

Okay. So the last two about the podcast, it also worked as a brand builder, both my personal brand and relate studios brand as a producer of high quality content. So that was useful and that impacted our business. And now we can go to somebody and say. Hey, look, we've produced our own podcast. We can do one for you.

So they know we're capable in that way. And the last thing is the podcast serves as a content flywheel or content engine. However you want to define it, which means that we use the podcast as our core, our long form piece of content that we can then take and generate ideas and have clips and repurpose and put it in different places and cross post.

It is a great resource for content and for getting our message out there in different ways. Transcripts, whether that is social posts, whatever it is, the podcast is a great resource for doing that as well. So it serves as the core of our content engine. So podcast has impacted our business making that easier to do.

Okay, on to the next question, and this one is not actually a question. This is one of my Former guests on the podcast and also a content marketer, Lee Densma, she's saying this or she's asking this question on behalf of the folks, on behalf of everyone and Lee, I thank you for this question.

She wants me to explain to the folks or explain for the folks the concept of choosing content pillars and how that looks. in practice. Now that is a big question. And as a result of that, there is a big answer. I've tried to make the answer smaller, but hold on to your seats. This is going to be a deep one. So let's start from the top.

So your content pillars are the main topics that you choose to make useful content about based on what you do and who you do it for. So those are what content pillars are. And of course, your content pillars, just like any content strategy, should rest within a larger marketing plan. So the assumption is made that you already have your personas locked down, you already know your ideal client profile, you know, all those different things. So it's not really made in a vacuum, although sometimes you can create a content strategy without that, but it's not an ideal situation when you have no marketing plan, but you're making a content strategy. So that's the first thing to recognize that content pillars exist within a content strategy that exists within a bigger marketing strategy or marketing plan.

So how do you choose content pillars? Well, there is a simple way and there is the complex way. And today we're going to explore one way to do it, which we use in our content strategies, and that is the simple way to do it.

So, first of all, I'm going to assume a few things. I'm going to assume that somebody who is creating content pillars, that they actually have a business or is running a business, that's important because the pillars are going to be based upon what you do in your business.

And the second thing that I'm going to assume is that you have 12 months in which to build out all this content based on the content pillars. Because It doesn't make sense having these pillars unless you're going to build content around them. So you're going to need time and I think 12 months is a good time.

So this is me re recording this part of the podcast because I thought my answer was simple but as I got into it my explanation got very complex I think I might have to do a whole podcast on just content pillars only.

But what I would say and what I would add to kind of finalize this section without going any deeper is to say that we look at three things when we look at content pillars. The three things are the current profitability of the particular service that will serve as a topic, the growth revenue potential of the particular service that will serve as a topic, And we look at what is the most fulfilling work about those particular topics. So what is the thing that the company actually wants to do? What is the thing that they want to get deeper into? So let me go over that one more time. We look at three things when we are talking about content pillars related to the services or products in the company and we do believe that the content pillars have to be related to the services or the products in the company, the top ones. Three things we look at to determine what those things are and which ones you should emphasize the most.

Uh, the current profitability that particular product or service provides, the revenue growth potential that particular product or service gives, and do you find that type of work fulfilling? Do you want to get deeper into that type of work? And I'll just leave it at that. There's a whole rating system and a ranking system that we use in content strategies, but it's too, I think it's too complex to talk about it here and today.

So maybe We'll do a whole podcast about that thing. So I think it might just be time to move on to the next question.

Okay, I think I can only get to one more question and, uh, there are many more I just couldn't get to. Sorry, Brent and Chelsea and everybody who submitted stuff, but let me get to Debbie Jolie's question. Debbie Jolie is a fellow marketer and she sent this on LinkedIn, I believe, even though Debbie also follows me on Facebook.

So she is asking the question and I guess for the people as well, what are the top three Debbie? Debbie? Content marketing mistakes you see digital entrepreneurs make Now, this is a good question, but it's not an uncommon question, and there are some easy answers that we can immediately say. There are some usual suspects in terms of mistakes digital entrepreneurs make, and the usual suspects are inconsistency, right, you're not consistent, both in the frequency of your posting.

How often you post or the timing in which you post or the cadence in which you post and also inconsistency in your messaging. Not having any plan at all when you're going to post so you're inconsistent. And then you didn't really do any kind of strategizing before and you didn't look at what people are saying.

So then your message is not right. And so you're inconsistent in your message, the things that you say and you're inconsistent. In your posting itself, the frequency and the cadence in your posting. So it affects the overall quality of the content. Those are the usual suspects. I'm not going to get deep into those.

I just wanted to say those things to get them out of the way. But let me get into the three things I think are very important. And I have them in my notes here because I had to write these things down so I'll get it right. So the first thing, and this is something that It really gets to me. It really does get to me. It gets me upset when people do it, which is jumping on trends that have nothing to do with their content goals or their content pillars.

And it irks me when business owners, when people who are running businesses do this. There is no reason to do this. Now, granted, you could possibly do it in your personal page, in your personal time, but for your business, you don't want to just jump on any trends that have nothing to do with your content pillars, nothing to do with your brand.

And most times this is done is usually driven by what people perceive as low engagement on their regular content. And they want to find a way to boost it. Or they might even think, okay, well, maybe this might go viral, but you definitely don't want to go viral for the wrong reason. Everyone who comes to your content for that particular post, that is a trend.

will eventually be the bane of your existence because your engagement will then drop thereafter. You'll have a lot of followers. But no engagement. The aim of the game is to have the most engaged, the most loyal followers you can have, who are either fans of your content and will share, will comment, will amplify it, or they are customers waiting to buy from you.

Those are the type of people you want interfacing with your content. Of course, fans of your content can mean. Your peers. It can mean people who may be learning from you, but you also want to have your clients inside of their people who may not interact with the content, but they are there to look and see what you're doing.

And when they have a problem that matches what you do. Then they will reach out, uh, so that you can do work for them.

So don't jump on trends. That is a big mistake. The second mistake that I think digital entrepreneurs make is just not experimenting enough. Now if you have content pillars, you have something that are guardrails that will keep you in alignment when it comes to the type of content you make. Then you have the freedom within those guardrails to do different things, to try different content forms, different content types.

You have the freedom. to do that. And there are some things you can only learn by experiencing it and doing it yourself. There's some things you could only learn that way. You have a grasp of the situation and how it impacts your bottom line, how it impacts the way people interface with your contents and what people say and engagement.

You can only learn some of those things by Actually experimenting and figuring it out for yourself. Um, not everybody needs to do it, but if you have decided that you want to DIY your content. You need to experiment and some people may be afraid to test and experiment and try new things because they feel that maybe how they will be perceived or maybe their engagement will drop or whatever it is.

Listen, none of that matters. You don't know, you could, you could come upon something that is incredible if you experiment. And the only way you can get better is by experimenting and trying different things. Um, from time to time, I would suggest Maybe even more often than time to time.

You might want to run an experiment every month with one piece of content, maybe, but if you don't experiment as somebody who's making content, then you're doomed to be stuck and never figure out what can actually work for you. And it's okay that when you figure out what works for you to double down on it, but before you get there, experiment, it is essential.

And the last big mistake I see digital entrepreneurs make with content is that they are not really making content. What they are making is ads. They are making ads and they are calling it content. It's not the same. If every post you make just has your product name, your product features, and a call to action, and maybe a price, then you're making an ad.

All that is an ad. If it's not helpful, it's not customer focus, you're making ads, not content. I mean it's ridiculous sometimes every post is about a sale everything is about the product and the features nothing is helpful nothing is useful but people swear that they are making content and that's not how this thing works if you want people to get to know you there are certain types of content you have to make for each stage of the customer journey.

And that starts off with just giving people quick wins. It starts off with helping people, just showing, giving people tips. Just telling people, well, these are five things you can do in order to accomplish this particular thing. And so if you're just trying to sell, sell, sell, then those things are not content, they're just ads.

And if you only have ads, you'll never be able to build trust for the long term because you're going to be perceived as just as valuable as the other guy with ads. So that is a big mistake that entrepreneurs often make with content.

And I think we're out of time now. Um, that's the last question I'm going to tackle on this podcast episode. It was a very, very good Q& A. Thanks everyone for sending in your questions. Listen, I have a newsletter now, the Useful Content Newsletter, that sends out useful content notes. I'll leave a link to the newsletter in the show notes or maybe in the comments, depending on where you'll see this, there'll be a link there. And also, if you want to submit questions for the next Q& A, I think I'm going to make a form and leave that in the show notes as well. I'll link to that so you can fill out the form and send me questions ahead of time.

So the next time I'm doing a session like this. I wouldn't have to go on social media and ask and have a ton of questions already pre sent by the people who want to find things out. So thanks again for joining me, Juma Bannister, on the Useful Content Podcast, Useful Content Classroom, dismissed.

And I'm Clay. Alright, listen. I have a pelau outside to eat and I'm here in this non air conditioned room. I'm gonna eat my pelau now. I don't, uh, it's, it's, you know, I've been sitting down here for the last 40 something minutes recording this. So bye bye everybody.