For many people, becoming a full-time digital content creator is a viable career choice and the ultimate dream. It’s the perfect way to pursue your passions and make money from doing what you enjoy.
1. Choose your niche and establish yourself
What are you most passionate about? What drives your enthusiasm?
Whatever topic takes your fancy, you can become an expert in it and establish yourself. Creating content in your chosen niche allows you to become an expert and build yourself up as an authority in that area – and with that comes a loyal audience. And of course, it will be easier to motivate yourself to go the extra mile if you are passionate about what you are doing!
2. Create a business plan
Unless you plan on creating content as a hobby, it helps to write out a business plan.
Why?
Well, deciding to become a successful full-time content creator who makes a living from it is a business decision.
A business plan allows you to establish key goals and objectives for your venture, and enables you to plan and establish strategies to get you to where you want to be in your journey as a full-time digital content creator.
3. Set yourself some SMART goals
Your goals should be SMART. This means that they should be:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Relevant
- Time-Bound
When setting yourself some goals to help you become a full-time digital content creator, you should ensure that they are specific and tailored to what you’re trying to achieve, and measurable by quantifying them.
Your goals should be realistic and achievable, and you should be able to have the necessary means and resources in order to achieve them.
You can ensure your goal is relevant by making sure that it aligns with the overall purpose of what you’re trying to accomplish. Also, your goals should be timely, meaning that you should set yourself a timeframe and a deadline by which to attain the goal.
4. Create content that is valuable
No matter your what your chosen niche is and the type of content you create (e.g. blog, video, social media), your content needs to be valuable to your target audience. It needs to be entertaining, engaging and informative.
When creating content, ask yourself: “How is this useful or helpful to my audience? What could they possibly gain from this?” Establish a content plan so that you can put together ideas and have a set schedule for upcoming trends and features.
5. Consistency is key
The most successful full-time digital content creators tend to have one thing in common: they’re consistent. In order to succeed you need to be creating and posting content on a regular and consistent basis. Irregularity will bore your target audience and drive them away from your platform to go elsewhere.
6. Monetise from Day 1
Some people think that you should only start monetising your content once you’ve gained a lot of followers. After all, many brands, PR agents and marketing professionals expect content creators to have a sizable following for collaborations and paid opportunities.
However, it’s always good to start monetising from the moment you start creating content if you plan on making a living from it, and it’s entirely possible to do this.
Using Fan-Topia, possibly set your subscription a little lower to begin with (you can always change it later!). This will get people coming in, and you can ask them for feedback if you’re worried about what you’re putting out, all while earning from it already!
Use social media to find your tribe and connect with your target audience. It’s a great way to boost engagement and to feel connected to your fans in a personal way.
8. Utilize tools
There are plenty of tools out there (free and paid) that will help to boost the quality of your content, such as Adobe Creative Cloud, Canva, Grammarly, VSCO and Snapseed. Improving the quality of your content is a great way to keep your audience engaged and interested, and will make you a likely candidate for paid opportunities.
9. Be unique
Be yourself. Not only will your fans show interest in your passion, but they’ll also show interest in you as a person, so always be authentic.