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10 Steps to Become a Content Creator
Being creative has always been a distinctive characteristic of humansđ§ . Science shows there is creativity in all of us, and a lot of it is untapped because most people donât have enough time available to stimulate their creativity, or worse â they believe they have nothing to stimulate in the first place!
There is a reason content creators are now central figures of our societies. Each and every one of them is sharing something unique to a world where diversity is desperately needed. They bring their creativity to us through social media and if they can do it, why couldnât you? đ
All voices need to be heard, so if you feel like you have something special to share, content creation might be your calling. Be warned â it is a bumpy journey, but thatâs what makes it extraordinary.Â
Starting the journey is at your fingertips. Our tips below should help you get started but donât forget the most important thing â enjoy and donât take yourself too seriously! đ€Ș
Step 1: Define your purpose, your âWHYâ
A purpose is essential to begin any enterprise. Motivation will help you start but what keeps you going when you face setbacks is focusing on the bigger picture. Fulfillment comes when your contributions are aligned with your values and goals.
You may have heard about the Ikigai method â a Japanese concept that means your âreason for beingâ. Your âIkigaiâ is a subtle combination of these 4 aspects:
- What you love doing
- What you are good at
- What the world needs
- What you can be paid for
While finding eligible âIkigaiâ is only a method amongst many, we believe it certainly is a good place to start. But there are a lot of additional questions to ask yourself. Will you find joy in your daily job? Is it in line with your target lifestyle and personal growth goals? Will you feel rewarded enough when you reach milestones? Will you feel like you have a positive contribution to the world?
Step 2: Pick your topics
Already having a few ideas in mind regarding the content you want to produce? Thatâs great! If youâre not too sure, think about the topics that you are absolutely passionate about and can never get bored of. Cooking, make-up, litterature, gaming, quilting, anything you want! Letâs put it this way, if you like it, there must be an audience for it!Â
Donât hesitate to aim for specific topics â frequently referred to as a ânicheâ. This is a subject we will touch on later but bear in mind that the more qualified is your audience, the more valuable each of your followers will turn out to be. It is overall better and more satisfying to have an engaged audience and to develop a true connection with a small community, rather than a large number of subscribers with a low engagement rate. đ
Once you have listed out your options for content creation, letâs dig out for their respective potential!
Step 3: Do your research
Keep in mind that becoming a creator implies getting into the entertainment industry. Your content might be educational, but even then youâre part of the global competition for attention. This doesnât mean that you should be fully mainstream, on the contrary! Still, you need to know your competition and what makes them successful with their audience.
Once you have picked out a few subjects that you are passionate about and feel like you can make one â or several â of them your own niche, research the most prominent creators on the topics and spend some time studying their content. 
At this stage, carefully studying competition is a priceless resource for you to figure out what the audience wants, since you have no other data to look at. Here is how you should build your analysis:
List out all of your competitors
Tip: You can use HypeAuditor to find out top creators for all types of content 
Assess their social media presence
Check out what platforms they are publishing on and figure out what type of audience they have on each. You can make a lot of conclusions based on the content they choose to publish and their interactions with their community.
Understand what has been their recipe for success
Take some time to read the comments and focus on the details:
- What hooks are they using in their videos?Â
- How has their content evolved over time?Â
- What different types of videos are they making? What are the most successful ones?Â
- What content engages their community the most?
- What are their editing styles? Is it simple editing or very elaborated with lots of effects? Are these really necessary?
Tip: You can use Creasquare Creative Studio to edit your videos like a pro, no
experience required. There is a free version and trial options as well!
Step 4: Find your audience
After your assessment of the competition, you should have enough insights to pick a niche you believe has enough potential and could fit well with your personality. You are going to begin your test-and-learn phase. đ
Based on your research, you may have a first idea of what your typical audience should be. You can start with that assumption and create a first version of your persona. Personas are fictional characters, which you create based upon your research in order to represent the audience you will address.Â
Creating personas helps you understand your audienceâs preferences, itâs a great tool to learn how to put yourself in the position of the audience. To create a persona, you should give them an age, gender, occupation, values, interests, etc. Make them alive so whenever you are in a creative mode, you can keep this persona in mind! đœ
Step 5: Elaborate your strategy
There is no luck, only strategy! If youâre just starting content creation, it is safer that this be a side hustle until you make enough money to become a full-time creator. All the more reasons to be strategic and focused so you can do what you love sooner! đ
Social media is complex, each platform has its own algorithm and typical user behaviors. These differ massively, so we recommend that you spend some time understanding the main differences between platformsâ as soon as you can.
These differences imply that your content should be customized per platform, but of course the more platforms you are on the more time consuming it is for you to make content. Thatâs why you need to master the concept of repurposing your content, which involves creating content in a way that allows you to use it, and adapt it easily and efficiently. đ§
Step 6: Get organized right from the start
Constantly creating content is difficult, simply because you canât just have inspiration on demand. Patience, consistency and passion are key, so is being organized 
Building a proper system for you to maximize your creativity workflow will help you save a lot of time. Here are the tools and methods you can use:
Make a Content Calendar 
Posting consistently on all your platforms is absolutely essential for you to improve your performance on social media.Â
We recommend that you pick a posting frequency for each of your platforms based on what youâve seen from competition in your niche and your capabilities. This being said, you should never compromise on your average posts quality just for the sake of posting.Â
We have built our own Content Calendar to help our fellow creators and social media managers get more organized 
. We have added color-coded slots so you can easily visualize how many posts you have planned for the week or month on each social media platform. You can even check the posting times for different locations so that you know when your audience will see your posts. From this calendar, you can make edits or draft new posts for any ideas that you get just by adding a new slot. You can finish it later and change the scheduled times of your post at all times!
Topics and Ideas Pool 
Did you know that your most creative ideas actually come from daydreaming? Thatâs right! When they pop up, you might think you will remember them when the time comes but itâs usually not the case.Â
Make use of these thoughts and all this time scrolling through social media by saving it all somewhere, and do it for real! It can be saved on an excel sheet or even better, in your Creasquare Creative Studio for later!Â
This will become your endless pool of ideas for the times you lack inspiration. Whatever it is â a trendy music on TikTok, a good set of designs for an Instagram carousel that you can use as a template, an interesting hook on a video, a funny comment that got engagement â just save it all! 
Develop your own workflow đ©âđŹ
Next thing to be mindful of is having a system that works for you. You will feel less stressed and more productive splitting up your work in tasks. For example, you can do your research to feed a full week of content, then focus on posting planning and finally spend some time creating before doing all your editing and scheduling.
Get ahead of your content production by using a post scheduler, this will help you stay focused on the right tasks and feel less pressured by deadlines. There are a lot of social media management tools available out there to schedule your posts, including Creasquare, Hootsuite, and Buffer. Try ours for free!
Step 7: Optimize your pages
There are as many ways to optimize your social media profiles as there are social media platforms. Best practices to optimize your pages are different on each social media, but it is all pretty intuitive in the end â ensure you have great quality pictures and videos, attractive thumbnails, clear and keyword-filled descriptions.Â
Put yourself in the shoes of the audience for each platform and think â how would they come across my page? Are they actively looking for my content or would they just be scrolling on their feed? If the latter, are they likely to come and see my page to get more similar content? How will I ensure itâs visually appealing and easy to find what they are looking for?
Step 8: Get equipped
Hardware đ±đ„
When it comes to hardware, thankfully, we live in a blessed time of high-quality mobile phones that can help you start content creation successfully. Still, you should consider investing in a ring light as it is relatively affordable equipment that has a great impact on your video quality. If you have the budget and make long-form content requiring a lot of filmmaking, you should look further into getting a professional camera to upgrade your content quality.
Video editing software đ§âđ»
Now letâs talk about software. For video editing, most content doesnât require fancy edits to be impactful, you can definitely use more basic and intuitive tools for beginners than Adobe Premiere which requires quite a bit of training and is usually used by professionals. You can try out our Creative Studio which has been specifically built to answer content creators needs! Features include dynamic cropping, automated captions, trimming, cutting and automated thumbnails (for now!)
Music Licensing for Videos đ”
Another important aspect to your videosâ quality is music. Recently weâve been loving Artlist.io which, just like us, has been thought for creators. Artlist gives you access to royalty-free musics and special effects to make your videos stand out!
Photo Editing Tool đŽâïž
For photo editing, Canva is definitely the most intuitive and accessible tool for graphic design. We are in the process of integrating Canva to our Creative Studio so bear with us, it shouldnât be long before you can use it directly from here đ
Social Media Management Tool
Last but not least, social media management tools are huge time savers. There are tools for all budgets and use cases, but if youâre a content creator, definitely check out Creasquare, the social media management tool specifically built for content creators đ©âđš
Step 9: Create, create, create
Ok so that part is an ongoing process for sure, but this is your way to learn, so just create! đš Get ideas, research and just create what your gut tells you to create. Data will help you for sure to draw conclusions, but you canât draw them unless you have sufficient content to study. Test and learn should be your new motto!
Step 10: Interact with your community
Even more as you start, interacting with your community will be key to your success in growing your audience. Answer your messages and comments, start the conversation with a first and even second comment if that applies!Â
The main reason why creators are being so popular nowadays is that the audience feels a much deeper connection than they used to with regular celebrities, so you must create that connection and listen to what they are saying, it will help you create more meaningful content!Â
You should be all set for a great start. Check out our other articles here to discover more tips to grow your content creation business!
