What is Digital Content Creation?

Digital content is everywhere all the time. It’s made up of websites, blogs, social media posts, and everything in between. If you’ve ever shared something on a forum, on your Facebook or Instagram, or anywhere online, then you are already a digital content creator!
          Posting to social media about your life, your travels, and your thoughts is a fun way to connect with friends and family, but this article will focus on the more goal-oriented forms of digital content creation. This means creating content with the objective of building an audience, branding, and promotion for a business.
          Digital content creation is one of the most effective ways for brands of all sizes to reach audiences, build awareness and loyalty and educate people about their products.
          So let’s break down the what Why and How of digital content creation…

The Digital Content Creation Process

1. Ideation

Every great piece of content starts with a small idea. When creating content, you can start by brainstorming some ideas with your team to find the type of content that your audience would be interested in.

If you feel stuck, look for inspiration in books, articles, and even your competitors. Additionally, social media tools like Mandala Cosmos are a great way to find content that receives the best engagement from social media users.

2. Planning

Once you have your ideas, it’s time to move on to the planning stage. This may include audience research to ensure your ideas align with your target audience. Categorizing your ideas into different groups and matching them with your target audience can be great for setting guidelines beforehand.

Also, don’t forget to consider the format of the content you’ll be creating, such as podcasts, posts, blogs, or articles. In fact, there is a separate section where we will talk about the content format in more detail later.

3. Creation

Now that you have your ideas and a plan, it’s time to start working on your content. Dive a little deeper to define the goal of each piece of content. You should be able to answer questions like: is it to raise brand awareness or provide informative content (e.g. how-to guides or FAQs) or other goals? No matter what your content format is, make sure the goal is clear enough. 

It’s also recommended to set up a content editorial calendar to have a holistic view of your content strategy.

4. Distribution

After going through the editing process, your content should be ready on time. Now, you need to publish it somewhere. Although it may seem as simple as clicking a button, there are several factors to consider.

Is it the optimal time to publish? Do you want to schedule the post? Are there any trends or time-sensitive events happening? Take all these factors into account before making that final click to reach your audience.

5. Measuring Performance

Even after publishing your content, it’s not over yet. The next stage is to track its performance. This is very crucial as it will help you understand what went wrong and how you can improve future content.

Digital Content Creation Ideas

As mentioned earlier, content comes in various formats, and you have the freedom to choose any format that suits your needs while still achieving great results. Here is a list of content creation examples for you: 

1. Blog posts

Although this is one of the simplest forms of content, it is far from ineffective. Blog posts can increase brand awareness, and reliability, and generate a significant amount of traffic. Take this case study for example, where a bakery business used blog posts to increase organic traffic, the result was an impressive increase of 214%.

2. Infographics

Not everyone is drawn to text-only content. Adding visual content is an excellent way to enhance your written material. It’s clear from the statistics that blog posts with at least one image earn more traffic than text-only posts. Another benefit is that visual content can be published on various platforms which will give you a wider reach.

3. Videos

The trends of 2022 have shown us that videos are here to stay. According to statistics, short-form videos, like those on TikTok and YouTube Shorts, are constantly growing in popularity. However, both short-form and long-form videos are worth investing in, as this medium can provide information, entertainment, and demonstrations all in one!

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4. Podcasts

For some people, video requires too much attention, but there is still another option: podcasts. While podcast listeners might be a niche market, this doesn’t mean you can’t utilize it at all. Sometimes your marketing strategy would also need to reach a more niche target audience. Plus, the number of podcast listeners still continues to increase each year, so plenty of opportunity for growth.

5. Social media posts

Social media posts can be a combination of text and graphics, or it can also be text and video. In general, social media posts offer a more casual alternative to blog posts. Hence, this might require a more attention-grasping approach, compared to articles that most readers coming in are already searching for that particular topic.

6. Gated Content

Gated content refers to content that is accessible to users who provide their email address and agree to receive promotional emails. This can come in many forms, such as white papers, ebooks, templates, webinars, reports, and many more. 

Take the time to explore each format and determine which one best suits the needs and preferences of your target audience.

Platforms and Tools for Digital Content Creation

Platforms for Digital Content Creation

Just like the variety of content formats, there are various platforms available where you can publish your work. Since each platform has its unique characteristics and the audience on each platform has different expectations, you might need to know a little bit about them. Here is a list of platforms that you may want to consider focusing on:

• TikTok: The most currently in-trend platform. With its large user base, you can create engaging and entertaining content in bite-sized formats. 
• YouTube: The video platform that has the widest range of content creators and also the potential that your content will be reached by audiences all around the world. You can also monetize your content through ads, and brand sponsorships. 
• Instagram: Best known for its visually appealing interface. The platform offers a community space for influencers, either micro influencers or macro influencers, that your business can partner with. Instagram also offers many features that allow your brand to engage with audiences in many different ways.

• Facebook: Maybe the most versatile platform. It serves many functions like community building, targeted advertisements, and offers a platform for many content formats – including text, images, videos, live streams, and events.
• Your own site: The best space for long-form content. This can help establish your brand’s authority through more thoughtful and informative content, for instance, in-depth articles, personal experiences, and expert insights.

Aside from the aforementioned alternatives, keep in mind that there are new features and changes happening constantly. For instance, the latest offer from Instagram – Threads.

Moreover, each group of customers in different countries prefers different platforms. It’s important to consider these factors when choosing a platform.

Tools for Digital Content Creation

If you are still not confident in the Digital Content Creation game, we have a list of tools that can help you along the way, from the planning stage to the performance analysis stage. The great news is that these tools all offer free plans or free trials, and if you wish to delve deeper, subscription plans are also available.

1. Notion

Notion is a productivity and project management tool. While Notion provides many kinds of templates for different purposes, it also allows its users to customize their own pages to suit their preferences. This program can help individuals and teams work together and make a content plan. 

2. WordPress

WordPress is a website and blog-building tool, also called a content management system (CMS). 43 percent of all websites on the internet are built on WordPress, including the one you’re reading right now! Well-known brands with their websites built on WordPress include Sony Music https://www.sonymusic.com/, Time Magazine https://time.com/, and Wired https://www.wired.com/, but it’s also easy to use, with many bloggers starting their journey on a simple, self-built WordPress site.

3. Writer

Writer, just like its name, can help you write more efficiently. The program will check grammatical errors, spelling errors, punctuation, and overall tone to make your content more attractive to your audience.

4. Canva

Canva is a wonderful program that can help you create beautiful designs for any platform, whether it’s an ad, cover photos, or infographics. It offers many useful features that you can customize colors, images and text. Basically, every standard feature you need for designing.

5. Mandala AI

Last but not least, Mandala AI has automated versatile tools to help you in many aspects of social media marketing. For example, monitoring social media feeds, and keeping track of your content’s performance and emerging trends. The most impressive thing is that this tool can also turn difficult analytics and customer insights into an easy-to-read format.

The Sky’s the Limit!

Digital content creation is a field full of exciting opportunities waiting for you. It holds immense potential and possibilities for your business to thrive. While it might require time, and little trial and error, there’s no need to worry because the best way to grow your skills and knowledge as a content creator is to jump right in and start creating!

With all the resources and tools available, there’s really nothing holding you back from unleashing your creativity and putting your own digital content out there. So go ahead, and get started!