The title of this article pretty much steals my opening line:
What if you could create better content with less work?
If you’re screaming, “Sign me up!” then you’re not alone. Content creation is a lot of work. It takes time, expertise, and attention to detail.
And let’s face it: sometimes we have ideas for content but lack the expertise to execute them. Nobody’s good at everything, right?
The solution is – drum roll, please – NOT DOING EVERYTHING YOURSELF.
I’m talking here about content collaboration.
Maybe you’ve never collaborated on a piece of content before and the notion sounds scary. I get it.
But what if a little bit of teamwork and collaboration is just what you need to make your content sing? What if collaboration could increase your engagement, attract more leads, and bump your profits?
It can. Here’s what you need to know.
So, what is content collaboration? How does it work?
Simply stated, content collaboration is what happens when more than one person – could be two, could be 10 or more – work together on a piece of content.
The benefit of collaborating on content is that it allows you to bring together people with different experiences, training, and skills to contribute what they know to the finished piece. When it’s done well, content collaboration can help you:
- Be more creative with your content by adding outside expertise and opinions. When people collaborate, they’re sometimes able to come up with ideas and creative solutions that they might not conceptualize on their own. It’s a synergy thing.
- Use your available resources more productively. We all have strength gaps and holes in our knowledge. In a group, you can capitalize on the individual strengths and skills of the entire team and use them, collectively, to make your content sing.
- Increase your brand recognition and reach. This one’s especially true of you include industry influencers and experts in your collaboration. Each one of you can help expand the others’ audiences just by your presence on the team.
Content collaboration offers you the chance to create high-quality, engaging, and memorable content that will help you attract new leads. That’s a win no matter how you look at it.
I’m willing to bet that collaboration sounds good to you now. That makes the next question where to find potential collaborators and how to choose the best ones to help you with your content.
Let’s start with the where. There are a few options:
1. Internal contributors. The people who are already working for your company, either as employees or freelancers, may have insights and skills that can make your content more compelling.
2. Customers and clients. The people who use your products or services know them well and might be able to offer tips to potential customers.
3. Suppliers and subcontractors. If your company works with suppliers or outside contractors, they might be able to offer a unique take on your content that potential leads can’t get anywhere else.
4. Industry publications, experts, and influencers have expertise that you may not have, and they also have their own audiences that may be interest in your products. Collaborating with them can help you beef up your content and expand your reach at the same time.
You should think about the content you want to create and decide who to approach about collaboration. If you’re going to ask people to write a section of content, you should think about their writing skills and whether you’ll need to edit or rewrite. Factor that into your decision.
Not all content is ideal for collaboration. Here are 10 ideas you may want to consider as you undertake your first content collaboration.
1. Write a book. Writing a book all by yourself might seem like a daunting task. But if you gathered 10 collaborators and each of you wrote a chapter, you could be done with the book in no time – and offer your readers far more value than you’d be able to provide on your own.
2. Create a round-up article. You’ve probably seen round-up articles with titles like, “12 Experts Give Their Best Investment Advice” or something like that.
The idea is that each collaborator contributes a tip or trick. All you’ll need to do is edit the whole thing together and you’ll have a unique and useful piece of content.
3. Collect reviews. This is an opportunity to collaborate with colleagues and create useful or fun lists for your readers to enjoy. An example might be a collection of computer reviews by software users.
4. Conduct interviews. Doing interviews is an easy way to create content. You can simply record them (with audio or video) and then they can be posted in multiple formats. Videos can be shared to YouTube and social media, while audio may be turned into a podcast. You can also post a written version to your blog.
5. Courses and workshops. This type of collaboration is ideal if you want to get customers or clients involved. After all, the people who buy your products may be the best people to ask about creative ways to use them. You can either ask people to teach a segment of a shop or have a group workshop/demo where they demonstrate different techniques and uses for the product.
6. Newsletters. A newsletter is an idea place to collect short articles and contributions from your collaborators. You can send it out via email or post it on your website.
7. Slideshows. When multiple people contribute to a project, you can take each contributor’s work and design one or more slides around it. You can even take the slides and turn them into a video presentation.
I hope you get the idea. The content you create with collaborators should go above and beyond what you can do on your own. By incorporating many ideas into one meaningful piece of content, you’ll be giving your audience something valuable that may convert them from leads into paying customers.