About The Episode‍

In this episode, we're joined by entrepreneur and content creation expert Will Nelson, as he shares his insights and practical advice for capturing and converting ideas into engaging content. Tap into the mindset, strategies, and routines that fuel Will's success in the high-stakes world of professional and personal branded content.

Today, we'll cover:
- Will's personal strategies for finding inspiration in everyday moments and staying productive without the pressure.
- Practical tips for time management and creativity, including how to align content creation with your natural workflow.
- The common pitfalls that new content creators face and how to avoid them for long-term success.
- Insight into Will's journey from building to selling businesses and how these experiences now shape his approach to content for professional brands.
- Strategies for content creation and monetization tailored to your personal or business goals, and the secret of providing value first.
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2 IDEAS FROM THE PODCAST

‍Idea #1: Justifying the expense of building a personal brand.

Just like SEO, building a personal brand takes some time to start seeing any tangible results (>3 months), which might feel like lighting money on fire and will feel hard to justify for most people.

However, those who are willing to pay it, are people who understand the inherent value and ROI of having a consolidated brand and audience can bring long term.

💡 Think of it as buying vs renting an apartment.

While renting (Paid Advertising) offers a quick buck, buying a house (Building a Personal Brand) is a long-term investment that pays off over time.

Yes, it will take time and money at first, but in the end, it will position you in your field, give you freedom from Zuck, and you’ll be able to build lasting relationships.
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Idea #2: Learning your voice as a creator.

When Ramon and I started our podcasting journey, we found ourselves completely lost and quickly overwhelmed by everything unfamiliar.

One of the biggest barriers to publishing content in the beginning is just getting started. Here are a few ideas to help get you over the hump:

1. Talk about what you’re passionate about: Forget about coming up with your brand or storyline out of the gate. That’s only going to block you from starting. Just follow your intuition, you can figure out what your superpower is later.
   
2. Document Ideas: Keep a Notion Page or record a voice note into Castmagic to write down ideas as soon as they come to mind. This can be when you go to the gym, right before you go to sleep, or on a long walk. Doing this will not only give you plenty of content ideas to come back to, but these ideas will also be much more authentic to you.

3. Find an accountability partner: The thing about a personal brand is that it's personal to you. It's not a part of your team or your company. There's no other person that's expecting you to report on how many tweets or posts you've put out. So find someone, whether it's a teammate or a friend, to check in with you on a weekly or daily basis to ensure that you're creating content.

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1 KEY LEARNING

Image created with Castmagic Studio

Timestamps‍

00:00 Marketer turned entrepreneur, building 64 Stories agency.
05:56 Start creating content, grow, adapt, find voice.
09:52 Social media strategy depends on your goals.
13:55 Analyze top social media content for inspiration.
16:16 SEO results take time, require commitment.
19:46 Prioritize time for content creation and analytics.
21:49 Transform voice notes into engaging social media.
28:26 Capture and document content to avoid loss.
29:18 Various activities inspire creativity at different times.
32:55 Dedicated sessions help foster creativity and focus.
36:14 Greg's content praised, audience directed to socials.

Entrepreneurship and Content Creation: "I've always been an entrepreneur that has struggled with distribution myself. I identify as a builder. I love building things. I've never been fantastic at getting attention for either my personal brand or for my businesses without having to pay for that attention through Facebook ads or more traditional media."
— Will Nelson [00:02:37 → 00:02:58]

The Evolution of Personal Branding: "It might take longer to build a personal brand, but it's something that you can come back to. It's an asset that will keep paying you dividends long term versus having to constantly rent."
— Will Nelson [00:05:33 → 00:05:44]

Content Creation Process: "So I was talking to Dave Gerhardt the other day from exit five, and he has a notion page that he just jots down ideas into on a daily basis and then circles back to those to see if he can create any piece of content from. So whenever an idea pops into his head, he's putting it down somewhere."
— Will Nelson [00:07:13 → 00:07:30]

Social Media Strategy for Creators and Businesses: "I think in general, though, on social, you should have the mindset of just giving away as much as you can for free, and then very infrequently asking for something in return. So just like going to the ATM, you need to first put money in the bank account to take money out. For business owners, I typically recommend ten to 20% for top of the funnel content, 60% to 70% for middle of the funnel content and then ten to 20 for bottom of funnel content."
— Will Nelson [00:10:12 → 00:10:45]

Content Strategy Insights: "So I have a full time analyst that will go to YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and start to mine the top performing content in a given month to get a sense of what hooks are performing, what style of content's performing, what types of edits."
— Will Nelson [00:13:55 → 00:14:13]

Understanding ROI in Content Marketing: "It probably takes, realistically, three plus, maybe six plus months to start to see an ROI. And so you're losing money or you're investing money into something without seeing a return for a little while, and that can sting."
— Will Nelson [00:16:20 → 00:16:35]

Content Creation Efficiency: "So take the inputs that you're giving your voice notes or whatever app you're using to log those insights and then chop that up into written content or video content if you're recording that, and then actually post it to the various social channels that you want to get on."
— Will Nelson [00:21:49 → 00:22:19]

Content Marketing Persistence: "A lot of the big accounts that are on X or LinkedIn have been at it for quite some time, so it's a lot of just stick tuitiveness."
— Will Nelson [00:23:40 → 00:24:37]

Creative Inspiration for New Podcasters: "I'm just stealing or getting inspiration from content that I know has performed well in the past or has been thought of by an expert podcaster."
— Will Nelson [00:27:18 → 00:27:29]

Creativity and Flow State: "And so I think you have to allocate enough time to get into that flow state, and you have to make it a practice, whether it's daily or weekly."
— Will Nelson [00:33:28 → 00:33:38]

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