Preface

Every single day that I get to wake up to create content that might change someoneâs day, I consider myself lucky. Privileged, even. In this overworked, heavily saturated world of super-urgent everything, I get to touch thousands of lives with unique ideas packaged as powerful content pieces. Content creation is art, and science, and everything in between. Text, images, and video are the paint swatches of twenty-first-century artistsâwith a single catch: this form of art must communicate, engage, and sell.

As a creator, I also need to convince you that these one-of-a-kind ideas are completely worth your timeâbetter yet, that they are worth your friendsâ time, and hence you should share them. In todayâs content space, it isnât enough for someone to âlikeâ what you are putting out. They need to go head-over-heels for it. They must feel the thrilling rush of having to share it, or else. They need to feel like this was written for them. Every single time.

I get it: itâs difficult to keep up momentum. You spot content that works, but have not gotten around to building a production machine that can replicate, scale, and sustain that success. Luckily for you, the content marketing game has changed. This book takes away the guesswork from content management, helping you secure steady growth through innovation, outsourcing, automation, and research.

During the past six years, I have personally mentored hundreds of entrepreneurs in content marketing tactics, learning about the struggles involved in starting from scratch. I also have built content strategies for wonderful brands like Creative Market, where I have managed a blog that attracts hundreds of thousands of unique visitors every month and affects a community of more than two million members. To do so, I have drawn from a toolkit of business, design, and psychology insights. In Powering Content, you will find a unique approach that combines those three fields to make your job easier.

Having assumed both corporate and entrepreneurial content creator roles, I am thrilled to be able to share the following pages with you. Yes, you. Powering Content is the ideal handbook for you if you are any of the following:

A solopreneur or small business owner who wants to build an audience and grow a brand with strategic content. To you, content is a force that will propel this venture.
A content manager within a startup or fast-paced company that needs to produce lean content and iterate quickly enough to capture the marketâs attention.
A marketing manager who has not dealt with the complexities of content yet and wants to acquire new knowledge in order to reshape his role.
A new member of a companyâs executive team who wants to build a content team from scratch and needs to understand what is involved.

So, welcome to the world of content managers: part-time psychologists, researchers, writers, designers, developers, SEO specialists, and production managers all at once. Sit back and let me walk you through the most useful insights and tools #PoweringContent todayâand not just any kind: the type of content that can turn your brand around.

Attribution

We appreciate, but do not require, attribution. An attribution usually includes the title, author, publisher, and ISBN. For example: âPowering Content by Laura Busche (OâReilly). Copyright 2017 Laura Busche, 978-1-491-96374-6.â

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