Creating Content On Steem In Four Simple Steps.

With this post I attempt to help you understand how to go about creating content for the Steem blockchain. As steem is a mirror of the real world, these principles/steps can also be applied anywhere else.

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Content Creation

When I was asked to give a talk on this topic at the just concluded Steem Meetup in Abuja put together by @xpency and the team, I wondered what right I had to be talking about how to create content. As far as I am concerned, all I do is to express myself in the most comfortable way and that's all. Well apparently, that statement alone is me already teaching about how to create content on Steem, drawing from my own personal experience.

So this post will be drawing from the little experience I've garnered so far to try to uncover the needed steps on the highway to creating amazing content on the Steem blockchain. At the end of this post, you should be able to answer the "What", "Who", "Why", and "How" of content creation on Steem.

Content creation is the contribution of information to any media and most especially to digital media for an end-user/audience in specific contexts. - Wikipedia

What Do You Have To Share?

I believe this should be the starting point for you. From the definition above, content creation involves contributing information. There is hardly anyway you can give what you don't have and this is also true for life in general. So on your journey to creating awesome content, you have to be able to answer the question - "What have I got to offer?"

For me, it's storytelling.

Storytelling in this context isn't restricted to fiction but rather includes anything that involves you putting together a narrative that has the potential of having emotion and attention.

Yours could be something totally different. You could be a comic, a teacher, or anything! Just be yourself and find yourself. It might take a while (a really long time) but in the long run, you'll realise it's really worth it to go through that phase of really identifying what it is you've got to share with the world. This will make you stand out.

Who Are You Creating For?

No matter what you've decided to share, you have to be able to state who your audience will be. Who are you creating that content for? Can you really easily identify them or do you believe your content is for "everyone"?

If you're trying to pass a new information across or share knowledge on a topic, the tone of the content will be determined by the type of audience; are they familiar with all the technical jargon or are they new to majority of the concepts? Will the whole world find the fiction you're writing relatable or is it meant for a particular people from a certain place?

Having an audience in mind and going ahead to craft the content to suit them could be the difference between offering value or otherwise. It is a very important step that should be taken seriously.

Why Are You Sharing This?

Once you've found out what it is you've got to share, the next step will be to define what it is you expect your audience to takeaway from it. This is like the aim of the entire content creation exercise. If you're unable to answer this question, you should not publish that stuff.

Are you trying to entertain, educate, or inform? You need to be able to answer this because people will go through what you've published expecting to get something in the end. This "something" could be laughter, or knowledge of something new. When this happens, you're said to have offered value to your audience and it is at this point that they can now consider to reward you with their upvote.

How Do You Intend To Share?

This is the medium you choose to use to share your content. Way too many people assume that the only way to share content on Steem is by writing and so the most popular excuse for people being reluctant to join Steem is that they do not know how to write.

NEWSFLASH: There are other ways to share your content; text (Steemit, busy.org), video ( #dtube ), audio ( #dsound ), or graphics.

So you could start a vlog (video), or a podcast (audio), share stories through graphics. You don't have to always write! Find the medium you're most comfortable with and express yourself.

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Get creative!