If you want to grow your side hustle, this edition is for you.
Today, in 10 minutes or less, you'll learn:
- What is Your Content Engine?
- Capture Inspiration
- Brainstorm Ideas
- Write and Publish
- Brainstorm Ideas
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⚙️ Building a content engine
Many side hustlers I talk to struggle with generating leads.
They picked a growth channel. Now they want to attract attention for their potential clients and start building trust.
But they have no idea how to get started.
🤔 What is Your Content Engine?
In order to leverage your growth channel, you need to produce content.
But I see too many people bang their head against the wall trying to fill up a blank page (myself included).
Instead, use a systematic approach to generate ideas.
Here is the 3-part content engine:
- Capture inspiration from various sources
- Ideate on topics to write about
- Write and publish on your growth channel
💥 Capture Inspiration
The online world is full of ideas, resources, articles, videos, Tweets, etc that can serve as useful sources of inspiration.
In particular, research the content for leaders in your niche. What are they writing or talking about that you admire?
Collect these artifacts in a Swipe File for your future reference. (I use Notion for this.)
Use the Notion Web Clipper to save online articles to your Swipe File.
For example:
Ramit Sethi is one of the top leaders in my niche of money & entrepreneurship.
I’ve learned several lessons from how he approaches his content.
I also follow relevant writers like Morgan Housel and communities like r/FatFire and r/Expats.
Action Items
- Find 5 people who already have the attention of your potential clients in your selected channel.
- Save their content to your Swipe File
🧠 Brainstorm Ideas
Use a Content Matrix to ideate new post ideas.
Matrix Dimensions
- Topic
- Format
Generate ideas at the intersection of Topic (e.g. Investing) and Format (e.g. Actionable Tips) to execute idea generation.
Use your Swipe File as a source of inspiration as you’re brainstorming.
Formats
- Listicals
- Frameworks
- Actionable Tips
- Personal Stories
- Other People’s Stories
Note: If you’re struggling with writing stories, Youtube Coach Tim Schmoyer’s 7-Question Model is my favorite storytelling framework:
Action Items
- Choose your topics and formats
- Brainstorm 10 ideas that you can write about using the Content Matrix
✍️ Write and Publish
Choose a topic you want to write about from your Content Matrix.
For beginners, I would suggest starting with educational posts to build credibility and trust with your potential clients.
Next, I want to share the Anatomy of a Post:
- Hook
- Context
- Body
- Call to Action
Here’s how these parts map to a recent post from Sahil Bloom as an example.
Note: This structure will vary based on your channel, but is roughly applicable across channels.
Now let’s get down to writing your own post.
Hook
Spend the majority of your time here.
Without a great hook, no one will read your post.
A great compilation of hooks is Neal O’Grady’s Hook Vault.
Context
Transition between your hook and your body. Sets up additional context.
Example:
“Here are 6 lesson I learned from their journey”
Body
The heart of your post.
Examples:
- List of my lessons
- Continuation of a story I told in the hook
- Explanation of a framework
Call to Action
Ask your reader to do something.
Examples:
- Like
- Share
- Comment
- Sign up for your newsletter
Action Item
- Write a full post for your #1 idea that you brainstormed with a hook, context, body, and call-to-action
📌 Summary
- Content engine has 3 parts: collect inspiration, ideate, write and publish
- Create a Swipe File and use Notion Web Clipper to save online articles to your collection
- Ideate using a Content Matrix
- Write posts using the Anatomy of the Post: Hook, Context, Body, and Call to Action
🌐 Beyond your borders
📱 Oldie but goodie: Early Retirement Calculator. Notice how increasing your savings rate results in exponentially lower retirement age. If your goal is financial independence, then increasing savings (and earning power) is more impactful than tweaking investment returns (link)
🇸🇬 r/SingaporeFI money nerds are getting heated over this debate: VWRA (All World) vs VOO (S&P 500) ETFs. Which side are you on? (link)
🏠️ r/FatFIRE guy wasted $200k renovating his home and hates the result. Entertaining thread. Surprisingly learned a few things about remodeling (link)
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