Recently, I was invited by the Construction and Real Estate Students Association (CRESA) of the University of Nairobi to talk to them about content creation for construction professionals and students. This student organization brings together students from Construction Management, Real Estate, and Quantity Surveying courses.
I used this opportunity to spark a discussion on how construction students and professionals alike can use content creation as a way for them to create authentic voices online that resonate with their professional work. This is to say, content that helps us switch from being passive consumers of content online to active creators and contributors of these ideas.
It is possible to fuse our professional careers with our content contributions online. This will help us build a mix of both, where each feed into the other. In this post, I share the things we discussed in more detail.
Where to Begin
The first thing for anyone intending to play the content creation game in the long term is to have a goal. This goal should be tied to and informed by the things you feel you will stick to doing in the long-term future.
For example, if in the future you plan to be a consultant specialised in a specific field only, it would be good to focus your goals towards creating content that matches that kind of work.
This is important because on the internet, potential customers may discover you by watching your content. Then, learning more about your services and contacting you to buy these services or products that you are selling. So, these two must align in the long term.
I know that sometimes you may have planned to follow a specific path only to change later to another path as your personal goals become clearer. That’s okay. You should maintain some flexibility to allow for such changes and adapt everything you do online to follow the new path that you have set yourself on.
That being said, let us look at the compelling reasons for creating content.
Why Content Creation?
The first thing you notice about content creation is that it is natural within us. All of us have an opinion about a topic of interest that can be discussed online. Whether it is construction, politics, economics, marketing, money, banking, among other topics, we all have something to say about a certain topic. Therefore, deciding to create content is just taking these opinions that you naturally have and starting to share them with other people on the internet.
Also, when you are not creating content, you are passively consuming content when on the internet. While this is all fine, content creation allows you to participate in a more useful way on the internet. This is by contributing something valuable to the discussions, and helping improve the life of someone on the internet, through education or entertainment.
Additionally, you will notice that all types of content begin with writing. Whether you are writing the content for your new LinkedIn post, a script for your new YouTube video, or email content for your newsletter. Writing helps you to sharpen your thinking. Your thoughts become clearer as you write them and can organise them well.
Going on, we see that people who create content and put themselves out there on the internet have opened themselves up to being discovered by other like-minded people. When people interact with your content, they get to know your opinions about a certain topic, get to see how you think and structure your ideas, and get to experience your energy even before actually meeting you physically in person. That’s awesome. Therefore, we can say that content creation allows people to know you before they meet you. It is a tool for self-promotion, if so to speak.
As you do this work (because it is a lot of work to create content intentionally to serve a certain goal), you develop some important life skills that can be transferred to other areas of life. You learn how to teach, to educate, to entertain, and to articulate yourself. This improves your presentation skills, public speaking skills, resilience to take in criticisms (because you will be criticised when you put yourself out there), and the consistency needed to build a purposeful life.
Along the way, you build an audience of fans. People who care so much about your work and are interested in continuing to see you keep producing that type of content. These can potentially be turned into customers who patronize your business and support you by buying your products or commissioning you for the services you offer. We will discuss how this can be done later as we progress in this article. Therefore, we can say that content creation can open revenue generation opportunities for you to supplement your income from your main job.
Types of Content You Can Create
As you think about content creation, you will find yourself thinking about the type of content that you can create. Why? Because there are various content types. You may be very talented in creating some specific content types and not others. Therefore, it is prudent to know the types so you can choose the combination that you are better placed to produce.
First, there are blog posts. This is text-based content posted on a website. It can be accompanied by images or videos embedded on the webpage to help reinforce the story the author is telling. These are ideal for educational content, product reviews, book reviews, product announcements, and project updates, among other things. So, you can write a blog post to tell a story, describe a concept, review a book, or review a product.
The other content type that is closer to this is emails. They can have text-based information, with images and an embedded video, too. This is mainly if you run a newsletter and collect emails from your fans so you can send them newsletter updates, product announcements, or behind-the-scenes updates of you working on your projects.
Also, you can produce video-based content. This can either be a long-form video or a short-form video. Long-form videos are ideal for content like real estate virtual property tours, vlogs, tutorials, or interviews. Short-form video can be used for sharing snippets, and possibly announcements, or more entertainment content like the ones posted on TikTok and Instagram reels.
Apart from video content, photos and audio are the other content types. You can capture photos and share them online with captions explaining what they represent. This is popular for project photos, day-in-life photos, or event updates.
Audio content is primarily useful for podcasts, stock audio, or music. Especially now that podcasts are becoming increasingly popular and mainstream, this is a great choice if your audience or users prefer to consume content only in audio format. An example of a popular podcast in the construction industry is the “Digital Builder Podcast” by Autodesk.
Where to Post Your Content
I will begin this section by telling you that where you post your content depends on the type, purpose, and goal of the content you are creating. This also includes the kind of audience you are targeting. Different age groups and people interested in varied topics of discussion will be found on various social platforms online.
Also, some platforms are good for a specific type of content and not the other. For example, users loved TikTok for their short-form video content that encouraged the sharing of quick updates and short announcements. Although it had been popular for music reactions and dance videos, it can still be useful to a person working in construction who wants to market themselves to their potential customers on the platform.
Therefore, if your content is in the form of short video updates, you will find platforms like TikTok, Instagram (Reels), and Facebook (Reels) ideal for that. Facebook also allows you to post other types of content, such as text or images. It is known for its conversational nature and allows people to build communities and groups where they can interact and exchange ideas online. So, if you want to create a community around your work, this is the best platform for you.
Other platforms for sharing short-form conversational style posts include X (Twitter), Threads by Instagram, and Facebook updates. Platforms like Quora and Reddit are good for discussions that start in the form of a question by one user, with other users sharing their responses in the comments like style.
Further, if you produce audio content, like podcasts, music, or stock audio, you will need a platform that has the best tools for hosting audio content. These include Spotify, Audiomack, Deezer, Amazon Music, Soundcloud, Boomplay, Apple Podcasts, etc. These are greatly optimized for hosting and playing audio content, allowing users to interact with the content seamlessly, with options to leave feedback about the quality of the shows.
Additionally, platforms like YouTube and Vimeo will allow you to upload and host all types of video content. While YouTube is free to use and very popular among many users, Vimeo is a paid service and allows you to toggle the privacy control option so that your content is only visible to the people that you want to view it. That said, they are both good for hosting long-form video content. YouTube is a good place for sharing educational content if you want to be discovered by a pubic audience.
Also, other platforms like Skillshare, Udemy, and Tutorialspoint are good for educational content. In fact, these three are created specifically as learning management systems. You can create courses and take advantage of their marketplace to share these, reach an audience, and potentially earn money from your work if you set these as paid courses.
Above all, I would encourage you to have a personal website. One where you own the domain name, you are responsible for the hosting, and the design and feel of the web pages. This means you can customize everything as you need. It doesn’t have to be perfect at the start, but you can begin and continue improving on the way.
Here, all your content efforts should be hosted. All blog posts, all videos, and social media posts should have links pointing back to your website. Allow people to know you by creating an about me page where you explain to your audience who you are and what services or products you are offering in the market. List your photos here so that people can know you. It helps to create a familiarity that will translate to trust. Before people meet you in person, they can interact with this page and get to know you in advance.
Imagine what would happen if today your favourite social media platform decided to close down. If you had built all your content efforts on that site, then everything you had built goes down with it. It is only your website that you can control. You can tie this together with keeping an email list of the people interested in your content, so you can send them email updates in the form of a newsletter.
That said, let’s move to the next section, where we will discuss what you need to do to get noticed by your potential audience if you are starting with the content creation journey.
Getting Noticed
After spending some time creating and sharing your content online, people who care about your work will start to find and interact with it. However, this will not happen in a single day. It may even take longer than you anticipate. Getting discovered is truly a long-term game. You will have stay consistent outing yourself out there so you win in the game. And once you attract attention, give the best you can to retain that audience.
Indeed, you are not the one to find the audience. Your work is creating value and attracting those who seek the value. They will find you when you show up on their social media feeds, in web search results, in AI prompt results, or in their video feeds on their favourite search platform. This means that you have to show up somewhere to get found.
Importantly, stay consistent. Post on the same topics you have always posted about. Remain relevant on the same content types, on the same platforms where you want to be discovered. There is a lot of competition online, especially because most things are very easy to do. Things like posting a picture, sharing a caption, and sending a tweet are easy for anyone to do. What distinguishes your content from theirs is the uniqueness that you bring with your authentic self.
Most importantly, do the things that fewer people are doing. Be on the platforms that need quality work, and fewer people are creating content that meets that quality. Focus on topics of discussion where you are an expert, and you will naturally stand out. When you do what fewer people are doing, that means you will have less competition. This increases your chances of standing out. It is what I am recommending to all of you who want to start creating content.
Do the hard things. Go the extra mile with deeper research for your content. Make your content more entertaining and more educational than anyone has ever created on the same topic. This will naturally weed out the competition, and you will begin to stand out. People who care will start to notice you.
Create Your Home on the Internet
Earlier in the section on where to post your content, you remember that I emphasized the importance of having your personal website. The reflection was on the fate of your social media-hosted content and audience when these platforms change their policies, ban you, or decide to close down their business. If that’s the only thing you have relied on, then all your efforts are sabotaged, and your dear work is lost. That’s why you need a platform you can control.
You need a place on the internet that you can call your home. Similar to having a physical address where your business is located, you can have a web address where all your content is found. You can do this by registering a domain name, the address that people will type on their browser to go to your website (for example, bimgoodies.com). This is the first step to securing an identity for yourself in the online space.
When you have the domain name registered, the second thing is to connect it to a web hosting service. The hosting is the place where all your files and content will be stored. From this storage, it will be served through the browser to people who visit your website address (through the domain name). For these two services, I will recommend Hostinger International, where I host all my websites. They have generous offers, with fewer to no downtimes, and awesome customer support. If you ever experience any issues, you can always reach out to them and they’ll support you every step of the way.
With the domain name and web hosting, it’s now time to start building your website. If you know how to code (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Ruby, or Python) well, you can start writing the first line of code to stitch up your website together. Get going now.
If you don’t know how to code, don’t worry. You don’t have to know how to write code for you to build a website. There are no-code tools used by non-techies like you to build websites faster and get them online in no time. These include WordPress, Wix, Joomla, Drupal, and Squarespace, among others.
Personally, I use WordPress extensively, based on knowing how to code, as it helps me save time and build my websites faster. It is also completely free, highly customizable, and very good if you are planning to run a blog. As at the time of writing this post, WordPress powers over 43.5% of all websites in the world, with Hostinger hosting 54% of these. I highly recommend it.
Within the WordPress ecosystem, you will find themes and plugins that help with the structure if the content of the content on the website. There are free plugins and themes that will come with a default installation of WordPress on your website. However, if you want extra customizability, a premium look and feel on your site, with advanced page building features, I recommend getting the Divi theme and page builder plugin from Elegant Themes, which I use. It will give you access to simple, no-code editing, advanced web page design systems, with capabilities for using AI tools to build and boost the creation of your WordPress website.
Once you have your website ready, this should be the hub for all your content efforts. All other profiles on these social media platforms should have links pointing back to your website. Market it aggressively. Let people know you have a website and what products, services, or content they can find there. It will go a long way in helping it grow to the platform you envision for yourself. Many opportunities lie here, and should be exploited.
Connect with Your True Fans
I have borrowed the term “true fans” from Kevin Kelly’s popular essay about the creator economy titled “1000 true fans”. In the essay, Kevin explores the idea that content creators can benefit financially from the work they do by allowing their fans to contribute towards supporting them. The basic idea is that if you can make a profit of $100 from a fan every year, you only need 1000 fans to make a decent income of $100,000 annually, which is very practical.
Along the journey of creating and sharing valuable content, you will attract an audience in the form of subscribers, followers, likes, and many other interactions. From this, a number will become very obsessed with your authenticity and style. They will be obsessed with your content to a point where they want to support you to keep creating this kind of content. It will have become an integral part of their life, through either its educational or entertaining nature.
It is okay to allow them to support you that way. You know the subscriber count or follower count won’t pay your bills, money will. So, this is the best stage for you to start monetising your audience directly. Set up tools to allow them to donate money to your work. This can be a simple donate page on your website or a button below all your posts.
Importantly, avoid begging for money. It will come out as spammy. The best thing to do is to create more value for your audience and ask them to pay something for it. This can be a digital product, a course, or member-only content. Platforms like Gumroad, Patreon, Buy Me Coffee, among others, can be very useful in this.
You want to have control of these true fans (also called superfans) who swear by your work. This should be through establishing a way for you and them to connect directly without an intermediary.
The best way to do this is to ask them to give you their email address, where you can send them updates and announcements when you have something new coming up. Therefore, start a newsletter. Be consistent with it too, and tie it to the grand scheme of your content and product development strategy. You will be surprised by how people are willing to give out their emails so they can stay connected to your work. So, try it.
So far, I trust you have learned a few new things here and there. Let’s see an example of a professional who has been able to use content creation to build hype around their business and sell services and products.
Case Study: 30×40 Design Workshop
30×40 Design Workshop is an architecture design studio headquartered in Mount Desert Island, Maine, USA. This practice is run by Eric Reinholdt, who is a licensed architect. He designs simple modern homes, openly shares his process online, and is widely known for creating the popular 30×40 Design Workshop YouTube channel.
The way Eric has set his business is that it depends on the internet for things to operate the way they do. He is heavily present on YouTube where he shares videos on his creative process, behind-the-scenes look when he’s interviewing clients, site progress update videos when he’s working with the contractors, model making, sketching, and drawing.
This content is designed to answer the many questions prospective clients have about working with an architect. What to expect from him, the kind of projects he wants to work on, and making it easier for them to find him online and learn about his services.
For the non-client fans, they can learn from his work and his practice and emulate those to build a similar business. He teaches lessons on passive income generation, creating courses, and digital products. These invaluable lessons are packed in a two-part book series called the “Architect + Entrepreneur” and paired with a digital course as a companion resource.
You can see how this business uses content creation to get the attention of customers online. Then converts them to customers depending on the specific type of services or products they are looking for.
Conclusion
In this article, we have seen that you can create blog posts, email newsletter updates, long-form video content such as property tours or tutorials, short-form video content for quick announcements and snippets, audio podcasts, or photo galleries.
This content is a way for you to show up on their social media feeds, video feeds, AI prompts, or web search results, where your potential customers are looking for information. If you can sort out one of their pain points, then they will gain your trust and can potentially become your loyal fans.
These loyal fans can turn to be your customers and clients, supporting your business by buying your products and services. Potentially, this can be all you need in the long term to build hype around your business and professional services and create a sustainable business.
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