3 Fresh Ways to Make Content Creation a Breeze For Non Writers

Aug 09, by Tanya Alvarez

I must admit, I’m just not a fast writer. I really wish I was one of those people who could thrash out a great article in an hour or less, but it feels like it takes me days. Days. I tend to sit in front of a fresh Google Doc and just stare blankly, awaiting that mysterious moment of inspiration, or I write some basic ideas down but don’t get any further… Then, all of sudden an email comes through and I’m immediately distracted and mindlessly move onto my next task (probably with a great sigh of relief if I’m being totally honest).

But at least I know I’m not alone.

A number of OwnersUP members have reported experiencing this same frustrating roadblock, and even when creating content is an important goal on their to-do list, it still gets pushed down again and again in favour of far-less troublesome tasks.

In fact, we’ve seen in our platform stats that out of all of the things that our members might reschedule, delay or just plain fail to complete, creating content is the #1!

Some of our members do outsource content creation of course. However, more often than not, they don’t like the tone or aren’t happy with the writing for some reason or another. You see, as business owners we’re trying to develop unique brands for a unique audience, and we’ve built our audiences through our own style, personality, attitudes and beliefs and, importantly, our own voice.

So what do you do?

Well, there are hundreds of resources out there that teach overcoming writer’s block and improving your typing and a whole bunch of other useful stuff. But, that’s a huge commitment of time that many of us simply don’t have, so we have figured out a few approaches that work really well without the need for all of that extra learning and upskilling.

Here’s what OwnersUP two members and I do to get content out more effortlessly…

#1: Rebecca = Q&A Video + Transcription + Editor

I love this. It’s so simple and awesome because it’s producing content that people really want—fresh, expert-driven answers to their specific questions. And you don’t even have to spend any time brainstorming ideas.

So Rebecca starts the process with a Facebook Live. In the video she gets questions from her members and answers them on the video. Then it’s just a matter of getting it transcribed. You might stop there, but of course, the way we speak can sometimes be more casual that we would like, or we might stumble over one or two things because it’s a live video, we might repeat content or it might just not have the same sense of flow in writing as it does when you’re saying it out loud.

To solve this problem, Rebecca has an editor look it over and make amendments before she publishes it.

#2: Vicky = Google Docs Dictation + Editor

Whilst Vicky also uses an editor at the end-stages to polish the content, this differs from Rebecca’s in that there’s no Q&A—the content is driven more by Vicky’s ideas than by member questions. Plus there’s no need to pay a transcriber, which is a great bonus if you’re just starting out or trying to keep expenditure down.

Of course it only works if you’re “fluent” in ideation. As a side-note, on the topic of ideation, a useful tool to come up with relevant queries and ideas (kind of like your very own Q&A machine) for your content is AnswerThePublic.com — it’s super-simple to use; you just enter a topic and it will give you a whole gamut of search phrases and questions relating to that exact topic.

Here’s what I got when I just entered “entrepreneurs”…Vicky uses the new Google Doc “voice typing” tool, which I must say is remarkably accurate. I thought I’d test it out here quickly…

This is an example of how Google Docs uses my voice to record my words and I don’t have to touch my keyboard at all. In fact, this is pretty amazing. I may never type again.

Now once Vicky has finished dictating her content using the voice typing system in Google Docs she then simply shares it with her editor and her editor polishes up the content to make it ready for publishing.

Aside from potentially never having to actually type your content again and having the freedom to virtually think out loud and have your computer take notes, one of the things that’s also particularly good about using a Google Doc is that you can have a conversation with your editor around specific parts of the content right there in the document. This might be useful to assist you and your editor to decide whether or not to change something, or get clarity on the meaning of something, etc. This saves a lot of back-and-forth emails or other communications that are far less efficient (and require explaining which part of the text you’re talking about each time).

#3: What I do = Summary + OnDemand Writers

For me, I have 2 approaches, but they basically boil down to the same thing…

I either write a quick summary with the points I want to be included in the content or I record a short video, have my VA send it to Temi (an online audio transcription service) and then upload to ContentFly (a high-quality writing on-demand service).

ContentFly may seem a little expensive for some (there’s a monthly subscription fee as well as a per-article fee, which is a little odd admittedly), but the results are generally good, plus there’s no need for an editor, so you save some money there and it all works out about the same in the end.

As you can see, there are lots of great options. You’ll no-doubt have your own preferences and find your own way of doing this. So here are some useful tools and services to get you started:

Dictation Tools

• Otter
• Google Voice Typing (under the Tools menu in Google Docs)

Transcribing

• Temi
• Trint
• YouTube (free transcription for captions)

Editors & Writers

• Upwork
• ContentFly

Alright. There’s no excuse now. Go out there and get your writing done!