Transcription
I've been making videos for a really really long time, and in that time I've gone on this wild ride of making videos for fun because I enjoyed making them, to realizing that I could make a business and use video content to promote it, so that I could get customers, which give me money and make me happy. Back to 2024, I've made close to a million pounds of gross revenue for my production agency, Odyssey, by marketing myself and my business online with content. And in this video, I'm going to tell you how I've done it, so that you can use the same foundations for your own personal brand or your own business.
What's important to note before I dive in to the juicy details is that I haven't gone for follower growth and aim to be the biggest Creator on the planet. I've actually gone for generating customers and earning money over vanity metrics. Currently, I'm sitting at around 31,000 followers on LinkedIn, 2,000 on Instagram, 2,000 on Tik Tok, and 570 on YouTube. And the reason I'm saying this is because it's proofing the pudding that you don't need to have a big audience to earn some serious money; be that for yourself, or for the business that you work for, or just whatever.
So here's everything that you need to know to be able to copy my content strategy for yourself. Number one: consistency is priority. I don't post every day, but I am consistent on the days and the times that I do post. I always post on a Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday between 7:00 to 8:00 a.m. in the morning, and every Thursday on YouTube at 4:00 p.m. This is important to build a structure for your audience, so that they can expect to see posts from you on certain days and certain times.
Number two: long-term thinking. Reaching nearly a million in revenue from content has taken me about four years to achieve, and that growth has compounded; the bigger and better my content has become.
Number three: embracing failure. A big part of my content strategy is testing. It's all well and good to have a style nailed and perfected, but it's so important to constantly challenge yourself and try new approaches. With that comes a lot of content that flops, but a lot of learnings that you can then use to better your content and your approach.
In terms of the specific content styles, I have a watertight journey that I take somebody who has never heard of me on social media before, all the way through to eventually buying from my company. And this is split into four different stages. The first is awareness. Every month or two, I create a big hero piece of content; its sole purpose is to reach a lot of people—as many people as possible—whilst relating to my target audience. For me, that's decision-makers and business owners and marketing teams. Once they have watched the entirety of my content, I leave a very clear call to action to follow me, to be part of that community, so I can start to build subscribers, followers, and connections and slowly increase the right amount of people in my community.
The second stage is searchability. If I didn't get in front of the right person with my hero video, I'll create searchable content that aims to educate my target audience about the pains and the problems that they're having right now. And that comes through tutorials, tips and tricks, and educational content that positions me as the expert within my industry. People then follow or engage with my videos, and I continue to appear in their feeds from there on.
The third stage is nurture. Now that my audience are in my community bubble, I like to educate them and nurture them around what I do, my journey as a business owner, and the general happenings of what's going on behind the scenes at my company. Because my target audience are decision-makers and marketers, they really like this style of content, but that may be different for you. I'll create breakdown videos, behind-the-scenes videos from my production company, I'll give detailed tips and tricks and educational content, and I'll share what's happening in my world to really build Titan relationships with people and establish their trust and liability.
The last stage is conversion. I do this through sharing work that we've professionally created for similar companies to ones that they work at. I'll share transformations, before and after videos, case studies, testimonials, reviews, and everything that I can showcase my professional service with. That journey is super specific to me and my business, but you can apply the same sort of foundations in terms of awareness, searchability, nurture, and conversion to your own content. It works to build your personal brand; it works to market a product or service and scale a business online. You name it, you can really tailor this to get out what you want from it.
Now this is where most people will stop. They will plan, film, and edit an incredible video or a series of great videos and wait a few weeks and go, "Oh well, this hasn't worked, so I'm going to stop." That is one of the worst things that you can do when it comes to content, and you've got to pursue this hunger to figure out what works for you, because there isn't a one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to creating content on the internet. Everybody is different; the principles can be the same, but the content something that will always need refinement.
Where a lot of you will also get stuck is by being overwhelmed by too many platforms to create content for, and that's why I only really focus on one kind of core platform predominantly—that being LinkedIn. I do create for other platforms, but LinkedIn is where I put probably 80% of my effort. YouTube, Tik Tok, Instagram—they kind of take up around 20% of my time, or I tend to repurpose sort of content from LinkedIn onto those other platforms. Needless to say, that is what you should be doing too: go all in on the platforms that you need to be active on and start to build the other platforms when you can. Don't attempt to do all of them at once unless you have a huge team to support you or lots of money that you can just invest into freelancers, agencies, and hiring your own team.
Creating content is pretty much 50% of the equation; the other 50% is actually sales and Business Development—uh, actually being social on social media, spending time in building community and building relationships with the people that support my content every day. And I like to call it engagement validation because my strategy is purely organic, meaning that I have never run a pay-ad in my life. A lot of my growth is a byproduct from the effort and engagement that my community give my content. If it wasn't for them engaging with my videos by leaving comments, sharing it in their networks, and liking it, I wouldn't be pushed in the feed, and few people will ever see my content. So I think it's important to spend a bit of time going through comments, replying to the ones that are relevant, thanking people for their support, and actually building connections with people.
I'd argue that maybe £250,000 has come directly from referrals and recommendations by people who engage with my content online. We've probably spoken from time to time, and because we've established that relationship, there is a greater level of trust, and they tell their networks about the services that I offer. So don't ever underestimate the power of just being a nice person and being active and part of your community on social media. In a roundabout way, content is the Catalyst for conversation; those conversations build relationships, and those relationships blossom over time into real customers for my business. Instead of hard selling, I will aim to provide value through educational, insightful, and thought leadership content that sparks conversations. Doing this has allowed me to reach some months where we're converting over £80,000 in new business, to more maybe sustainable, steady 15 to 20K months of leads and customers without having to spend a penny on paid advertising.
If you enjoyed this video, feel free to check out some of my other videos on YouTube, specifically this one. I made this one myself; very proud of it. You can go and check it out if you want to learn how to make bigger and better content to market yourself on the internet, or to market your business, or sell a product, or whatever. Go and check it out; let me know what you thought of it. And if you're not subscribed, click that subscribe button to be part of the community that I'm building here. So until then, enjoy, and I shall see you in the next video. Ciao