How to Earn a Living as a Content Creator: The 7 Proven Options that Work

Whether you’re an aspiring or existing digital creator, there are many opportunities to earn a living as a content creator today, regardless of the type of content you create, your niche or even your qualification and experience.

As you probably know, a number of your favorite creators have already leveraged these opportunities to make money online and earn a living. So many others like you have been inspired to join them and start making a living also. But, the game is the game. And sometimes, there’s no guideline to success.

Just as there are a decent number of content creators creating exceptional success with their content, there are also a number of failed creators whose goal to eke out a living online did not see the light of the day.

As you get set to navigate your journey to make a living as a content creator, I’ll be sharing with you some of the practical lessons I’ve learned and the strategies that helped me and my students in the following paragraphs.

Choose the Right Niche

As much as it’s possible to make an impact in almost any niche, to earn a living as a content creator, there are some very specific niches that can get you to achieve your goals much faster than the others.

Outside that, there are also a number of niches or a certain industry you’re much more familiar or comfortable with either because of your personal experience, skills or training.

So, before you think about making money as a content creator, you don’t just want to pick a niche, you want to pick the right niche. Doing this gets you all prepped up for success.

But how do you choose the right niche?

• Identify Profitable Niches: To make money as content creator, you want to go for profitable niches. In some African countries right now, one of the profitable niches is skit making. Many people are creating content and making it in that niche. But that’s not the only profitable niche there is. There are a number of many other profitable niches out there. Go ahead, identify them.
• Evaluate your Skills: Do you have the skills that can get you to create content easily in that niche? For example there are specialized niches like Law, Medicine, and Finance etc. Most creators in this niche will oftentimes have some certification, experience or training etc. to command attention. To create content in a specialized niche, you have to consider this.
• Assess your interest: Your hobbies and interests are secondary when it comes to content creation, but creating content in an area you’re passionate about can have a real impact In terms of your growth and consistency in that niche.
• Research Market Demand: Are there a large number of people interested in that kind of content you plan to create? The more the number of people that’s interested in your proposed nice, the higher your chances of success.

Taking time to consider these will guide you towards choosing a niche that will actually deliver on your expected outcomes at a faster rate.

Also, pay attention to the following:

In as much as your passion is secondary, overall, you want to choose a niche you’re interested in. And of course, one that can also generate income because it has a lot of other people interested in it as well.

A popular niche is always the way to go. But keep in mind that you may have a lot of competition. And you may not have requisite skill in the particular niche.

Build your Brand

As a content creator, you need a brand that will distinguish you from other content creators, regardless of your niche.

While it’s also okay to evolve and grow with your brand overtime, to earn a living as a content creator, it is very important you create some sort of brand identity that will stay in the mind of your audience, when they come in contact with your content.

Here are the steps you can take to build a brand:

• Create a brand name: Your brand name can be anything, including your personal name. Depending on your industry and future goals, you might want to consider choosing some certain kind of brand name and identity. But, whatever you choose, consider your industry, target audience and niche sentiments.
• Identify your brand voice: A brand voice can accentuate your brand, make it easily recognizable or even loved. When we started, one of my goals was to maintain a simple down to earth brand voice that is easily relatable to my target audience. You want to pay attention to choosing a brand voice your audience can relate to. This is very important.
• Build your Platform: Now that you’ve created a brand name, logo and voice, you can go ahead to build a platform, using these brand elements. PS: While social media might be your preferred platform, you also need a third party platform like a website which is a more permanent place to grow your audience. Ask us how to get started.

Create a Plan

Before you get to earn a living as a content creator, you’ll have to create and share valuable content with your audience, consistently. And to do this effectively, you’ll need a game plan.

Now, considering that you already know that your goal is to make money online, its time to activate a plan to achieve this. And you can take the following steps:

• Identify your content types: There are different kinds of content like Videos, Text, Audio; Images etc. different people are drawn to different content formats based on their preferences. Since you’ve already identified your niche in step one above, what you want to do now is to identify the type of content that works best for this industry. You can look up existing content creators in your preferred niche to get an idea about what works.
• Get a Schedule: Successful content marketing demands consistency, effort and practice. So, you want to create a schedule that identifies when you plan to be creating and sharing content. Keep in mind that it is not only important to create a schedule; you have to stick to it.
• Create a content strategy: Understudy your niche so you can get an idea on what content works. After this is done, go ahead and create a content strategy that identifies the kind of content you plan to create on specific days, how you plan to promote it and other important strategies.

Overall, to make money as a content creator, you don’t need a content plan that covers everything from the get go. You need something to get started with. As you embark on your content creation journey, you’ll find tips and ideas to update your content plan in a way that will lead to better outcomes.

Create Valuable Content

A lot of aspiring content creators believe that making money with content creation starts and ends with creating and sharing content with an audience.

No, that’s not how it works. To actually earn a living as a content creator, you have to create content that is valuable to your audience.

So, valuable content is the kind of content that an average user will use and benefit from. It is the kind of content that is entertaining, educational, inspiring or convincing. Something that is actually beneficial to the user. This is the kind of content you want to create otherwise you may be wasting your time.

Regardless of the format you choose to use or the platforms you’re sharing on, pay attention to adding an extra level of value to any piece of content you create if you really want to get the shares, likes and engagement that will generate visibility.

Another angle to pay attention to is industry trends. This is another area you can leverage to understand industry needs and take it to the next level of value addition.

And finally, you can improve on existing content, research, ideas etc., add a layer of value and still share with your audience.

PS: Before you think of making money with your content, it is important to think about adding value to your audience.

Grow your Brand & Audience

One of the easiest ways to make good money as a content creator is to have a large audience or fan base. But, this doesn’t happen in a day. To have a decent number of followers, you have to intentionally take steps to grow your audience.

Outside creating and posting content you also have to take some of the following measures to build your audience;

• Optimize your content: When your content is optimized with search key words, phrases or hashtags relevant to your audience and industry, it stands a better chance to get wider visibility and reach. To earn a living as a content creator, consider optimizing your content before posting them, regardless of whichever platforms you’re posting on.
• Share your post: Are you posting only on your platforms? To get a wider visibility, consider sharing your posts across other platforms. If you’re posting on your website or YouTube, share to your social media platforms. Where you’re creating for social media, consider using niche groups and sub groups.
• Use search engine optimization: Where you’re posting content on websites, blogs or channels like Youtube, consider optimizing those platforms and your content for search engine visibility.
• Try Paid Promotion: There are a number of paid promotion options you can also use like social media promotion, Google search promotion etc.

Using either or all of these strategies can further extend your reach with content marketing. It can also get you a far better visibility and audience.

Monetize your Content

To earn a living as a content creator you have to monetize your content. There are no two ways about it. So at this point, you want to start thnking about possible monetization options that can work for you, based on your industry, niche or location.

The following are some of the most popular options you can use to make money as a content creator:

Sell Products or Services: This is one of the most popular options used by content creator and influencers. Since you already have the platform and audience, you can start selling your product or services on the sidelines while creating and sharing content with your audience.

Join Affiliate Marketing: You can get to promote products; services etc from other brands, get a personalized link and start earning when people buy those items using your link.

Influencer Marketing: As a content creator with a large audience, you can leverage influencer marketing to promote content, products or services from other brands and get paid for it.

Sponsored Content: You can create and share sponsored content for other brands directly in return for a pay.

Join Ad Options: There are different advertising options available online. You can join either of this and get paid depending on your platform.

There are many other ways to make money as a content creator outside the monetization options listed here. You can find some other channels on this website.

Evolve a System

It’s okay to plan to earn a living as a content creator but to build a sustainable income stream, you have to evolve a system or model that will be working for you repeatedly.

Based on what you’ve learned and the results you’ve created so far, you want to go ahead and build a system that generates consistent income for you. This is very important.

Final Words

Earning a living as a content creator will require consistency, effort and hard work. As much as you want to get to this stage, you have to be ready to put in the work if you’re planning to build success in this field.

Also, you want to invest into learning and evolving with your industry. From time to time, find out what’s trending and look for ways to evolve your brand to meet up with evolving trends.

And if you do not have the right skills, sign up for trainings and certifications to get the skills you need. Like the ones we have here.

Finally, give yourself time to build. Success is an accumulation of little tiny steps. And you can start yours today.

Now, it’s your turn. What are your challenges when it comes to earning a living as a content creator? Drop your comments below.