Content Creation 101: The Ultimate Beginner's Blueprint to a Profitable Content Strategy

Discover The Content Creation Tactics Behind Today’s Fastest-Growing Brands And How To Apply It To Yours

I could never relate to the gurus with hundreds of thousands of followers.

I’ve been on the content journey off and on for years. I’ve followed and studied dozens of experts and taken numerous courses. The advice was all the same… Pick a niche. Deliver value. Be consistent. Make money. But it never worked for me.

I could never figure out why my content got no engagement.

While theirs got 1000s of views and 100s of comments posting what they ate for lunch or a BS motivation quote generated from ChatGPT.

Now, I am not an influencer.

I don’t have a massive following.

But, I repeatedly test things.

And, I’ve started to figure a couple of things out.

This guide is designed for creators who’ve struggled to grow, and like me, haven’t resonated or seen success with what’s being taught.

This is how I grew a brand new TikTok account from 0 to 5,000 followers in 60 days.

And how I grew my LinkedIn followers by 35% and reach by 215% last month...

…Even though my LinkedIn following is still small, at 723 followers, this growth rate will bring me to over 6,000 this year.

So then,

If you’re looking for practical advice from someone who’s in this with you…

Let’s join hands and go on this adventure together.

When It All First “Clicked” For Me…

In 2022 I took around 6 months off from creating content.

It wasn’t until the release of ChatGPT that the desire to create came back.

Then something I never expected happened, on December 18, 2022. One of my posts went viral (for me) generating over 200,000 views. (You can see the post here)

Nothing I had posted before had received this many views. 

In just 60 days I went from a brand new TikTok account to 5,000 followers. Today, this video has 238,000 views, over 12,000 bookmarks, and almost 3,000 shares.

I can’t say that I could re-create this “moment.”

But, I’ve been able to understand what created it and I’ve translated it into what I call the A.I.M Method Content Strategy.

This Strategy Allowed Me To Grow My LinkedIn Followers By 35% And Impressions By 215% Last Month.

Now that I’ve set the stage, let’s dive in…

A.I.M stands for Attention, Influence, and Monetization.

These are the 3 content buckets I’ve leveraged inside my content creation.

It started 4 years ago as a business coach when I developed a methodology for business growth called A.I.M.

After assessing my (occasional) growth and success of social media I realized it was directly related to the same principles I created 4 years ago.

In this guide we’ll be covering:

• The A.I.M Method Content Strategy.

• Attention Content.

• Influence Content.

• Monetization Content.

• Applying The A.I.M Method To Your Brand.

• How To Amplify The A.I.M Method To Sell Your Products & Programs.

Ready?

The A.I.M Method Content Strategy

I discovered the gurus were lying.

Ok, that might be a bit of a stretch… But, they weren’t telling the whole truth.

It wasn’t until I spent hours researching, watching videos, taking courses, and joining groups, that I realized the one thing they didn’t talk about.

They were buying views and comments.

They were teaching me to pick a niche, deliver value, be consistent, and engage but I didn’t realize that they were paying for comments, retweets, and part of engagement groups.

And they only taught this to their highest-paying clients.

All of a sudden it made sense.

But I didn’t have the money for this shortcut. 

I needed to rely on my content to grow my brand. Even if it wouldn’t grow as fast, if I could consistently see growth, that was a win.

That’s when the seeds of the A.I.M Method were born.

At the root, there are 3 ways that we can generate attention for our business:

• Organic, through content.

• Paid, through advertising.

• Partnerships, through other people's audiences.

I think a balance between all of them is ideal. But building an organic personal brand that does not rely on paid traffic or someone else is one of the most powerful things we can do.

To maximize our organic content, we need it to accomplish 3 things:

1. Expand our audience and build awareness.

2. Establish influence and authority.

3. Generate sales.

Our ‘Attention’ content expands our audience and builds awareness.

Our ‘Influence’ content establishes our authority.

Our ‘Monetization’ content generates our sales.

Let’s dig into the ‘A’...

Attention Content

Goal: The goal of our ‘Attention’ content is to expand our audience, generate attention, and build brand awareness.

Simply put… If you have no followers, you don’t have anyone to sell to. So you need to generate attention and expand your audience.

The content we use here has the goal of reaching more people. Typically, it is slightly broader, so that it resonates with and exposes you to more people.

Recommended Content Types:

• Trends.

• Listicles.

• Incorporating brands, celebrities, or influencers.

• Commonly asked questions.

• Relating to timely news or events.

• “Broad” content. (Think of what people would be searching for on YouTube)

• Personal stories.

Here’s An Example:

A ‘Good’ post for me on LinkedIn will get over 100 impressions. This ‘Attention’ post generated 3,501 impressions.

Let’s break this down a little bit:

This was a listicle-style post which people like to engage with. We’ve learned this through the success of websites like BuzzFeed. I have incorporated other industry experts, highlighting them, and tagging them, knowing if they comment or share it, it will send positive signals to the algorithm and push my post out to more people.

Note: This content should still be relevant to you and the people you serve. Attention for the sake of attention, if unrelated, will not benefit your business.

Influence Content

Goal: The goal of our ‘Influence’ content is to sell your audience on your expertise and position you as a thought leader and solution to their problem.

Simply put… Once we increase our audience the next step is to establish our influence and authority with them through value-based content.

The content we use here is more narrow and specific and will resonate with fewer people than our ‘Attention’ content but will land with the people we serve.

Recommended Content Types:

• Tips.

• Lessons.

• Mistakes.

• Educational how-to.

• Speak to the symptoms of the problems they’re experiencing.

• Results of your work.

• Case studies.

• Your process or frameworks.

• Behind the scenes.

• PR (or anything/anywhere you’ve been featured)

• Personal stories.

Here’s An Example:

You can see the live post here.

Let’s break this down a little bit:

This was an educational post speaking to a symptom that my audience is experiencing. Through conversations with clients and prospective clients, a common issue people struggle with is performance dropping when they increase their advertising spend. This was the leading hook, and delivering an insight into this.

Note: Every piece of content does not need to be relevant to everyone in your audience. You can speak to different pains and problems in different posts.

Monetization Content

Goal: The goal of our ‘Monetization’ content is to sell to your audience. These conversion and call-to-action-focused posts are designed to have people take action. Such as purchase, opt-in, or raise their hand expressing interest.

Simply put… We need to give people an opportunity to buy if we want to generate sales. If we never put an “offer” out, people may never take action.

Recommended Content Types:

• ‘Influence’ content + call-to-action.

• Direct offers.

• Handraisers.

• Speak to the benefits or outcomes of the offer.

Here’s An Example:

You can see the live post here.

Let’s break this down a little bit:

This post was encouraging people to download a lead magnet. This lead magnet was around validating high ticket offers. The post content speaks to the exact scenario I address inside the lead magnet.

Example 2:

You can see the live post here.

Note: All content can generate sales or leads. However, these posts apply an emphasis on this action by providing a CTA. This can be any desired action, such as opting in for a lead magnet, commenting, sending a DM, making a purchase, etc.

Build Rapport Through Humanizing Your Content

Goal: Build rapport, trust, and relatability with you and your experience through personal stories.

Simply put… People buy from people they know, like, and trust. It’s not only about knowledge, it’s about creating an emotional connection.

Personal stories and experiences can be content on their own and can be incorporated into attention, influence, and monetization content so I have not given it a dedicated bucket.

Recommended Content Types:

• Personal stories.

• Personal experiences.

• Lessons, mistakes, etc.

• Related and/or unrelated to your content.

• Highlight core interests that may relate to people.

Here’s An Example:

Sharing a story about designing the logo for my first agency.

Sharing a story about when I lived in Mexico.

Applying The A.I.M Method To Your Brand

The A.I.M Method is a ‘Content Strategy’.

Think of it as a compass that you use to direct (aim) your content creation efforts.

It can be applied to almost all platforms and mediums. Some platforms have more “discoverability” than others which will influence the ‘Attention’ content.

Here are some general guidelines:

• Choose your primary platform.

• Create content following your unique content strategy.

• Watch what works and doesn’t.

• Iterate based on those insights ^^.

• Focus on radical incrementalism → Consistency over time wins.

• Every post is a test.

And, most importantly… Have fun!

Not every piece of content will neatly fit into the content buckets. Some will fit into more than one, some may fit into none, that’s Ok.

Different Phases Of The A.I.M Method:

Something I have been considering lately is how much of each type of content should I produce…

This is a work in progress and I am currently testing it. But, generally speaking, if you’re in a growth phase (building your audience) you should emphasize more ‘Attention’ content.

(This is where I am)

A general guide that I’m using as a starting point:

Growth Phase Ratio: 3-2-1 → Attention - Influence - Monetization

How To Amplify The A.I.M Method To Sell Your Products & Programs

Once we begin to master the A.I.M Method with our content.

It can be amplified with paid advertising.

After I witnessed my mini-viral ChatGPT post (‘Attention’ post) in 2022, I created a lead magnet.

I created 2 posts (‘Monetization’ posts) showing the lead magnet and offering it to people. Both of these posts over-indexed and got 1000s of views.

Organically alone I added 100s of emails to my list.

But…

The magic happened when I turned those posts into ads and began generating leads for $0.95.

Now,

This is something I teach and help others implement for themselves.

How to turn their top-performing content into assets that sell their products and programs on autopilot.

If this is something you’d be interested in, please reach out to me, in whatever way is most convenient for you.

-Landon