How to build a Content Empire (and own it)

Don't build your dream house on someone else's property

In this post, I will tell you why social media is not a reliable way to grow and why you should build your own platform. I have learned this through my experience in Digital Marketing over the past 10 years. And I see that many people are just giving the wrong advice.

“Experts” will tell you to build a social media following. They tell you to “optimize” your profile, post frequently, engage with your “followers” and hopefully one day, you can become a big influencer.

No. It doesn’t work like that.

The biggest problem with trying to become an influencer on Instagram, YouTube, or any other platform is that your “followers” are not your users.

When you post stuff on a platform like Instagram, you might have more followers, but in the long term, your reach will go down. Every platform has its limits when it comes to the number of users it can have.

Initially, there will be a lot of users on a platform, but in the long run, as the platform becomes popular, the user base of the platform will go down. And the number of creators and content producers on the platform will go up.

When you have more influencers, creators, and producers on a platform, the reach that these creators have will go down. There is no doubt about it.

I have been using social media since 2006. I have been using them since the days of Orkut. And I know one thing for sure. Every platform eventually becomes too crowded, people get bored and it dies.

• One day Facebook will die.

• One day Instagram will die.

• One day LinkedIn will die.

If you post on any of these platforms, the reach will be so low that it will not be worth posting anything. That’s the sad part about social media platforms. Your efforts go to waste.

It has already happened in recent times.

There were so many TikTok “Influencers” posting content on the platform. The platform did not die because it became old, but it died anyway (because of government regulation). When such changes happen, everything that you have worked for will go to drain, and you should not be in a position like that.

As a creator, when you create content, you need to build your content on your own platform. And grow users on your platform. Get people on your platform.

If you grow your own platform on the web, then you will have total control over it.

But how does one build a platform of their own? I am not just talking about a platform, but building an empire. A content empire.

I made this blueprint called the Content Empire Blueprint based on my 10+ years of experience in Digital Marketing.

You can see that in this blueprint, there are three major parts to it.

These are your content properties.

They are:

• Your Blog / Newsletter

• Your Tribe

• Your Courses

1. Your Blog / Newsletter

Your blog is the home for your digital content. Whatever content you create, you have to post it on your blog. You need to draw people to it. That’s how you build your website and your digital presence. (My blog and my digital home are digitaldeepak.com)

2. Your Tribe

Then you have your tribe, where your community resides. No brand can be built in the digital age without having a strong tribe around it. (I have my private community/tribe at Skool)

3. Your Courses

While a blog mostly hosts free content, your courses are premium content. When you have courses on your niche, you will have huge authority and you will also be able to make a profit out of your content which will help you reinvest profits back into paid traffic and other promotional methods to boost your blog. (I have my courses at My LMS).

Your Email List

And in the center, you have your email list, which is your primary communication mechanism with your audience. It powers your blog, your tribe, and your courses. Inversely, your blog, tribe, and courses can also help you build your email list.

Distribution

On the top, you have various methods of content distribution. You can publish books, apps, and content on social media, get listed on search engines, get PR, and do live events, but everything should build traffic to your blog. (Paid advertising becomes part of this because you either advertise on social media or advertise on search engines.)

A lot of people just keep posting content on social media platforms and in the long term, their reach declines and all the hard work they did goes down the drain.

I would never post on social media just for the sake of it. I still use social media, but I use it as a distribution mechanism to get people into my blog and then build my email list (which builds my private tribe and gets sales of my courses).

And because I have premium courses, that give me revenue and profits, I can boost my content on social media, search, and other websites. Most of the influencers cannot do that because they have nothing to sell.

Affiliates

On the bottom you have affiliates. Affiliates will promote you for a commission. And to give them a commission you need to sell something.

That’s why affiliate marketing cannot be a strategy on the top where you promote free content through your blog. There is no sale and hence no commission to be paid.

You can either sell a premium membership to your tribe, or you can sell your courses through your affiliates. This will also help you build your list, then your blog traffic, and eventually the social media following, and it might even help in improving your search traffic because the highest quality users will come from your tribe.

Most of the “famous” people on social media platforms do not make much money because they do not have any products to sell. They just keep posting content, they have a lot of followers, but if the platform goes away, then they will not exist.

Every platform in the world can die, but my email list, and the relationship I have with my list (you) – will not die. I can just send an email to you.

And that’s how you build a content empire.

Email list, Blog, Tribe, Courses.

If you are not building these, then you are not building anything.

Do not build your dream home on someone else’s property. Instead, build your own empire. A content empire. And control it.

I hope you got new insights from this post.

What do you think? Reply to this and let me know. Are you going to build your own content empire?

Cheers,
Deepak Kanakaraju