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Working from home can be extremely difficult sometimes. Even when I worked in an office, getting motivated on a daily basis was difficult AF. Today, on the blog, I am here to give some advice on how to get motivated for the workday. Let’s get ready to kick our work into high gear, shall we?
If you are a liberal arts major, more than likely you have heard this phrase a million times:
“So, what are you going to do for the rest of your life?” –– Concerned, Nosy Relative
I am here to give you all the tips and tricks you need to survive these questions by thinking about your major differently. You can study what makes you happy without sacrificing your future in the working world.
Today let’s chat about how to use the skills you have learned as a liberal arts major to get a freaking job.
Happy Thursday!
Here is a random piece of content for you, because I genuinely wanted to share this with y’all. I was featured on the new podcast Offbeat Grad by Samantha Tetrault.
Today’s blog post is taking a slight turn in comparison to my usual blog topics. Today I am chatting about about content marketing and how to make it work for you.
When most people think about content marketing, they think of bloggers or people in the marketing department of corporations. I am here to tell you, though, that content marketing can work for EVERYONE. Today, I am going to break down a few things:
If you are ready to tackle those three topics, and more, keep reading!
Simply put, content marketing is creating content (blogs, YouTube videos, podcast episodes, etc.) and marketing it to your ideal audience. Understanding content marketing and copywriting obviously takes more skill than that, but it is something that you can learn over time.
The purpose of content marketing: to persuade your ideal audience to do something.
That something may be to hire you, keep reading more of your content, sign up for your email list, or something else entirely. You put out content to get your name out there and get noticed by the people you want attention from.
A big part of content marketing that people often miss, though, is marketing. It’s not enough to just put content out there. The internet is vast, and things often get lost. It’s crucial for you to buckle down and market any article that you put on the internet. Otherwise, you will just be screaming into an empty void.
Employment is not what it used to be.
In the past (one that is far, far away) you could quickly graduate high school, get a full-time job with your education, and support a large family.
This is not possible anymore.
Now you need to, at a minimum, get a college degree (and some people don’t even find a job with that.) It’s honestly more about how connected you are versus what skills you have acquired. Skills are excellent, but you can go your entire life with skills and never get noticed based on your merit alone.
Well-marketed content can change your life. Here’s why:
Now that we have covered what content marketing is and why millennials should care about it., here are some thought starters for making content marketing work in your industry.
There is likely a normalized opinion floating around in your industry. Do you have a differing idea that you can eloquently explain through content? Get to work on it!
Likely professionals in your industry have lost sight of how to appeal to ordinary people. Make a splash by sharing some insights on how you have explained your industry to average people or how you think the industry can.
Think about your before and after. Has your opinion changed drastically during your time at college or in graduate school? Use that knowledge to explain how your industry has changed you.
No industry or person is perfect. Explain the changes you wish to see in your industry. Be specific and give examples of how these failures or quirks have impacted your day-to-day life in the industry.
Times are rapidly changing. Often academics don’t keep up with modern things, or they can’t keep up with them quickly due to the peer review process. Content marketing pieces don’t necessarily need to be peer-reviewed, so using your industry to explain recent occurrences can be a great use of content marketing time.
I graduated with a Master’s in Sociology. If I were still chasing this discipline, here are some content marketing blog post ideas that I might try.
Take these ideas and the content starters to brainstorm blog post ideas in your own industry! Dig deep and try to steer clear of basic concepts. You may not want to use the first ones you think of and go with the 5th or even 10th idea you brainstorm, instead.
To wrap this up, let’s talk about some miscellaneous content marketing questions you may be asking me right now.
There are many ways to get content out there: you could do articles, videos, podcasts, ezines, books, and so much more. Honestly, it’s whatever you think you could do well. If you want to write a blog, write a blog but if you want to start a podcast, start a podcast.
If you don’t have a Ph.D., it may be difficult to approach some topics. At the same time, though, content marketing isn’t always about having all the answers. It depends on the audience you are trying to impress and what you are hoping to get out of an article. Don’t be afraid to jump into the conversation as long as you do your research–which we will talk about next.
Content marketing research changes depending on the content you are creating. You should be trying to do as much research as possible, though. That may require you going to Google Scholar or other research databases to uncover studies that you can cite.
The research that you must do varies greatly depending on the topic you are creating content around. You likely won’t have to do much research if you are talking about how the industry has impacted your life, but if you are talking about how your industry can explain modern life, you’ll need to do some research to explain yourself.
You do your research like you would do any research paper you have written for college or graduate school.
There are many audiences you may want to reach:
Before you create any piece of content, you have to understand who that ideal audience is and what you have to offer them.
For example, if you are trying to reach employers, you have to understand their:
You will also need to understand the kind of jobs that you are looking for. Where do you see yourself in five years? This will determine the type of content you produce for them.
In the end, you will attract people by the content that you put out there. So, if your content has a laidback vibe, you will often draw in laidback people.
You have to know that you will always have those people who ask questions, critique your work, or straight up hate on it. You have to learn how to take the constructive criticism to improve your work and shake off the hateful comments. You will be able to tell a distinct difference between the two, even if it doesn’t feel like you can.
And, just for laughs, one of my favorite comics ever by Steve Macone that I am sure you will understand if you have ever presented at a conference or even seen the comments section of an academic article.
Once you have created content, where should you publish it? Here are a few places:
Wherever you share it, make sure to promote it!
Content marketing is a skill that millennials need to learn in this economy. Millennials aren’t as loyal to employers as they used to be, and employers are no longer as loyal to us. If you want to continue to thrive and create great opportunities, you must build your own brands online and in person. Creating content allows you to do just that.
I hope that today’s blog gave you some food for thought.
How will you create content in your industry?
