The Value of a Content Library (as an Advisor)

By now, we know that social media platforms aren't the most reliable.

Accounts get banned, features change, reach gets limited, businesses eventually shut down. It'll always be an evolving landscape, but one common denominator is constantly present: content

No matter what happens, humans will want to consume some form of video, audio, or written word—it's who we are.

Knowing these two things, it makes sense to build a place for anyone to watch, listen, or read your thoughts about personal finance. I've seen many advisors get started on social media marketing, only to create solely for social media—this is a mistake.

The better route is creating long-form content (blogs, videos, podcasts), and then distributing them to social media. That way you're building a consumable library AND getting your message out to the world—it saves times & makes the most sense in the long term.

Ideally, this 'library' is hosted on your own website.

Why?

Because outside of creating an easy consuming experience, it's good business:

• You get better analytics and can monitor which content is performing best
• You're in control of all call-to-actions on the page (unlike YouTube or social media), which means you can direct people to other content, free downloads, or scheduling a call
• When sharing on social media, you're always sending people back to your website URL rather than a different platform. This creates a branded experience, gets people more familiar with what you do, and helps you avoid building everything on 'rented land'
• With all of your helpful content on your website, it increases the chance of backlinks (which make a domain stronger, which helps the entire site rank better in search)

With a content library, you're also making your content binge-able. We've all fallen down a YouTube rabbit hole or watched an entire Netflix series in a weekend. Now imagine that happening to someone with your content.

Sara Dietschy was a passionate creative who decided to put videos of herself talking about cameras & photography on YouTube in 2011.

She went years posting 1-2 videos/week with minimal subscribers or viewership, until one video.. "How to vlog like Casey Neistat"

The video caught Casey's attention, he shouted it out within one of his own videos, and Sara's channel skyrocketed from 4,000 to 100,000 subscribers almost overnight.

These newly-found subscribers who had never seen her content before had an entire, multi-year content library to consume & fall in love with.

🎡 Remember: Even if you're not getting views now, you're building a foundation for the long-term. Think about real life: pilot episodes rarely get the same viewership as a finale.

To help you figure out what this could look like within your own business & brand, here are a few of the best examples of advisors currently building their own libraries:

Also read: How to write & organize blog posts

Also read: 102 blog topic ideas for financial advisors

🎡 Are you posting content, or strategically building a content library? Are you building everything on rented or owned land?

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An example of rented land

Adding to the value of a content library, here's an unfortunate update from one of my favorite advisors, Andy Krafft, stating that his Instagram account was banned & attempts to recover have failed:

🎡 Just like with investing, diversification within marketing is important