Producing Beats Consuming…it’s Proven
In our financial lives, if we spend (consume) more money than we earn (produce), we live in debt and financial bondage. In our relationships, if we take (consume) more than we give (produce), the relationship dies. With our physical condition, If we consume more calories than we burn (we’ll consider this producing) then we gain weight. In business, business owners have more income than their employees because the owners have created (produced) jobs, while the employees worked (consumed) the jobs the owner created. The same holds true in our quests to become influential online.
Too Much Consumption is Wasteful
This lesson hits home with me as I am in the phase of shifting from a content consumer to a content producer. Yes, I am guilty! It felt like a ton of bricks hit me one day as I was frantically searching for content to share after not posting any status updates, tweets, or anything for several days. I sifted through my RSS feed, read tweets, checked Facebook updates, and anything else that I thought would have content worthy of sharing. In doing so, I spent a lot of time reading content (consuming) only to not find anything I wanted to share. I won’t say how much time I spent doing that, but it was entirely too much.
Knowing Better = Doing Better
That realization of the time I wasted made me think of an image on a blog that I subscribe to, www.ProBlogService.com. The home page has the following image:
Although I’m sure meetings and other things take place, the point is that blogging (producing content) dominates this schedule! Erik Deckers the mastermind behind ProBlogService is a major social media, blogging, and branding influencer. My thoughts were if his schedule looks like that, then maybe my schedule isn’t going to bring the results I’m looking for! So the change began!
The time I devoted in the past to consuming content has been shifted to producing content like writing blog posts, creating social media marketing campaigns, and documenting ways digital media can be used to inform people about great products and services.
Do Unto Others…
I do want to clarify that producing more of my own content, does not mean that my sharing of the content I’ve consumed will decrease. Social media is a relational tool so just like the example I used earlier about taking more from a relationship than we receive, sharing only content I produce will result in my social media relationships dying. In order to grow better online relationships and become more influential we have to give more. We give more in social media by sharing the content of those we are in relationship with (friends, followers, fans, etc), more than we share our own content.
Now is the Time
So if you have been consuming more content than you produce, whether you’ve known it for some time or it hit you all of sudden like it did me. I encourage you to make the decision to shift and become more of a producer of content. Just make sure you produce quality content! Now quality content…that opens a whole new can of worms, which I’ll tackle in a future post. 🙂
How much time do you spend on a daily or weekly basis producing content? Do you think a change is needed, or is it providing the results you want?
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This post was written by Jackie Bledsoe, Jr. (@jbledsoejr). Jackie is a co-founder of @sayitinshirts, a very different Social Media Marketing company that he founded with his wife Stephana Bledsoe (@stephanabledsoe). SayitinShirts.com is a true family business, owned and operated by Jackie and Stephana, with help from their three children (all 10 years and younger). The goal of SayitinShirts.com is to create a thriving family business that creates more, not less family time, while providing valuable services to the market.
mkinchlow
Definitely food for thought!
jbledsoejr
Thx…hopefully it fills you up! 🙂
jbledsoejr
Thx…hopefully it filled you up! 🙂
Eric Wittlake
Hi Jackie,
I like the perspective you have. We need to provide value, and our consumption is only valuable to the extent it drives value creation elsewhere.
Your example of frantically looking for content to share is spot on, and a place I have found myself a few times lately as well. That said, I view this as another type of creation. When I can spend time curating content, this should be creating value as well. Reading (consuming) fuels my curation as well as my original content creation.
I would be well served to do more of both. Now, where to find the time…
— @wittlake
jbledsoejr
Agreed Eric!
The danger zone comes when the ratio of our time is spent too heavy on one or the other (preaching to myself here). Reading (consuming) a lot can fill you, and that can be a great thing if you curate and share the content from your reading. If it doesn't produce anything to be shared, then others do not get the benefit.
Thanks for sharing your insight!
Nate Guggia
Amazing insight! I love to consume content, especially when I discover concepts that excite me. Time to produce.
jbledsoejr
Thanks Nate! Use your consumption to fuel your production and you'll make it happen!
Tiffany Mc
Great post Jackie!
So simple, yet overlooked by so many of us! What I took from this article was that reminder to balance what I do, even outside of online practices!
jbledsoejr
Balance is key…and I agree our offline practices need to have balance as well. Thanks for your comment and insight Tiffany!
pittsburgh urology
Producing quality content requires not only knowledge and skill but also time. As an internet marketer, if your goal is to make quality articles, you should manage your time wisely in order to be successful.