In September, I had one of the best conference experiences of my life.The atmosphere was friendly, supportive, motivated. The talks were top quality, innovative, engaging. The delivery was trendy, slick, seamless. The event, of course, was ProBlogger Event.
Now, despite the motivation, the enthusiasm, the drive, I still heard the same thing, over and over again, from attendees.
“I need to do more. More writing, more video, more podcasting. But I just can’t fit it in…”
As that big hairy guy (or was it the one who drew him…?) tends to say: it’s a tale as old as time. And time is the issue, we never seem to have enough of it.
Perhaps that’s why a particular part of my own talk generated such a buzz: it was around an approach to doing more with less.
It’s a subject I talk about in Podcasting all the time, but it works just as well in blogging. It’s Seasons.
We’re Not Talking ‘Winter is Coming…’ Here Are We?
Nope, not the seasons of the earth, but the seasons of your show.
You’ll be familiar with the approach on TV. A season is a collection of ‘episodes’ that tells a story, or follows a theme. Hopefully, it covers a full arc from start to finish, although some shows are frustratingly bad at this (Hello Lost!). It can be any size, from a 10 episode “Game of Thrones” to a 24 episode season of… well, 24 (Jack Bauer is my hero…).
In our own backyard, this generally translates to coverage of a particular topic within your niche, or themeing a set of episodes so that they’re related.
Seasons have long been a part of Podcasting, and the concept of a blog series is not new. However, the vast majority of content creators aren’t using the format. Perhaps it’s because it’s still not familiar. Let’s fix that – what is a season in the world of online content?
What Does a Season of Content Look Like?
Here are some examples from my own content:
- Mountain Bikes Apart Season 2: Customising Your Bike
- Podcraft Season 5: How to Monetise Your Show
- UK Business Startup Season 1: The Beginner’s Guide to Starting a Business
Think of it as a course on one particular subject within your topic.
Often you’ll start with a question, eg. How do I monetise my Podcast? You’ll then break the answer down into component parts:
- Sponsorship and Advertising
- Selling a Product
- Selling a Service
- Affiliate Marketing
- Etc….
With just a little sketching out, you end up updated 2024 mobile phone number data with a season of content, based on just one question.
I’ll bet you already have a dozen commonly asked questions running through your mind right now. Think it through: how would you break down the answer? How would you cover each element, in-depth?
Once you start thinking, you’ll realise that it comes easily because you’re explaining this stuff every day.
What’s So Good About Seasons?
Ok, here’s where it gets interesting. There are a couple of obvious benefits and a good number of under-the-radar bonuses. Let’s go through them.
1. Squeeze Every Ounce of Juice out of Each Content Idea
Once upon a time, I would have taken wissen sie, wie Sie Ihr kmu vor cyberkriminalität schützen können the ‘How to Monetise a Podcast’ question and recorded an episode on it. Perhaps I would write a blog post too, or at least some shownotes. And that’s about it. Not much to show for a good content idea.
In our new ‘Seasonal’ world, I think more granular. Much more like a teacher:
- How does this break down?
- What are the elements of this answer?
- What are the (sorry about this…) Learning Outcomes here?
Each ‘episode’ should cover just eu phone number one ‘thing’, one aspect of the answer. That’s how you teach and that’s how you get people to take action. By giving them ONE thing, in-depth, and asking them to take action on it.
In breaking down your content idea, you get much more juice from that content orange. You can also create much more effective learning for your audience.
