I’ve blogged a fair amount about creating content, sourcing content, and creating content wells.

Much of this had to with sourcing and sharing with social media the work of others, an important part of a social media program.

In this article, I’ll discuss original content.

Original content is material that you create yourself and represents your ideas, opinions, and primary research.

The benefits of original content to you and your clients is considerable as I’ll point out.

Let’s start with “What is original content?”

Original content is your own work derived from your ideas, processes, and research.  This research can take the form of interviews, surveys, or be sourced from original data such as the Federal Census.

The mediums used to share original content can be blogs, white papers, or social media such as LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook.

The formats of original content can be text, graphics, videos, or podcasts.

Equally important is what original content is not.

Some of these may seem obvious but some of these bear repeating.

Specifically, original content is not the work of other people. (Plagiarism is such an ugly word!)

Original content is neither your earlier work nor fluff.

Finally, original content is not serious work that is not relevant to your followers no matter how good it is!

Attribution to either the work of others or your own earlier work should be kept to a minimum and avoided altogether ideally.

Yes, I know, I’m defining original content as fresh, unique material that represents the very best of your thoughts and efforts in your area of subject matter expertise.

After all, isn’t this what your clients expect from you?  (I know mine do from me!)

There are significant benefits to creating your own original content.

First, it sets you apart from your competitors.

And, can justify a price differential with them that’s in your favor.

Next, it demonstrates that you are relevant to the needs and issues of your clients.

There’s nothing like telling a potential client about a problem they have before they’re even aware of it themselves.

Then original content shows the value that you can add to clients before you even start your sales pitch.

Original content is a good, necessary, and important part of any social media program.

As a rule of thumb for the frequency of shared and original content, 4 to 1 seems to be the norm from what I’ve observed and others quote as their frequency.

(For those not good at ratios, this means that 80% of your content is shared from others and 205 is your own original work.  Shared content is still very important.)

Original content should be spread across your editorial calendar and not just lumped into one annual mega-post.  (Yes, some try to do this!)

Consistency in tone and style is important with your original content.

All that’s left then is to just do it!

(Oh, and don’t forget to reshare it!)

That’s it for now!

In the meantime, thank you for following and reading my blog!

I look forward to any and all comments that you may have.  I will reply to any comments made to this blog post as promptly as I can.

Remember!

I do this for a living and if I can be of any assistance to either you or your organization, please feel free to call on me.  Our initial discussion will be of no charge to you.

I can also be reached at conpsweeney@someddi.com.

My Twitter handle is @conpsweeney.

Stay well!