Introducing “Groom to Bloom” Content Creation
Plant seeds, nourish, and watch your content flourish
The content you create can be used to advance your business or against it – depending on the amount of effort you put into it.
When the intention of your brand is clear and not clouded by doubts, content creation will be easy for you.
Chaotic and unclear intentions result in “forced” content creation and leads to disconnected and un-motivating words.
Having set goals, a specific audience, a cohesive team, and a repeatable process will bring order to your content creation process and will encourage a natural flow of ideas. A team is like an intelligent network producing and sharing thoughts.
For a content piece to be persuasive, the minds of the creators need to be in harmony with each other.
In recent months, I have forged a partnership with many skilled writers who are in sync with my vision and process for content creation. We’ve developed a method that always delivers. We call it the “Groom and Bloom” process.
PLANTING THE SEED
Selecting a writing partner/team
- Source – Find someone who is easy to talk to and may even complete your sentences. This can be through your network or, you can use a service like Fiverr, Upwork or one of the many freelance marketplaces available.
- Try –Ask this person to craft a passage on an example topic. Watch the way this person interacts. Does the author complete it on deadline? If you ask for edits, how do they react? Are they petty? Engaged? Do you feel like a number or a valued partner?
- Buy– If the passage feels right, then you are onto something- it’s time to invest in your partner and the process. If the content doesn’t feel right, then start again – find someone else. It is not personal.
GROOMING YOUR WRITING PARTNER
Partnerships require nourishment and care
- Edit – If you see potential in your content partner, edit your piece using track changes.
- Meet – Arrange a meeting to discuss what you changed and why. Put everything on the table about what you liked, didn’t what decisions you made to refine the original draft.
- Iterate –Ask your partner to iterate based on your feedback.
- Establish editorial guidelines and briefing process – Document what worked, what didn’t and the tone of voice you are looking to create in shared editorial guidelines document that you will iterate over time.
- Establish a content briefing format that allows you to share the essential information ideas for articles as you are inspired.
BLOOMING TOGETHER
An ongoing iterative content creation process
- Brief – This passage you are reading now went through this process. It was my idea to write a passage on content creation and collaboration with a trusted partner. I shared it with my content creation partner, Harshit Bhatia, Founder of Content Vista, with some bullets using our established briefing format.
- Brainstorm – Discuss to enhance and enrich the idea and understand the possible connotations it holds concerning the brand it is created for. In this case, I called my trusted partner, Harshit, and we discussed how we work together and what about it would be relevant to you, my audience. This process creates pride in ownership for the the author and the entire team.
- Write- In this case, Harshit has a team of writers who know my brand and reliably delivers.
- Review and Refine – If you are happy with 75% of the content, this is a good thing. You can then edit and add more context and personal flavor or something that may have been lost in translation. In this case The idea of Groom and Bloom was shared by Harshit’s team. The original passage Harshit shared was originally in paragraph form. I decided to blow out the idea of “Groom and Bloom” as the title of the article and to brand this process, and then created easy to digest lists (using bullets) and associated imagery.
- Publish – Don’t forget to share it with your partner and there is no shame in giving credit to your partners who helped make your content into reality.
Over time, this collaboration has made me realize the limitlessness of creativity and innovation when minds are shared. We take up an idea, explore it, sharpen its edges, and smoothen its corners. My team writes and delivers my views in the form of words. And all the while, we forget who does what as we immerse ourselves in a common objective – groom to bloom. We groom a content piece until it becomes capable of conveying our intentions vividly.
When many brains are at sync with creating ideas, then the quantity and quality of content automatically take off.
