CREATING VISUAL CONTENT AHEAD OF TIME

Once upon a time, I was a serial blogger. I had a blog on Blogger when I was in high school, and my posts had no limit. I would blog about everything, everyone, to a point where people knew more about my life without me verbally mentioning it to them. This was in 2010. As we all know, technology has changed rapidly in the past six years, and so has media. Let’s face it, we were still at pressing the number 7 button on our phones four times to type the letter ‘s’. We had no wifi, and definitely not the best camera on the phone. I struggled, and I hated it.

In terms of content, blogging six years ago was very different from today. Nobody back then had a 8 megapixel camera on their phones. Their best bet was was a DSLR, which by the way, is shit expensive. I was fortunate to own one back then, but I don’t think the 17 year old me cared much for creating original media content. It was all about finding images on Google and using them. Thinking back, I remember my blog looking terrible, but I was shamelessly proud of it back then. 2010’s social media scene was very different from today. For staters, Snapchat didn’t exist, Instagram had just launched, Twitter was more or less about unleashing emotions and feelings to the world, and Facebook was about how many friends you had, the constant profile picture changes. Today, everything is different. In this generation of smartphones and 8 megapixel cameras on them, it has become extremely easy for people to click pictures and post them on social media. I mean, have you seen some of the Instagram content out there? It’s fantastic!

Which means you as a blogger need to up your game (not saying you suck right now), and put out amazing media content out there. So, how can you do this? Plan ahead of time. It sucks to write a great piece on something and then scramble around for visuals. Here’s what I do, pick an hour or two, and shoot a ton of flatlays. Take it from me, and many bloggers out there, flatlays are the best kind of visual content you can produce in a matter of minutes. And you can never be wrong about them. Although it takes a while to master the art of flatlay (trust me, I’m still learning), it’s worth it. Flatlays are the in thing right now, so take advantage of this visual trend. Shoot a ton of different flatlays; fashion, cameras, plants, whatever you think you’d ever write about. This way, when you’ve written a fantastic piece on plants, for example, you’ll have your visuals ready. From my experience, I find planning for visual content and taking the time out to execute content really helpful. I don’t think one should ever look for something to shoot; for example, taking a casual walk in the city and capturing something intriguing, and saving it for a better day to post, is often the best way. Unless you want to post it immediately because ‘it’s in the moment’, then that’s totally up to you.

As a Community Manager, and a blogger I’ve learned that creating content ahead of time makes life so much easier. You could either work on an excel sheet or in a journal, where you roughly decide what you’d like to write about. Next step is to take few hours or a day to shoot for the visuals, including all the editing. This is the best way you can save ample lots of your time, and actually make the content on your blog look great. Hurried work looks shabby, and quite frankly shows the lack of your time management skills. Remember that in this age of Snapchat and Instagram, visual content is King. 99% of your audience’s attention is based on how many visuals you have and how attractive those visuals are. Visit all the blogs and Instagram accounts you’re obsessed with, and take a close look at what kind of content is being used, and try estimate how long that must have taken to put together. Take a few hours out of your day, and try creating some content for your blog. I’m sure you’ll be thankful to yourself later that you got everything sorted ahead of time.

If you have any more pointers, shout in the comments section below.

For more, visit: www.mappingthemindful.co.za, or come say hi on Instagram: @salokya