Self-employed freelance writers are no exception.

In today’s marketplace freelance writers and the self-employed are pursuing happiness, but falling short.This is because they are failing to understand their minimal viable product (MVP).

A Freelancer’s Minimum Viable Product

Everyone has a minimum viable product to offer, but not everyone knows what it is.

• A minimum viable product is a first generation product, with upgrades to follow.
• More precisely, it is the simplest thing that you can create that gets your product or service through the build, measure, learn cycle.

This is known as validated learning, the ultimate form of learning by doing. Sounds like freelance writing, huh?

While the minimum viable product or (MVP) and build, measure, learn cycle were coined by Eric Ries in his Lean Startup Methodology for small business startups, you can also apply it to the world of freelance writing and content marketing!

Learning Through the Build, Measure, Learn Cycle

Freelance writers:

1. Build through creating content. 
2. Measure what the clients have to say about what they have written.
3. Learn how to become better writers.

By incorporating the Lean Startup methodology into your writing career, you can find the lowest risk investment with the highest reward.

• A writer’s minimum viable product is their ability to write engaging articles, product descriptions etc.
• Writers that can write about most anything are rare and special in the content writing market.

How to Use Writing as Your MVP

The phrase content is king was created with writers in mind. Many gifted writers assume that they’re going to write the next whirlwind novel. But what if I told you that writers are rewriting the world, one word at a time, and getting paid VERY well?

And at the same time the aspiring book authors are feeling like failures because their books aren’t selling, or they aren’t written yet. Freelance writers tend to have little difficulty with writers block because of the diverse topics to write about and the short writing assignments

• Freelance writers write in short bursts for most assignments. These short assignments allow for more creativity, constant change of topics, and (possibly) the end of writer’s block.
• These assignments typically range from 50 to 2000 words, which is a reasonable minimum viable product for writers.

The lean startup methodology can be useful when reaching for those unalienable rights to pursue happiness and freelancing success.

• Freshen up your talent and learn by doing!
• Discover the benefits of recognizing that words are your MVP as a freelance writer.
• Build measure and create your own freelance writing business.

The post Confessions of a Freelancer: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Success appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Whenever someone talks about marketing, they immediately think of the TV commercials that we are bombarded with each evening while trying to unwind from our day.  We need to realize that we are marketing ourselves on a daily basis without ever realizing.

What are you telegraphing?

Much like a boxer who telegraphs their punches to their opponents, we telegraph ourselves to the public long before we ever arrive on the actual scene.

• Why else would employers and law enforcement officials what to search out your Facebook page, or follow you on twitter?

Simply to determine who you really are when you aren’t wearing the mask of professionalism when you applied for that job, or to determine if you could be a possible suspect in a crime.  All of which can be determined by one glance through the social media sites.

In today’s society, we are telegraphing all about ourselves from the time that we are born.  Our baby pictures are posted all over the internet and you can always find that person who uses their social media account instead of keeping a daily dairy.  Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc…are excellent sources of personal marketing places.

• All of these social media accounts connect together to form a pictograph of you, your life, your hobbies and even your habits.

The more of these accounts that you post to on a regular basis, the more you are providing windows for others to look into your world, and your world views.

We would all do well to forget about what your mother said about having to put her face/makeup on before she could be seen in out in public.  Those days are long gone, having one face for the public, and one for behind closed doors.

• The doors of privacy have been sprung from its hinges as we are marketing ourselves and our children long before we ever realize.

 How does this apply to the Write Side of content marketing…this writer chuckles?

With all the content that is currently out on the web, with all its bits and bytes, now look at it in the context of words on a page.  See what I mean?  Words are everywhere, putting all sorts of information out for the world to see, read and listen to.  All that information had to be written by someone. Who?

• No one knows who for sure, but that doesn’t negate the fact that it is still all out there!
• If a writer can combine the REAL person behind the keys while engaging a specifically targeted audience or a wide variety, this is all that is required in becoming a writer in the content marketing world.

With each of us having distinct personalities trying to find our place in today’s rapidly changing world of technology, each are all screaming for the genuine, REAL people to connect with.

This is where freelance writing assignments and content marketing are pushing the writers of today to step out of their own desire. That desire to become famous which often hinders the best of us.  The world of content market requires that writers have two simple abilities:

• The ability to place bits and bytes of themselves into writing content that only the person who requested the article, product description, or quite possibly the NEXT great idea, and the writer who wrote it for them knows. And…
• The openness and genuineness to connect with an audience.

The Wrap Up

• We have learned that we are marketing ourselves sooner to the public than has ever been possible before.
• Social media is telegraphing your personality to the world.  If your online personality and off line personality don’t match, you lose creditability and genuineness that society is demanding.
• Engaging and genuine personalities are rewriting web content a bit and byte at a time.
• Content marketing allows for those engaging personalities to have their personalities injected through every word the write.
• Be honest, didn’t you laugh or even slightly chuckle at just one thing that I said in this article?  We connected…nice to meet you, I am glad that I made you smile.

The post The Write Side of Content Marketing appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.