The Content Flywheel.

Nathan first showed us the mechanics of this well he came across, with a traditional pump you push down and pull up, to make a direct input of energy, which creates a clear return of output. & although that motion was easy to do, it just meant that as long as you were not constantly pushing and pulling , no water would come out. 

He then explained the flywheel, where in a circular format, it’s a wheel, that might be harder to start rolling, it requires a lot more effort and strength at the start. But once you do get momentum, the energy then makes the wheel go and it get’s easier over time. 

This difference if we apply the same concept to our strategies and our content - shows that whatever we work on in content should be working to put energy into the next area of our business. And the key part - which differentiates from a triangular funnel: is closing the loop. 

Closing the loop, is the 1 key factor of a successful flywheel and often the hardest element to figure out in a business. The 2nd is that each flywheel has 1 goal/metric, and should not have multiple. 

I’ve talked about funnels often here, because I always believed whatever you do for Awareness, top of funnel needs to connect to the end goal of conversion, But in a flywheel the most important piece is how after they become a client, or customer does that then create more input for the 1st step of attraction. 

So let me share an example. Let’s start simple w a TOF metric: 

For a Flywheel that has the goal of increasing its YouTube subscribers. 

1. You create engaging youtube subscribers and post

2. You repost this video to your blog with SEO enabled to try drive more views from Search, 

3. You reshare this by creating snippets of your video onto other social media channels, where you get them to subscribe. 

These 3 steps all contribute to one goal and feed each other. 

For a Conversion based goal - let’s say you’d like to have more clients work with you. 

1. You start with value based social media posts. You raise awareness and reach, gather more views and engagement to the business. This feeds into your next step, 

2. Hold a free workshop you want people to attend to discover your knowledge and how you can serve them. 

3. a % of those attendees will become clients 

4. They key is how do these clients then go back to step 1 with your social posts? You get 5 pieces of content, testimonial, an insight into how you worked together to reshare on social. 

I think this flywheel concept is so simple yet fundamental in the need of clarity. It also allows you to focus on one goal or metric at a time without getting too lost. 

The closing the loop part also is the main elements that we tend to leave last or, not do at all. Many personal brands and businesses do a great job a the first few steps, have planned social, ongoing content, but then it leads to no where. It doesn’t convert OR we get super distracted and start a new thing that doesn’t connect to this flywheel at all but we expect it to. 

Like when I used to support people in Ads and had PR features in Yahoo Finance but then my current clients are creators. There’s a break in who your audience was or who you were attracting and then you haven’t provided a clear solution to how you can actually help them. 

It’s something I started to apply to my business, and I’m really proud of my Content Flywheel - I’ve honed in focus on building out my subscribers so I can directly communicate & I’m working on this writing challenge. 

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