Can you really make it big online these days? Can content creation really replace your full time income? Follow along in real time as I explore what the experts are saying about full time content creation and put the best advice to the test. (By the way.. if you are more of an auditory learner, feel free to scroll to the bottom of the page to see the YouTube video I posted on this same topic!)
The Plan
How am I going to to do this and what are the steps? Also, why should you trust my advice?
Well first of all, I’m posting this video now so that you can watch my growth in real time. If you’re seeing this video as it comes out then it might not mean a whole lot. However, if you see it a few months after it’s posted you can definitely see the progress that has been made to make your own decisions on if this is a strategy that really works or not.
So, why do I feel like I should be making this video considering I’m really just starting?
Well..
This isn’t my first attempt. However, it is my most calculated attempt. I feel very confident that all of my failures before this as well as all the research I have been doing not only over the past few years but specifically the research I have been doing the last few months have lead me to this. Something that I really like to remind myself of as well as just a very important life lesson that I think everyone should know, is the fact that every failure brings you that much closer to success. Each time you fail, as long as you actually look at what went wrong, you can really take the lessons from each failure and figure it out better and better each time.
Now, this is not at all a get rich quick scheme. I am not expecting to actually make money off of any of this for at minimum 6 months. Ontop of that, I’m not expecting it to be able to replace my full time income for at least a year, maybe a year and a half. But with all of that being said, my end goal for this plan is to essentially be self sufficient. I want to live van life with my cats, as well as have my own online business. I’ll get more into my business model later.
To start out, let’s talk about where I’m starting in all of this.
I am very lucky to already have a YouTube channel with around 900 subscribers because I have used this channel on and off for 10 years. Most of the subscribers will not be active, however it is a great jumping off point especially in terms of getting monetized faster. But YouTube is only a part of the puzzle. So..
The Puzzle Pieces
What are the puzzle pieces to success in this plan?
Branding
YouTube (longform content)
Blogging
Email marketing
Pinterest
Services
Shortform content (YT shorts & tiktok)Patreon
Let’s go over each of these and why they all work so well together.
Blogging
First I’m going to talk about Blogging.
Blogging for me is pretty much not only to be able to write because I just really like writing, but it is also a key aspect to my plan of being able to make money online to eventually replace my full time income. My blog will have pretty much the same content of my YouTube channel. I will make 2 blog posts a week. One of those blog posts will be directly associated with a YouTube video. This is because for SEO blog posts with videos are more likely to get clicks. Ontop of this, blogging allows me to build a reputation as well as a library for anyone to go look back on and learn from. So, that leads me into the next puzzle piece,
This one might catch some people off guard, but hear me out.
Pinterest is the ONLY social media platform that is literally created to redirect users to another website. Why is that so important? Because in order to make money with a blog, you need traffic to that blog. The more clicks you get on your blog a month, the more money you are capable of making.
For each blog post I will make a pin graphic like the one above to promote the blog post. I will also do this for each YouTube video.
YouTube
So not only will my YouTube videos allow me to use SEO for my blog posts much better, but YouTube is a search engine just like Google! People come here for one of 2 reasons; to learn how to fix a problem, or for entertainment. For now, I will be focusing more on educational content, as well as focusing more on quantity over quality, again just to build up a back log.
At first, I will be posting one long form YouTube video a week every Saturday. Like I said before, each of these Youtube videos will be attached to a blog post (yes, even this one! Go check it out) Once I have a few months of weekly longform content videos uploaded (and once I have more of an active audience) I am going to switch over to focusing more on quality over quantity. At that point, I will start mixing more entertainment into the educational content. I would love to make videos like Natlie Lynn, Logan Malatak, and LifeOfRiza. I just really like the creativity that they put into their editing and am definitely going to be referring to those 3 channels for inspiration in editing.
Services
Honestly I’m mainly offering services to expedite my growth and ability to make money. I have a few services that I am planning on including, but figuring out how to combine everything into my niche which is Horticultural Spirituality can be somewhat difficult. However, as of right now this is what I have come up with for services:
- Designing and selling seasonal planters
- Tarot readings
- Spiritual life coaching
- houseplant/garden coaching
I’m honestly not sure if that is like too many things to offer and have on my plate, but honestly only one way to find out.
Short Form Content (YT Shorts & TikTok)
Originally, I wasn’t planning on posting short form content until I had been posting regularly on YouTube and blogging for at least a month, but I realize how backwards that is. So, I will instead be posting 4-5x a week on YouTube shorts starting a week before I start posting long form content and blog posts. The reason for originally not posting short form content at first was so that I could build up a short form content library. However, short form content not only is better for marketing and SEO, but it’s also super easy to make.
If I am posting 4 shorts a week, 2 of those shorts could be cut from the long form video I posted the week before, 1 can be cut from the longform video I’ll be posting next, and the other one can be a one-off short that either comes from my camera roll and relates to the things I’m posting, or will come from intentionally recording some shots to use for shorts.
Short form content is such an important piece of the puzzle. This is because of where everyone’s attention spans are at the moment. Short form content can be kind of annoying because it can be difficult to keep up with posting 4-5 short form videos a week ONTOP of 2 blog posts and one long form youtube video a week. It’s just,, a lot. Which is why I’m not even going to start really thinking about it more than this until I have been doing all the other parts consistently for at least a month.
Patreon
I honestly don’t have a whole lot to contribute to patreon, but hear me out.
The subscription will be $1/mo. All of my unedited long form content will be there. So it will not only be a way of making a bit of money if people want to support me, but it will also act as a media library for all of my video content. This will save me a lot of storage on my computer.
Email Marketing
I know email marketing is extremely important and the main reason being that your emailing list is the only thing that you fully own. Your social media could be shut down at any time. Your website hosting platform can go away whenever. But no one can take the list of contacts that you have.
Using email marketing is so much more personable than things like Facebook and Instagram ads. It is going directly into the inbox of your customers rather than out into the internet with the hopes that the right people will see it. Sure people have to sign up for your email marketing list, but once they’ve signed up they will continue to receive your marketing directly to their inbox unless they unsubscribe.
I’ll be honest, email marketing has been the most difficult for me to figure out. I know I need to make at least one freebie, post that and say hey if you sign up for my emailing list you get this free digital download, and then from there start sending people promotional emails once they are signed up for the emailing list. However, I just can’t really figure out how to get started with collecting the emails and making the funnel.
Basically, you will need a landing page that people will be brought to when they click on the freebie. On this landing page they will put in their email address. Once they put the email address in, they will receive an email with whatever the freebie said they would be getting. They are now on your emailing list. After they receive this email, you should have a welcome email automatically set up to be delivered to their inbox after they get the freebie. This welcome email should include a brief introduction to you and your content.
From here, you will start to send out weekly promotional emails to your emailing list. But, make sure that your emails are providing more than just promotion. For example, say you posted a new YouTube video. Don’t just email them to let them know that you posted a video and they should watch it, you should be letting them know what they could gain from this video, and then mention that the new video is out and you can gain these things now through this link.
Timeline
Before I post my first YouTube video, the goal is to have an ENTIRE month of content ready and scheduled. That includes YouTube videos, blog posts and all the back end things that go with that. I will be going over my scheduling for this and how I am laying it all out for myself on this video, and ontop of that down in the description you will find 2 options of templates to take for yourself. There is the free option of what I basically started with and those are just digital downloads and printable pages that have things sectioned off. Or the other option is the paid option of buying my notion templates for organizing these things. The notion templates go much more in depth and are a lot more helpful if you want to plan every single detail in one place. But I did want to have a free option as well for people who would rather use pen and paper. All you have to do is download and print.
Month 1:
This is month 1 of starting at all. Like, setting everything up not posting anything yet. Month 1 is honestly probably the hardest part and most daunting. This is where everything gets set up. The things that need to be completed are..
- Figure out branding. (logo, name, niche specifically, 4 pillars of content)
*If you don’t have this done already or have at least an idea, this part itself should take a month or 2 on its own. But i had spent the last 2 months doing this part as well as creating digital products so I did have a jumping off point. If you are just creating the name, logo, colors, etc.
- Research a lot! The things you should be researching are..
- Seo
- Website hosting
- YouTube thumbnail editing hacks
- Video editing / video editing software
- Youtube video filming tips
- Blogging tips (writing/formatting)
- Canva editing tips
- A website where you can post your blog posts, have an information page, as well as a services page. It would be nice if you could sell digital products on the same website, I haven’t really figured it out yet but that’s what this entire month is for, figuring it out.
- Create a freebie/multiple freebies to use for marketing funnels
- Set up email marketing
- Write blog posts (at least 8 usable)
- Film YouTube videos (at least 4 usable)
- Set up YouTube channel
- Set up pinterest account
- Create (or find) a YouTube description template
- Create (or find) email marketing templates
- Set up patreon
*a great tip I have for time management is using your blog post as somewhat of a script for your youtube videos. This will save you so much time.
I did spend money on things for it this month. So far the expenses have been..
- Canva: $30 (one month) -not necessary ! but i do recommend it.
- Bluehost (self hosting website): $35 (for one year)
- Notion AI: $10 (one month) – probably canceling, just wanted to try it. – also not necessary!
- Phone tripod: $20 (not necessary, but helpful)
Some things that I will be getting whenever I can afford it are,
- A better camera (I’ll be budgeting $400 for this. That $400 will include EVERYTHING for the camera)
- The .com domaine instead of the .sites domaine. The .com is a one time purchase of $600 vs the .sites being $35/yr. So, eventually I will get that domaine just not right now.
- An external harddrive for my written and video content
Month 2:
This month is tying it all up pretty much.
- Edit your youtube videos
- Edit thumbnails for each video
- Do the seo research for each video
- Schedule your YouTube video uploads
- Schedule your blog posts
- Start promoting your freebies to get people on your mailing list
- Continue writing blog posts
- Film at least 4 more YouTube videos. You should always have 3 unedited videos ready to edit when you start to edit one. There should always be at least 3 in the que to be edited, and the goal is to also always have 3 in the que to be uploaded/already scheduled for the best balance.
- Create your pinterest graphics for each blog post and each youtube video (same rule as the videos, have 3 in the que at least)
- Write pinterest descriptions
- Start posting all the unedited longform content on the patreon
- Schedule pinterest posts
- Pre-write some emails for marketing
Month 3:
Continuing like the last month, but adding some MORE since things should be leveling out a bit.
- Continue filming, editing and scheduling youtube videos
- Continue writing and scheduling blog posts
- Continue posting all unedited on patreon
- Continue making and scheduling pinterest posts
- Do research on the best ways to cut videos into shortform content
- Bulk make at least 30 shortform videos
- Start scheduling the shortform videos for next month
- Continue doing SEO research
- Throw in the services. This is where you will fully in depth plan out the service(s) aspect of this plan. You should have been brainstorming for this a bit the last 2 months. Now is when you throw it all together.
- Add the service tab to your website. Dont start advertising it yet.
Month 4:
It’s all about consistency.. From here on out pretty much is very similar.
- Continue filming, editing and scheduling youtube videos
- Continue writing and scheduling blog posts
- Continue posting all unedited content on patreon
- Continue making and scheduling pinterest posts
- Continue making shortform content out of the longform content and scheduling that for upload
- Start to throw in making some shortform content that does not come directly from the long from videos but is still related
- Work on building up the services aspect more (buy supplies if needed, make flyers to print out and post around if the thing you’re doing is local)
Month 5:
Again, it’s all about consistency. You probably get the point by now. From here on out it’s pretty much just the same as last month. Just fine tune everything and look at your results. Figure out whats working and what isnt working, make changes to whats not working. Remember, at least for blogging, you will not start getting consistent clicks until you’ve been consistently posting for 3 months. YouTube and pinterest aren’t like that and are focused more on algorithms so that’s why it’s important to do all of them together.
Now, let’s talk about how I’m doing this while working a full time job?
It’s a lot of hard work and dedication honestly. I work on it every single day between 2 and 8 hours a day. I do have days where I feel burnt out and like i can’t do quality work so I will let myself rest those days. But for the most part I have been doing at least 2 hours of work a day on this. That’s not even including the research part because I do a lot of research just by listening to YouTube videos while I’m working.
How do I find the time for it all?
Sacrifice. Self discipline. Hyperfocus.
I treat this as a second job. I don’t go hangout with friends after work ever and I hardly will on weekends. I write on lunch breaks. I’ve pretty much just taken a break from all other hobbies to focus on this for the time being. My hope is that if I am able to put all this work in in the beginning that it will be smooth sailing from there. If all I had to do was the content creation and scheduling part, it wouldn’t be too bad, especially when I keep up with having 3 videos that need to be edited for every 1 video in process and 3 videos scheduled for/ready for upload. If I can keep up with that, everything will be pretty easy to keep up with. But figuring it all out in the beginning takes a lot of time and energy.
Honestly, at first I didn’t really break things down by like figuring out the back end things. I just kind of chipped away at it all randomly (ADHD moment) until it was all figured out. Once things are all figured out on the back end (website/blog created, pinterest created and set up, youtube created and set up, patreon set up) then it’s a lot easier (for me at least) to be able to focus on things separately. So, once all the back end things are done, here is my schedule..
- Spend one full day on a blog post. This includes writing the post, adding pictures, creating any amazon affiliate lists than you need, watermarking photos if needed, etc. (tip, either use the blog post as your youtube script, or use the youtube script as an outline for the blog post)
- Spend one full day filming content (let me be clear, by “full days” i mean between 2-8 hours. If you have less time than 2 hours in a day to work on things sometimes that’s ok!) – if your full day for filming day is a longer day, you can switch over to SEO research and thumbnail editing for the rest of the day
- Spend at least one full day editing longform content
- Spend a day bulk creating pinterest posts
- Spend a day bulk creating emails
- Spend a day scheduling things to go up (blog posts, youtube videos, pinterest posts, patreon videos)
The reason I suggest spending a full day on each thing specifically is because of hyper focus and really being able to get into something. You will most likely make a much better blog post if that is the only thing you are focusing your creative energy on that day rather than if you spent that day writing the post, creating the pinterest graphic, filming the youtube video thats going with it and scheduling it all in one day. I mean, you could do that, but realistically it probably wont go well and something may get left out.
I follow this schedule, mostly. While I am for example in the middle of writing a blog post, I might remember a random thing that I need to have done before this like for example if the post I’m writing is supposed to go up in about 3 weeks, but I remember that I still not have a Pinterest post made for a blog post that’s going up a week before that, I will go back and make the Pinterest post for the other post real quick. It really just depends where my hyper focus takes me at that time.
Would you rather watch a video than read a post? No worries! Here is the YouTube video version of this post. I hope you enjoy! Please consider subscribing!
I’m Daniel, a professional horticulturist and the creator of danplant. This blog aims to educate people about a variety of things from nature to spirituality (and sometimes content creation and small business stuff as well). Think of it as a blog for the person who loves the crunchy lifestyle, and is especially fascinated with the planty side of things! With a heavy focus on plant ID and information for both houseplants and wild plants, you can find it all here!
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