Content Expansion

Content Expansion

I have been blogging since early 2005. I started originally by writing about art work. Boring! Then I spent a huge part of the next decade writing about medicine. Definitely more interesting, but I still felt something was missing. With DiverseFI, I have branched out to cover the philosophy of personal finance. While writing has fulfilled many purposes, the last year has brought a few changes. I am experiencing a rapid growth of content expansion.

I am not only limiting myself to blogs anymore, but also experimenting with new ways of creating and advancing the conversation.

And it feels good.

The What’s Up Next Podcast

If you asked me a year ago, I had no idea that I would become a podcaster. Although I certainly enjoy hearing myself talk, it never occured to me to create content in such away. It’s not that I didn’t see myself as having a place in the conversation, it was that the technical aspects seemed daunting.

Even though I had a voice that yearned to speak out loud, I didn’t have the will to learn all the requisite skills involved in such endeavors. Enter destiny.

A trip to CampFI and some urging of close friends provided me not only the courage, but the perfect partner to get this venture going. Paul was the yin to my yang. He had all the technical know how, and the can do attitude. Between his skills and my drive, it was no time before we had our first episode.

The rest is history. It was an incredibly natural form of content expansion.

Facebook Group

I am not a big fan of all things social media. I have never used them in my personal life, and struggle to keep up with my personal finance Twitter and Facebook feeds. It has never come natural to me. It was not the form of content expansion that I was looking for.

Yet, with the advent of facebook groups, I have seen that many people enjoy having a closed private forum to discuss daily news and other overarching topics that effect our community.

As a companion to the podcast, Paul and started The What’s Up Next Facebook Group a number of months ago. In the last few weeks I have been posting more discussion topics.

The engagement is amazing. I am quickly seeing that folks are passionate about debating financial independence issues. Often all I have to do is post an interesting question and watch the comments and discussion take off.

It is really refreshing.

Video

The final frontier. I knew that with the advent of Facebook Live, Instagram Live, and You Tube, that the audience would be craving video content. The more live the better.

At some point, Paul and I realized that our show wrap up discussions at the end of each episode were mostly off the cuff. These were spontaneous discussion at the spur of the movement. Why not do them live instead of prerecording?

The result has been our Friday Facebook Lives that discuss the week’s episode as well as give a sneak peak to future recordings. They have been a lot of fun, and our viewership is growing steadily.

Final Thoughts

Content expansion is evolutionary. As my message evolves, so does the manner in which I convey it. I would like to invite all my readers to listen to The What’s Up Next Podcast, Join the Facebook Group, and catch our Facebook Lives on most Fridays at noon central standard time.

Can’t wait to see you guys there!