ContentPreneuring: Building Your Business By Sharing What You Know

I’ve always been a “content” guy.  Focused on teaching, training, or somehow showing people how to do something that they’d like to be able to add to their list of skills.  Over the years that’s covered a lot of turf — photography, business, education, the Internets, video, Shiva Nata Yoga (just kidding, Havi) — but it’s always involved talking to someone who really knew the nuts and bolts and then arranging some kind of order out of it all.

The fancy name was “Instructional Designer” — that’s what got me lots of money at Microsoft — and meant that I listened to technical types with big brains go on and on about their software and all the bells and whistles.  Then I’d whittle it all down to what the software actually did that the users would care about.

In the last few years, I’ve been working with small businesses who are becoming “content” people.  But in a very different way.  They’re using what they know to build a brand for themselves, identify potential customers, and move them into the “raving fans for live” category.

This couldn’t have been done five years ago.  But the advent of blogs, the use of Twitter, the availability of YouTube and Facebook and all the other types of Social Media have made it possible for very small businesses to share out what they know for free as a way to connect with their audience.

And this has become a powerful method to build a thriving business.

I’m exploring that idea by interviewing some of the people who have already succeeded as ContentPreneurs* in the marketplace, and will be posting a series of interviews over the next few weeks.  They have wildly different approaches to business, different products and services they offer, and are in agreement in only one thing — that there are no rules right now.

My goal?  I’d like to be able to develop ways that I can offer help to small businesses who want to implement some of this magic — initially in a book, then maybe some workshops or online classes, and eventually virtual communities — so that nobody ever gives money to anyone who has a business card that says “Social Media Guru” on it ever again.

Yeah, I tend to start small.

*I came up with “ContentPreneur” on my own a few months back, and registered the domain.  I did discover one previous existence on Google — but since “google” actually existed before Larry and Serge registered that domain, I think I’m on solid ground.