#522: How to create an effective content ecosystem - Tash Corbin, Heart-Centred Business Podcast

Full article and show notes available at: tashcorbin.com/522

Welcome back to our regular programming here on the Heart-Centred Business Podcast! We just finished the 12 Days of #Tashmas, and I hope those episodes sparked some insights or inspiration for you! I know a bunch of you are still catching up (it was a lot, right?)—but hey, you know I love yapping and creating heaps of content. If a daily podcast ever made sense as a business strategy, I’d be right there doing it. But for now, we’re back to our weekly episodes. Today, I want to dive into your content ecosystem—how to actually make it effective.

If you haven’t checked out episode Day 12 of #Tashmas (tashcorbin.com/521), pop back and do that first, since this episode really flows straight from there. If you’re all caught up, let’s dive in—because nailing your content ecosystem is what makes the difference between long-term business momentum and feeling like you’re constantly stopping and starting.

Content Has Changed... But the Fundamentals Haven’t

Hand on heart, I wish I’d nailed my content ecosystem way earlier in my business journey. So many of my tips here are basically lessons I’ve learned the hard way: let me be your cautionary tale!

We’re talking about getting consistent and effective with your content as a business owner—so you actually grow your audience, generate leads, and make sales. Content goes through all sorts of trends and fads, but the core principles have stuck around since I started my business back in 2013. Your goals for content haven’t changed—what has changed is the HOW, and the options you’ve got to get your message out.

...read the full article at: tashcorbin.com/522

Email support@tashcorbin.com to discuss how I might be able to support you and your business growth. 

Transcript

2:36

Beautiful people, we are back with regular programming of the Heart-Centered Business Podcast. We have just finished the 12 Days of Tashmus, #BirthdayTashmus, and I hope that you found those 12 episodes over 12 days to be helpful, to be practical and inspiring, and to ignite something in you or an insight. I know some people have said they've still got some catching up to do. It is a lot to have 12 episodes come out over 12 days, but you know that I am a yapper and I am a prolific content creator. I would do a daily podcast episode if it was a smart use of my time and a good business strategy, but it's not. So we're back to weekly episodes, and in this one we're going to be talking about your content ecosystem and in particular how to create an effective content ecosystem. However, this episode really does lead on from the last one. So if you haven't yet listened to episode number 521 of the podcast, which was day 12 of Tashmas, I would recommend you do that first and then listen to this one. So if you want to pause now and head back and do that, absolutely fine. If you're all up to date, let's dive into this one because I really do think an effective content content ecosystem is what makes the difference between the long-term growth and momentum of your business and feeling like you're constantly stopping and starting. This is episode number 522, which means you can find all the relevant links and the show notes for today's episode over at tashcorbin.com/522. Let's dive in and get your content ecosystem far more effective. Hello, I'm Tash Corbin, a business strategist and mentor based on the Sunshine Coast in Australia. The mission of this podcast is to help heart-centered entrepreneurs to make more money and in doing so, change the world for the better. This podcast was recorded on the lands of the Gabigabi and Jinabara people. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. Hand on heart, I wish that I had nailed this far earlier in my business journey. And as with quite a lot of the stories and tips that I share on this podcast, it's another case of I make mistakes so that you don't have to. Please use me as your cautionary tale. And what we are talking about here is nailing the consistent and effective content that you are producing as a business owner in order to grow your audience, generate leads, and make sales. And I really feel like content has had so many fads and trends over the years, but in essence, the principles have remained largely the same, especially since I started my business, which was in 2013. So the principles have remained largely the same. The goals that you want your content to achieve have remained largely the same. It's just that some of the finer details of how and the options available to us have expanded and changed. So the first thing I wanna say is that the best time to start a blog and to start creating consistent content as a business owner was probably 2002, right? It was a long time ago, but as always, the second best time is today. So the earlier that you get your content ecosystem nailed, and you start producing and sharing content consistently, the better, because you never know who is consuming your content, but also you never know when people are consuming your content. I can share this from experience because I just had someone comment on a post from my Facebook page from like 6 months ago, and they must have been scrolling back through some of my old social posts, and they've made a comment on something from 6 months ago. Maybe that it came up in a search on social media. Maybe, you know, they'd saved it to come back to and listen to later. But you never know when someone might be consuming your content. The best way to finesse your content in the long term and get it improved and get it doing a good job of resonating with your audience and getting them moving closer to buying from you or getting them to actually make a purchase is to create it and share it. So in order for it to do a great job, content needs to exist and it needs to be shared. In the last podcast, I talked about how so many people are convinced their messaging needs to be completely overhauled. They end up in this stop stop-start, stop-start pattern with content creation, and they can feel like they're consistently just starting over. But if we want to improve the effectiveness of your content, we need to see this as an incremental upgrade, and we need to be producing content. You need to be creating. So There is a story that I've shared a couple of times on this podcast previously, which comes from a pottery class that had the class divided in half. One half were told that at the end of the semester, they would submit their best piece of pottery and they would be graded on the quality of that piece. And the other half of the class were told they would submit every piece they'd created and they would be marked based on the quantity of pottery that they had produced during the semester., and in that class, the people who produced the best quality pieces were not the half of the class who were told they were gonna be marked on quality. It was the half of the class that were told they were gonna be marked on quantity. When it comes to creating, when it comes to refining, quantity of work quantity of practice, embracing imperfection, and not getting caught up in trying to create the one perfect piece of content is the lesson we can take from that story. It is the same with content creation as it is with pottery. The only way that you are going to consistently improve your content's effectiveness is to keep creating and to create consistently. It is a quantity issue. And I was recently having some conversations with students in the Take Off program, and that was one of the conversations that we were having, was that in the Take Off program, I recommend that students aim to create and share a piece of social content daily. Now we don't create it every single day. We create it in batches. So, um, creating content so that you can share one piece of social content daily, one piece of feature content weekly. So that would be a longer form blog. It would be, um, a podcast episode or a YouTube video. So something that's a little longer form, like 10 minutes plus kind of thing if it's video or audio, 500 words plus if it's written content, and 1 webinar per month. And the conversation we were having inside Takeoff was that the reason for this goal and aiming to get to that as soon as possible is not because of what that content will achieve in terms of business results, especially in the short term. It's not like you start a blog, you share a blog a week for 4 weeks, and all of a sudden you've got clients banging down your door. That is not the job that it's there to do. But in getting to that step and getting to that level of content production, what we are doing is actually almost forcing you to work out what it is that you wanna say. We're almost forcing you to have something worthy of sharing. And we're digging in the recesses of your brain to look at the work that you do from multiple angles to assess and analyze why people would want to engage with you, would want to follow you, might see your work as different to the work of others. And that is a very powerful thing to get into the practice of creating. So I think that there's another layer to this pottery story, and the extra layer for us when it comes to content creation is that it would be the equivalent of aiming to create quantity of pottery and getting really helpful and insightful feedback from your very warmest audience, your most likely buyers, every time you produce a piece of pottery. So imagine now you're on this train of, okay, I'm going to produce as much pottery as I can because that's what I'm being graded on, is the quantity of pottery that I am producing. And I can only put my pottery in front of potential buyers once a week. And when I do, they tell me, oh, I'd love that, but can I have it in pink? Or, oh, I really like that one, but what is the of this piece, this, this handle. I'd rather it without. Or, hey, I can see that this is a really beautiful piece of pottery, but I need it to be bigger, right? And that is the equivalent of sharing your content, because by sharing your content, it allows your audience to ask questions. They are having the opportunity to consume it. You are sharing that content with your audience, and you can see the data. Of how many people actually read it, how many people are enjoying this, how many people are engaging with this. So it's not just producing a heap of content and then at the end of the year being rewarded with a good grade. It's actually getting real-time feedback from your audience about what resonates with them, what questions they have, whether this actually moves them closer to building a relationship with you, whether this moves them closer to being a lead and buying from you. You've got that amazing real-time feedback. And one of the reasons why people cite to me that they really struggle with producing content and creating an effective content ecosystem is that when they do produce content, they get no feedback. But that is feedback in itself, even if it is that no one's reading it, no one's interested, no one's engaging, but in 90% of the cases when people say they get no feedback, they get no engagement, they get no results from the content they've produced, well, actually they have got some feedback, they have got some comments, but to them it's not enough. And to them it's not a sale, so it doesn't feel worth it. And so when it comes to creating an effective content ecosystem, I think one of the most important things we need to do is is release the pressure on that content to directly result in sales or to give you any kind of result in the short term. Every single comment, every piece of engagement, every piece of data that you can collect about that content is the necessary feedback that you need, but it's only really meaningful over an extended period of time. So when it comes to social content, that's why I do the Imperfect Post Project for 100 days. Because when you have 100 pieces of content or 50 pieces of content going out over 100 days, that is the timeframe you need for any data about that content's effectiveness to be meaningful. Most people are trying to work out if their content is effective after they've shared 4 pieces of content, but you will not get meaningful feedback and data after even a month's worth of content. It needs to be 100 days. The same thing goes for your feature content and your emails to your mailing list. You need to send a weekly email to your mailing list with a meaningful piece of feature content every single week for 12 weeks before you'll have any kind of meaningful data. And that means you need 12 pieces of feature content on your website for 12 weeks, right? We need that in place before you can get any kind of meaningful feedback. Similarly, you need to run a webinar 3 times and promote and follow up that webinar effectively 3 times over 3 months for you to have any kind of meaningful feedback and any kind of meaningful data. And so for most people, the thing that is costing them the exact insight and the exact data they would need to make their content ecosystem more effective is that they aren't doing it enough. They haven't produced enough to actually have that insight, to have that data. So remember that your audience will never be as small as it is today. So that for most people is enough for you to let go of perfectionism and let go of freaking out that like your first blog needs to be a life-altering, life-changing blog that's gonna set the world on fire, 'cause it won't. Your audience will never be as small as it is today. So why not just embrace that as a permission slip to just start with some really imperfect content and just get creating, just get creating. So here it is. How do you create an effective content ecosystem? Number 1, you run a webinar every month. Every month you run a webinar for free that is specifically for your ideal clients. And it brings them in to learn something from you over the period of 30 minutes to an hour. And you run that once a month. You run it so consistently and you systemize and streamline that process so effectively that by the time you've run your third one, running a webinar doesn't feel like such a big deal. It's something you can do very simply, very effectively, and very easily. So that's step 1, run a webinar every month. Step 2, have a piece of feature content that you release every week. Now, if you don't have a website yet, make sure that that goes on your list to build it once you've validated your foundations and you've got that core messaging offers sorted, you've made a few sales, website comes next. But if you don't have a website, you can do it as a YouTube channel if you prefer video, you could do it as a free Substack if you prefer to write, you could do it as a podcast if you prefer to just record voice messages. Um, so even if you don't have a website yet, I would still recommend that you create a piece of feature content every single week. And that can be a 10-minute video or audio or a 500-word blog. And all you're doing is just creating something. It's helpful, it's valuable, it's written specifically to your ideal client, it's written specifically for them to help them get closer to their goal. The thing that you help with, and you do that every single week without fail, and you send it to your mailing list every single week without fail. And then the final piece is you have a piece of social media content that goes up at least every second day, if not daily. That's it. That is how you build an effective content ecosystem. And by doing that very consistently, by almost forcing yourself— I don't like using the word force, but like by challenging yourself to just just do it. Stop making excuses. Stop waiting for it to be perfect. Stop waiting to decide on the right strategy. I started out with a written blog. I moved to a video blog with it being on YouTube and embedded onto my website. Then my video was turned into a podcast, so I had it as video and audio. Then once I was doing that, I did video and audio with a written article that was like a summary of that podcast episode embedded on my website. And then I simplified simplified it back to audio only. So the podcast is audio only now. It used to be video and audio. And the reason why I did that was because I was struggling to get it out every single week. And I know that having the piece of content actually exist is far more important than having it on video and having it on audio and having the written article. And so I just simplified it down to something that I could, as much as possible, nail and not fail. And actually what ended up happening was the downloads of my podcast absolutely skyrocketed when I got rid of the video version of my podcast. Because what was happening was people would prefer to watch the video if they could, but they wanted to watch the video sitting at their desk with their notebook out so that they could take copious notes. And so people were hoarding podcast episodes to listen to in the future instead of just listening to them as they came out.. So it was one of the best things I've ever done for this podcast and for my content ecosystem was to go back to a simpler format and just do audio only. And we do have amazing show notes and written, a written version of the podcast in article format that goes with it over on my website. And so like that was the thing that got rid of the barrier so that I could maximize the chances that my content would get out on time, consistently. And it ended up being one of the best things I ever did. So the number one hashtag buttache that I get when I talk about this is, but I don't know what I need to say. I don't know how to structure it. I don't really know what I'm doing when it comes to content. Well, first and foremost, The best way to learn is to do. And I want you to think about that pottery example. So you've got a ball of clay, you've got a pottery wheel in front of you, and you know the basics. The clay needs to go on the wheel, it needs to be in the middle of the wheel, you need to center it as best you can. And you know that you're aiming for consistency of the thickness of the clay as you shape whatever it is that you shape. Shape. But the best thing you can do beyond knowing those basics is to start the wheel turning. Because ultimately, I could describe to you, being a potter myself, in explicit detail exactly what the steps are to create a little bowl on a pottery wheel. But I can only say so much before you got to get in there, you got to get your hands dirty, and you've feel what it feels like, and you've got to see what it is that you produce. So the equivalent basics that you need to know when it comes to creating content are number 1, speak directly to your ideal client as much as possible. The narrower your niche, the easier it is to write content that you know they're going to find helpful. And so if you're still not clear on who you are speaking to. Number 1, you can grab my Nail Your Niche training. I have that available for free on my website, and I'll pop a link to that in the show notes of today's episode. But number 2, just write down who is your ideal client and start writing something for them. Even if you don't do structured niching work. I mean, the structure that's in Nail Your Niche is very helpful, and I think it makes it far easier to get clear on who it is that you're talking to. But if that is a barrier and if that's just going to delay the the process, just start writing, just start recording something. So number 1, you know that you need to speak to your ideal client. Number 2, you know you need something that's helpful for them, something that's going to help them get from where they are to a little bit further along the pathway. That's it. That's the 2 things you need to know about creating content. They're your basics. Beyond that, if I give you any further structure or instructions or directions right now, All you're gonna do is overthink it, and we might miss out on your content genius. You may be the world's best listicle writer. You know what a listicle is? It's like, here's the top 10 things, here's the best 5 ways, here's the 8 most common, da-da-da, right? So it's just literally a list of things. But like, you maybe have this really amazing perspective to share with us, or an amazing way of writing, or an amazing way of explaining things, that works really brilliant for your content consumers, but you are so busy trying to do it the right way, you are just not doing it. You are so busy trying to do it the way everyone else does it, you are actually robbing yourself of just doing it the way that's easiest for you and that actually would work best for your audience. So you know what your basics are, you know that you need to speak to your specific niche and you need to create something that might be a bit helpful for them. And it doesn't have to help them solve every single problem they've ever had in their entire life. It doesn't even have to help them solve every single problem they experience in your zone of genius. It just has to help them for today. Just for today, here's something that will help. Just for today, here is something that will help. Just for today, here is something that will help. That is what we are looking to do with your content at its very core. The great thing about this ecosystem approach is that in creating a webinar, you're going to have to create posts to tell people about the webinar. And that's actually going to mean that you're gonna have a lot of ideas popping into mind, right? You're going to have to look at this through multiple angles. I talk about your core part of your business, your core offers, your signature work as thinking about them as being a diamond. And the job of your content is to try and describe and direct people's attention to that diamond through every single facet possible, every single element, every single angle. And so in, challenging yourself to craft a webinar for the month. And like, you can just run the same webinar every month for the next 12 months. That is not a problem, right? So we are crafting a webinar, we're sharing a webinar every single month. But in putting together the promotions for that webinar, you're gonna have to tell your mailing list about it. You're gonna have to tell your social media audience about it. You're gonna have to talk about that one event again like a diamond, through multiple, multiple angles. And that's a ton of social content, email content. And then what you might realize is, ooh, some people might not think that this webinar is the right fit for them because they're still stuck in X, in the step before. So I should write a blog that actually gets them from the step before to being ready for the webinar. Now I'll put that out as a blog. Well, Well, I could promote that blog. I'll come up with 3 promo posts. Like, by taking an ecosystem approach, it's almost like the majority of the volume is taken care of for you when you've got that beautiful foundation of that monthly webinar. The final piece of advice for you I have is more of a mindset piece, and that is the energy of detachment, being detached from the pressure for that content to do any kind of job, being detached from, um, needing that content to be game-changing, life-changing, set the world on fire. And I have another little story to share for you about pottery. So my introduction to wheel pottery was thanks to one of my best friends in the whole world, Claire Riley. And there was a pottery studio that was sort of between where the two of us were living, and they had a special offer where if you bought a 4-week wheel throwing course for someone else, it was like 75% off. And Claire reached out and said, I'll buy this for you if you buy it for me. So we each bought each other this pottery course and we did it together. And I loved it and immediately signed up as a monthly member. And Claire absolutely hated it. She loves pottery. She's more a hand builder than a wheel potter. But it was so funny because on week 2 of our class, They made us create pieces on the pottery wheel and then cut them up to see how thick the base was, how thick and consistent the sides were. And so it meant that we created these pieces and we got very excited because for most people who were doing the class, it was the first time they'd ever made a bowl that looked like a bowl. It was the first time they'd ever made a cup. We were practicing how to do narrow lifting. We practicing how to do broader lifting, how to make bowls, how to make vases, right? So we were trying to make all these different shapes, and there was one in particular where we're, okay, we start over, and we both made something. And I made this amazing sort of honeypot shape with, you know, that beautiful figure of 8 kind of shape to it. And Claire next to me made the most symmetrical bowl I have ever seen in my entire life on a pottery wheel. And then the instructor said, okay, now get your wire out and let's cut it in half. And Claire and I both looked at each other, and we were both just like, but I don't I didn't want to, like, we both really wanted to keep this thing. But ultimately, being challenged to just cut it and see what we'd done, my, the base of mine was horrifically thick and heavy, and it would have actually probably cracked in the firing process. Claire's was much better than mine, and it was such a powerful lesson for me in detachment. Now, I'm not saying that you should create content and then bin it. I'm saying your content needs to just be created and shared. And that really like just hit home to me so much. That detachment from that piece becoming a final piece was so valuable. And it was imperfect, but I needed to cut it and to see that it was imperfect, right? It, it was so valuable to me doing that in pottery because I could see the direct relationship between that and content. From that pottery class, I went on to create 20 to 30 pieces of pottery that end up— I fired and I painted. Some of them I gifted to friends. I took a selection of them to conference and sold them. People ran over to go and buy my dinky little bits of pottery that I was practicing, but those pieces would not have been there and would not have existed if it wasn't for me back in that class embracing this sense of detachment. I'm just going to make it. I'm just gonna create it, and I'm gonna learn from that process. So your content doesn't need to be cut up and thrown out and discarded. Your detachment when it comes to content just needs to be The content exists, I share it with the world. The content exists, I share it with the world. And I think back to myself in my first week of business, sitting on my balcony, recording my first ever YouTube videos. And that version of me who created those videos and put them on the internet, who was deeply vulnerable because she put them on the internet, then shared them to Facebook. She risked her friends and family seeing those terrible, terrible videos. The day I created it, I cringed as I edited it. A week later, when someone commented on my Facebook post about it, I cringed that that person had watched it, but I had to detach. A month later, when I was reviewing what I had done the previous month to plan out what I was doing the next month. I cringed when I saw that video, but I had to be detached. And then 2 years later, when I had a video on YouTube do really well, and I mean by really well, I mean it got 1,000 views, I know that that video was built on the shoulders of the Tash who released the first one. The good one that did well 2 years later wouldn't have existed if I hadn't shared the first one. Because if I had, in cringing at myself, decided, no, I'm not gonna share that, then I would've tried to redo that one video, that one piece of messaging, that one core message. And it wasn't a good piece of content, let alone like the breathiness. And I had to stop recording after every single sentence, and the sound quality is terrible, and the lighting is terrible. The light is behind me. Let alone any of that, even if it was a well-recorded piece of content, the topic wasn't actually particularly helpful to my audience. But I didn't get to the helpful content until I got out the unhelpful content, the content I thought was important, but my audience didn't. And so then 2 years later, when I was considering starting this podcast, I never would have done that if I hadn't had some success with longer-form videos on YouTube, feature content on YouTube. And that success on YouTube wouldn't have happened if I hadn't just set myself the mission of recording and releasing a YouTube video every week and just diligently going about about doing it. I didn't do it perfectly. As I said at the top of the episode, I wish I had nailed this far earlier in my business journey. I allowed myself to get caught up in perfectionism several times. There are huge periods of time where I didn't release a piece of feature content, where I didn't run a regular webinar, when I didn't have a daily post go out on social media. And the periods of 2 to 3 months after those and that like reset and restart were some of the toughest times for me in business. But I knew that the reason why it was feeling so tough was because I hadn't nailed the consistency. I hadn't maintained that content creation and sharing. And so if there is one thing I can leave you in this podcast, it is that you need to be detached from the result, detached from it needing to look and sound and feel like something that is perfectly polished and brilliant and awesome because you won't get there until you actually make some terrible content, right? We just need to accept that as our reality and that our skill development comes from practice, right? So we're gonna stay completely detached from it needing to be good, from it needing to be effective, from it needing to generate any results. It is this detachment. If you'd like to join me in a week of embracing the ecosystem approach to your content and ensuring that that content is actually boosting your lead generation and conversion, then I'd love to invite you to join me for Biz Boost 2026, which is happening in the final week of May. Biz Boost is a 5-day event that is specifically designed to literally boost certain components of your business, and creating and content are 2 of those areas. So you can have a look at the full curriculum and what we're covering each day, as well as reserve your spot in Biz Boost 2026 over at tashcorbin.com/522 because I'll pop the link and details for there in the show notes. If you are listening to this podcast episode after Biz Boost has started in May, then I'll make sure that we also redirect that to the next opportunity for us to do a similar event together, which will be the Virtual CEO Retreat in November. So make sure you come and check all of that out with the show notes of today's episode at tashcorbin.com/522. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of The Heart Center Business Podcast. And until next time, I cannot wait to see your content proliferating out online, and I cannot wait to see you shine.