Content Creation: The equipment and tools I use to create content

Creating content plays a major part role in my life. On a weekly basis, I create blog posts for CharelleGriffith.com, Charelle Reads and PropelHer. I also release a new podcast each week for Free and Figuring It Out and write a Motivational Monday email for all the PropelHer subscribers. Oh, and of course, there is content to be made to populate all of the social media channels I run.

Now maybe you aren’t making as much content as me, but whether you are a content creator, an entrepreneur or a business owner it is likely that you will be creating some forms of content.

When you first start making content whether it be podcast episodes, blog posts or videos you might not know where to start, which is why I’m sharing the equipment and tools I use to create content.

 

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BLOGGING

My content creation journey started with blogging. When it comes to blogging there are three things you need: somewhere for your blog posts to live, copy and images.

All of my websites are powered by WordPress and I use Bluehost for my hosting.

I write my blog posts in Microsoft Word (with a template I made myself) and then copy and paste the body of the blog post into WordPress. I then use Grammarly to check my spelling and grammar.

Then it is time to create the feature image. When wanting to use a photograph I use Unsplash and Pexels. Both are sites that offer free stock images. When the feature image is a graphic I use Canva, which I will talk about in future detail when I talk about social media content.

 

VIDEOS

After blogging I moved into video creation. Firstly I want to make this 100% clear. If you have a decent iPhone or Android phone right now that will be enough to start making videos. Do not think you need to have lots of equipment to start making videos. When I first started making YouTube videos I would record them between 10am and 4pm on the weekend (I live in the UK so in winter the hours with enough sunlight is limited, but it is still possible). I would balance my phone on a pile of books and project my voice.

However, over time I have improved my video creation kit and I’ll be sharing what I use for lighting, microphone and editing.

 

Lighting

When it comes to lighting most people will a beginner checks out one of two options: soft boxes or a ring light.

Due to space the ring light was the best option for me. However, when doing my research the ring light that got recommended over and over again was the Diva Ring Light. However, the problem is that the Diva Ring Light is that it easily available in the UK. After much research, I decided to go with the Neewer Dimmable 18″ Diameter.

I also bought a Zacro 360 Degree Rotation Mount Holder, which means that I can easily attach my phone and the rotation allows me to easily switch from being in the horizontal mode for YouTube videos and then being in portrait mode for Instagram stories.

 

Microphone

My personal preference was to get a lapel microphone. This is a microphone that you see news readers wearing that clips onto their shirt. I use the Movo LV1 Lavalier Lapel Clip-on Omnidirectional Condenser Microphone. The reason why I went for it was because compared to some other it had a long cable (20-foot). Now the fact is usually I will never need that much length, but I preferred the option of having more than less. Also, this microphone can work with for both smartphones and cameras so I thought it was a good option for a microphone that could grow with me. *WARNING* This is meant to connect to a smartphone via a 3.5mm jack so if you have an newer iPhone you’ll need to get an adapter.

 

Editing

When it comes to editing my videos I use iMovie. iMovie comes free with Mac products. Whilst it isn’t the best editing software in the world (previously in my life I used Final Cut Pro) I would say it is more than sufficient for creating videos.

 

Video Thumbnails

To make the thumbnails I will create a still from footage and then use Canva to design to video thumbnail.

 

 

PODCASTING

Last but not least when it comes to long-form content is podcasting. I started the Free and Figuring It Out podcast in December 2018, but I actually had bought the equipment before then.

Microphone

In 2018 I knew I wanted to start a podcast and the obvious place to start is with a microphone. As always I set out to research and check what people recommended. There seemed two very popular options: The Blue Yeti and ATR 2100.

Now whilst the Blue Yeti is super photogenic (and is in fact what my co-host Verity Brown uses) I knew I wanted something like the ATR 2100. I wanted a microphone that had the option to be connected via USB and XLR. To me, this was a microphone that could grow with me as I improved the professionalism of the podcast. But once again I came across the very common hurdle for British content creators – the leader in the market wasn’t available in the UK. After much research,  I discovered the best equivalent for a UK or European podcaster was a Samson SAQ2U.

 

Microphone Stand

As you can see in the picture above the microphone does come with its own stand, but I decided I wanted to get an extendable arm stand so I could clip it to my desk or chair. I went with the Neewer Adjustable Microphone Suspension Boom Scissor Arm Stand. For months I podcasted in a little cupboard so being able to have the microphone attached to the chair that I sat on was very useful.

 

Editing

If you’ve ever listened to Free and Figuring It Out you’ll know that it isn’t a highly edited podcast, but unless you just put the raw recording online you’ll have to do some editing.I use GarageBand to edit the recording. Garageband came free on my MacBook. I usually will edit out any mistakes and then add the intro, outro and any adverts.

 

Hosting

Once you have your episodes you’ll need a host so you can upload your episodes and then those episodes be shared across all of the platforms where people listen and/or download podcast episodes. Currently for Free and Figuring It Out we use Libsyn as our host.

 

That is the major three types of long-form content, but for many entrepreneurs and business owners there is one form of content that NEVER seems to end and that is social media content!

 

SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT 

Now everyone approaches creating social media content in different ways. It depends greatly on the social media platforms you use in your business and what content shows your business off best. My social media content consistently mainly of written posts, photographs and quotes.

 

Graphics

A question I get asked a lot is “What do you use to make your quote cards?”

And the answer is Canva.

 

When I first came across Canva I couldn’t believe I had been missing out on it. For years professionally, in my day job, I had been using Photoshop and InDesign. However, when I started my business I didn’t feel ready to make that sort of financial investment. Canva is a web-based design solution. The basic version is free and the paid version starts from £8.99. On Canva you can customise the canvas size. This means you are able to create a graphic in any dimension. I have separate designs setup for Instagram (square), Pinterest Pins (vertical), Featured Image for Blog (horizontal) and this saves me so much time and means my images are always the perfect size for where I need to use them.

Photographs

For photographs, I will take the majority of my photographs on my iPhone and I use a few apps to edit photos. My favourite apps are A Color Story and Lightroom. I started using ColorStory first and later learnt how to use Lightroom. Lightroom has enabled me to make some fairly awful pictures online worthy so as you can imagine I love it!

 

Phew! That’s it. That is a behind-the-scenes look at the equipment and tools I use to create content.

 

I would love to know in the comments what is your favourite and your worst type of content to create.

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Has reading about all the types of content I create made your head spin. If you would like some 1:1 support to help you get started with a new form of content or improve the quality of your current content creation then feel free to get in touch.

Whilst one part of content creation is learning how to do it the other side is knowing what to create. If you know you need to be more strategic in your content creation then book an intensive strategy day and in just one day we’ll get your content planned out for the next 90 days.