Skillshare

SkillShare presents instructors with an opportunity to create and publish their courses on a marketplace which consists of millions of students. These students can watch as many training courses as they desire if they have a Premium account.

SkillShare is the Netflix of learning, and one of the best ways to get involved in SkillShare is by creating a mini class every day.

While it may seem difficult to create a new class each day, it’s much easier than it sounds. On SkillShare, each class needs to be at least 10 minutes long.

I stay as close to that minimum as possible for two reasons. The first reason is that it’s much easier to create a mini class every day. The second reason is that I get to test concepts.

If one class significantly outperforms the rest of my classes, I’ll add more content to that class. This is exactly what happened when my class on reading 10+ books every month became my top performer. I added four additional minutes of content to that class. It may not seem like much, but going from 15 minutes to 19 minutes is a 27% increase in total content.

 

Repurpose Your Old Content

Creating 10-20 minute classes each day doesn’t require much time. The challenge is staying consistent and thinking of a new class idea every day.

You can save a lot of time by repurposing your old content. I go back to my top blog posts and turn them into products such as SkillShare classes.

You can take an outline for a past blog post or video and easily turn it into a SkillShare class. All you need to do is add a few extra videos (in some cases, just an extra video) and create your next SkillShare class.

 

Create An Outline

If you think of a class idea that isn’t based on a free piece of content, you need to create an outline for that class. Creating an outline of how lessons should flow makes it easier for you to complete the class.

The 2-3 minutes it takes for you to create an outline for a 10 minute class will save many hours in the long-term as you continue to create and publish more classes.

 

Set A Time Of Day To Do Videos

There’s time in the day for you to complete one class every day. The challenge is carving out that time in your schedule.

The best way to get anything accomplish is to set time in each day to pursue that task. Set a consistent routine for completing SkillShare classes. My consistent routine is to complete classes in the evenings.

I do better with writing blog posts in the morning, and I’m better at creating videos in the evening. This knowledge has shaped me approach.

Just because something is important doesn’t mean you have to do it right away. I never start my day doing videos or podcast interviews because I’m too tired at that time of day. I am better at writing content during that time.

 

Edit Them On The Spot

Once you finish all of the videos for a training course, edit all of them on the spot. I don’t add any special effects to my videos. Due to practice, I can speak from start to finish without making mistakes.

In these cases, I trim the beginning and end of the videos. In cases when I mess up in the middle, I splice out the mess-up.

Editing videos on the spot prevents them from collecting space in your mind. For most people, editing is a gruesome part of the process. If you leave editing for another day, you’ll think about that when you think about creating another class.

Knowing you have unedited videos may give you second thoughts about creating another class that day. Editing videos on the spot and publishing the class allows you to approach each new day with a clean slate.

Don’t let editing carry over to the next day.

 

Create Multiple Classes On Some Days

Publishing one SkillShare class every day does not mean creating a new SkillShare class every day. On some days you can create zero courses while on other days you create three classes.

You can pick 2-3 days of the week and create all of that week’s classes on those days. That way, you can focus on other areas for the rest of the week

On the other days, you can identify which topics you’ll turn into classes. You can create the outlines so you know how each class will flow as you create them.

 

In Conclusion

It’s possible for anyone to create a new SkillShare class every day. The challenge is establishing a routine you can continuously rely on.

Maintaining consistency and having a big backend of content is important. Lately I’ve been more consistent with my podcast than any other platform I’m on.

I publish a new podcast episode every day and have over a month’s worth of episodes in queue. The more classes you have in the queue, the easier it will be for you to stay consistent.

What are your thoughts on publishing SkillShare classes every day? Do you have any tactics you think would help? Do you have a question for me? Sound off in the comments section below.

To expand your brand, you need to expand your ideas. Any piece of content you create can be turned into multiple pieces of content.

You can turn a blog post into a video, take parts of that video and turn them into blog posts, and take parts of those blog posts and turn them into videos.

That’s part of the reason Gary Vaynerchuk can create so much content. He expands upon his existing ideas.

However, there’s more to this model than expanding your free content into other forms of free content.

You can use your free content as inspiration for your products. Various authors first conceived of their book ideas by creating free content.

One free piece of content stuck, and these soon-to-be authors realized that they had a book worthy message in their popular pieces of content.

While the association from free content to book or lengthy course may seem more clear, you can create short SkillShare courses based off individual pieces of content.

 

Why SkillShare?

SkillShare is the Netflix of learning. Students pay monthly to get access to a wide range of training courses.

Instructors get paid around five cents for each minute watched. This is a significantly greater payout rate than YouTube which gives you around $1 for every thousand views.

You can also put your training courses on a site like Udemy, but SkillShare’s key advantage is that short courses rock.

Short courses tend to attract more students. Once students finish watching one of your short courses, they may decide to watch more of your courses due to the dopamine rush associated with the gratification of completion.

That means more money for you.

And when I say short, I mean very short. SkillShare only requires a minimum of 10 minutes for each training course.

Some of my training courses barely fit that bill with some of them at the 11 minute marker.

The idea is for students to get into the habit of watching several of my courses instead of stopping at one.

And many of these courses are expanded versions of my free content.

 

Expanding On Your Free Content

When you choose any free piece of content to expand upon, you must start by choosing the right content.

The right content is the content that you can actively discuss in a video format. You also want to ensure you choose a lengthy piece of content that feels incomplete upon a second analysis.

Most of the content I create feels incomplete when I give it a second look. When I finish writing this blog post, it will feel complete in my eyes. However, even a few days later, this blog post will feel incomplete. That’s how it goes even after I publish a new piece of content.

I’ll look at it a few days later and it will feel incomplete. While I do go back and occasionally update blog posts, lately I’ve been completing them by turning them into micro courses on SkillShare that are 10-20 minutes long.

I will ask myself the question “What did I miss here?” until I have some answers. I’ll sometimes think of additional ideas as I do videos for the course.

The idea is to stack a few 1-2 minute videos together into a final product. This workflow and small length of courses makes it very easy for me to produce at least one new training course every day.

You’ll make $1 for every 20 minutes people spend watching your courses. Those minutes will accumulate over time as you create more courses. Creating more courses will attract more students, and your new students will then go through your older courses.

Remember, SkillShare is Netflix for learning. If your courses are short and impactful, some of your students will binge watch them. The increase in minutes will increase the revenue you generate from SkillShare.

 

No New Content Ideas With This Strategy

All of the revenue you make from SkillShare following this model is based on existing content. I’m not asking you to create anything new. You just take some of your old ideas and give them a different twist.

In some cases, there may be very few differences between your free content and your SkillShare courses.

Of course, if you think of an entirely new idea and want to turn it into a SkillShare course, then by all means go for it. This strategy is meant to expand your existing ideas, but if you tap into new ideas to expand your range, that’s great too.

 

Starting

Starting is always more difficult than doing the actual task. Most of the fuel in a rocket is used during liftoff to get a few inches off the ground. Once you start implementing this concept, it will be easier for you to create SkillShare courses based on your existing content.

One way to make starting easier is to change the starting point. Instead of thinking about starting videos, I just focus on getting dressed up for the video.

Once I get dressed up, I’ve already started. I can’t get out of my clothing for videos until I do the videos.

You can apply this same principle if you find it difficult to get started. But I guarantee that once you start doing videos for SkillShare courses, the actual action of doing all of those videos is much easier.

 

In Conclusion

You can take a single piece of content and turn it into several. While most strategies approach turning free content into more free content, you can take some of your free content and creates products.

One of the blog posts you recently wrote can become a 10-20 minute SkillShare course. That same blog post can also be turned into a much longer course or even a book.

I prefer SkillShare right now due to the overall ease and leverage the SkillShare itself provides. I don’t have to worry as much about promoting my course as I would if I decided to host it on my own site.

With that said, I’ve benefitted greatly from hosting some courses on my own sites such as the Content Marketing Plaza.

In the end, you should pick what works best for you. But regardless of what works for you, make sure you spread the idea of your existing content into future content and paid products.

What are your thoughts on turning your free content into SkillShare courses? Do you have any advice on finding that free content or creating more SkillShare courses? Do you have a question for me? Sound off in the comments section below.