In a Digital Economy, what are Digital Assets? How do we monetize them?
Since it was the week after Diwali (vacation in this part of the world), I was interested to brush up some of my skills. Among the key skills that I thought required much need improvement were my writing skills and my investing skills.
I felt the need to improve my writing skills as I thought writing clearly would help me communicate my ideas clearly to my audience. Also, I was investing in some stocks but there was no scientific basis to it. Before my luck runs out, I must have a scientific entry and exit strategy for all the stocks that I hold in my portfolio.
So I was reading an article by David Perell on improving writing skills. You can read the article here. Apart from the encouragement to write frequently, the article suggested why it is such an important skill.
Creating Digital Assets
The article wrote why it is important to write. Writing articles is not simply a skill that needs to be improved. Writing should be promoted as an alternative career similar to creating videos, music.
With Technology, it has now become easier for anybody to publish content online. Content could be in the form of Movie, Articles, GIFs/Images or Music.
By leveraging the power of Technology, one can publish content and distribute it across the world. This published content which can be easily discoverable and to which people can find value in consuming is what I call Digital Assets.
But why do I call it Digital Assets?
All the content, whether Music or Articles, has a certain value attached to it. If people derive certain value from these content, they would be willing to pay for the content. If people can pay for a content, the content can be termed as an asset.
Overtime, because of monetization, the value of the content would increase.
Another website called Visualize Value by Jack Butcher (@jackbutcher) promotes a similar concept of building Digital Assets. Visualize Value has a very catchy Statement that I always remember:
Build Once, Sell Twice!
– Jack Butcher (@visualizevalue
Here also, Jack promotes to create digital asset, either in the form of Images, Training Materials or videos. People should find value in the assets so much so that they are motivated to pay for it.
Creating Assets Consistently
A Blogging Enthusiast who creates 1-2 articles with the new found enthusiasm only to wind it all up after sometime has not created anything worthwhile.
A serial Blogger who consistently creates Articles every week, month, year will be benefited from his work in the long run. Creating Digital Asset is not an overnight success. Creation of Digital Assets over an extended period of time will create the necessary noise to get traction among potential audiences.
So why is Consistency important?
- Creates Expectation: The audience for a Vlogger would expect a video about a topic based on the commitment or frequency that the Vlogger posts on the Video Channel.
- Creates Spread: The more consistent you are with your Content on a particular topic, the more likely you will show up in the search results. Also, compared to other less frequent competitors, you would have more content for the same topic.
- Creates Trust: Consistently posting an article on a topic will project you as some kind of authority as far as the topic is concerned. This in turn will develop trust in your content.
Consistently creating Assets would help both the audience as well as you in the long run. While the audience is getting a fresh perspective, you are getting the attention of your audience, which in itself is quite rare.
Compounding Assets
Similar to regular assets, Digital Assets also have a Compounding Effect. As in Stocks, we do SIP or Systematic Investment Planning. So we keep on adding a particular stock of an index fund in small quantities every month. Over a period of time, we can see the effect of Compounding as your investment explodes given all the dividends, bonuses add to your investments.
Creation of Digital Assets also creates a similar compounding effect. Sustaining your creation of digital assets over a period of time, helps you to create a library of assets that you could use monetize.
The more the digital assets, the more are the avenues to monetize the content through in-page advertisements or sponsored contents.
End Note
With the advent of the Digital Economy, the ways to create wealth should also change. Gone are the days when the regular way to create wealth is to do a 9-5 job, wait for your salary to come, save and invest. Apart from carrying out your job, you can also share your skills with the world.
While Perell suggests is to consistently create content, Jack has suggests to create content that could be sold multiple times. You can use Distribution platform such as Gumroad to sell your digital assets.
I do hope that this article would have added a new perspective into asset creation.
Do let me know your thoughts.
“Create Content. Create Assets”
~RG~