Beyond Posting - A Roadmap To Getting Your Content Out There

Why publish social media posts, write blogs and send emails to your email list? So long as you are issuing quality content that gives value to your audience, it will help connect with your audience, build relationships and ultimately drive sales. 

As I say in all my trainings with clients: Content builds relationships. Relationships are built on trust. Trust drives sales. Essential for building that all important know, like and trust factor.

Get Organised, Consistent and Disciplined

When you see someone who is acing it at their social media, they’ll either have a team of people behind them or be exceptionally organised and disciplined. Implementing your content strategy is a long-term process and requires commitment from you, to go out consistently with your content. You’re not going to get lots of new sales from one social media post or one email.

Don’t spread yourself too thinly, as you will not be able to keep up with publishing on all your channels and instead end up overwhelmed and demotivated. Select your platforms wisely and be on platforms that your audience are on. Prioritise what you do and do a few things really well rather than compromising on quality.

To start off with, I always recommend doing a small number of channels really well. Try beginning with one social media post per week and one email per month. Watch how them preform and improve on them. As time goes on, you’ll get quicker at producing them and be able to up your frequency.

Content Creation Workflow

Now, I’ve convinced you that digital content is a must have for any business, you need to work out how to deliver it on a consistent basis. Here’s my tried and tested framework that will have you flying in no time.

There are four main elements: Analysis - Brainstorming - Planning - Scheduling that will enable you to get your content out there:

Time Blocking – The Key To Getting Your Content Out There

For digital content I recommend, time blocking a couple of hours a week/month or whatever works for you, to work on your content for the following month (or whatever time frame you can manage). Set a task per block of time, say three hours. Stick to that one task and block out the time in your calendar.

Spend a few hours working solely on the elements in my content creation workflow. As an example if you are aiming to go out with 3 social media posts per week, over a one month period, start blocking out the time periods in brackets and see if it works for you: 

• looking at your analytics from the previous month to see how past content has performed (30 minutes)
• brainstorming content ideas for the next week/month (30 minutes)
• designing graphics, producing video and writing copy (3 hours)
• scheduling content in advance using a tool like Meta Business Suite (1 hour)

As a side note, if you are writing a blog post, these generally take longer. I set aside three hours for researching, writing, sourcing and resizing images and publishing to website.

It is more efficient to work like this, it's more likely you'll get content live and stick to your content strategy. You’re in the right headspace, the right applications and it will save you lots of time and stress in the long run.

Here’s some best practices on how to use my content creation workflow in real life.

Analysis - What Is Working

Analysing past performance of social media posts, email and blogs will help you see what is working and what is not. Then you can start doing more of what is working and less of what is not!

As a first step, record the following on a monthly basis. You can do this in a simple excel spreadsheet:

• Follower numbers on your social media channels
• Total reach on social media posts
• Top 3-5 social media posts by reach
• Number of website visits
• Number of blog visits
• Email Open rates: % of recipients who opened your email. Aim for 30%
• Email Click-through rates: % of recipients who clicked on one or more links within your email

You can find these analytics in the following places:

• Social Media: for Facebook and Instagram you will find them in the Insights section of Meta Business Suite. All other major social media channels have analytics packages which you can access.
• Email marketing platforms such as Active Campaign, Mailerlite and MailChimp all have analytics or reports sections which you can access. Also check out the dashboard section as they should also be included here.
• To measure visits to your website and blog set up Google Analytics or explore other monitoring your website platform offers.

When you start taking action based on past performance your digital channels will grow and so will your business. Benchmark yourself against yourself and as long as you are seeing progress and learning you are winning!

Brainstorming - Content Inspiration

For coming up with quality content you need to adopt a content mindset. There are potential content opportunities in every conversation with a customer, book, podcast, blog and other people’s content.

Simply note down ideas as they come to you, continually filling your content funnel. Here are some sources to fuel your creativity:

• Your website: much of your website content can be repurposed into social media posts
• www.awareness-days.co.uk
• www.answerthepublic.com
• Questions your clients ask can be made into FAQs / How Tos
• Competitors
• Customers
• Colleagues

Planning - Timing, Designing, Writing

Planning is the powerhouse of any content strategy and there are three parts to it:

1. Working out when you are going to post the content

This is where my Ultimate Annual Content Planner comes in. It’s like your content command centre, a really simple spreadsheet for planning your social media content, email campaigns and blogs.

The user-friendly day-by-day layout, gives you a comprehensive overview of your upcoming content. All you do is type in the topic of the content for that day and the document will start to build. You’ll find you have no more last-minute scrambles for content, you can easily plan ahead and execute flawlessly. I’ve also included over 1,000 awareness days and seasonal hashtags for content ideas and inspiration.

I’ve built it from years of experience working with content and find it essential for planning content for multiple channels and/or accounts. Start using it yourself and download now on my website.

DOWNLOAD Ultimate Content Planner Here 

2. Designing graphics, taking photos, producing videos

This can be time consuming but there are some tools that can make it easier for you:

• Create design templates in Canva (graphic design tool) to reduce the design faff and speed up content creation. For example, if you go out with a social media post on testimonials or quotes every month, set up templates for these in Canva. Simply go in and change the image, text or colour every month.
• Build a photo or video bank so you have a library that is easy to access and use again and again. Hiring a professional photographer or videographer may help with this.

3. Writing the copy (text) or blog content

Even though we live in a very visual age, good writing skills are still a must. Here’s some guidance on what to include in social media captions:

• The Hook: Grab your audience's attention and STOP THE SCROLL
• The Body: Get straight to the point, keep them interested with clear concise points
• Keep It Personal: Keep them interested with clear concise points that relate to them
• It's Not About You: Talk about the benefits for your reader
• Write For Skim Reading: Line breaks, short paragraphs and emojis
• Check, check and check again: Spelling mistakes, typos, bad grammar
• Call To Action: Tell your audience what you want them to do

We all love to save time and do things as efficiently as possible. Here are some tools to save to your bookmarks and make writing that little bit easier.

• ChatGPT – This AI generated predicative language program can assist you when writing copy for blogs, emails and social media
• Grammarly - Makes you a better writer by reviewing spelling, grammar, punctuation and clarity.
• Hemingway App - Helps you write clearly by highlighting lengthy, complex sentences and common errors.
• Readable - Gives a readability score for your text with suggestions to improve the readability of your writing.
• Power Thesaurus - Comprehensive online thesaurus to help you find that word you are looking for.
• Title Generator - Helps you find content ideas and headlines by typing in keywords.

Scheduling - Get it Out Of The Way

Scheduling content in advance is essential for keeping a consistent online presence and will save you time and effort. Regular and predictable posting helps establish a rhythm, so your audience can get to know you and what to expect from you.

This builds trust with your audience, making them more likely to engage with and respond to your content.

Here are some ways to schedule content:

• Social Media: For Facebook and Instagram use Meta Business Suite to schedule content. It’s free, I find it very reliable and it suggests the optimal time for posting. Other third party paid for tools like HootSuite, Later and Planoly also offer scheduling functionality
• Email marketing: when you start to pay for email marketing platforms they usually offer the ability to schedule emails in advance or personalise it to times when people are more likely to be on their emails
• Blogs: some website platforms will allow you to publish blogs at particular time in the future

While a planned schedule is crucial for maintaining consistency, you don't need to lock yourself into a planned schedule. It is equally important to allow for flexibility so sporadic content can be added in real time.

Social media, in particular is dynamic, and being able to add sporadic content in response to current events, trends, or community interactions keeps you relevant. This way you’ll be able to strike the balance between scheduled and real-time content, so you can stay agile in the fast-moving digital landscape.

Keep Going….Success Doesn’t Happen Overnight

Building a solid foundation for content marketing takes time and consistency. You need to commit for the long term, be disciplined and patience will pay off.

Carve some time out in 2024 and start following my framework: Analyse – Brainstorm – Plan – Schedule. Analysing performance, adopting a content mindset, and using tools like my Ultimate Annual Content Planner are crucial for creating quality and engaging content. You’ll save time save, grown your audiences and boost sales form social media, emails and blogs.

DOWNLOAD Ultimate Content Planner Here