Ok, let’s talk about the elephant in the room… creating content can feel as fun as that wicked hangover most people have the day after their 21st birthday. You know you need to do it but thinking about what to create, what platforms to put it on, and getting over the fear of looking stupid to your peers can make your brain hurt or make you want to quit before you even get started. I mean, making 1 or 2 things wouldn’t be hard but what happens when you run out of ideas, or life gets in the way and you can’t seem to find the time to produce quality content on a regular basis? (Trust me, I know how you feel. I two small kids that keep me busy on the weekends and during the week I feel like I might as well pitch a tent in the carpool line…)
Don’t worry, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel here… Here are five tips to help you embrace the suck and stay consistent with your content creation, even when things get busy. Then, after these 5 tips, I’ll break down MY actual process for creating content. BTW, if you like this process and use it for yourself…tag me in something you put out so I can go like it!
Tip #1 – Plan ahead.
One of the best ways to ensure consistency is to plan your content in advance. Dedicate a few hours each week (I do mine every Sunday night) to brainstorming article ideas, writing outlines, and looking at what’s trending on social media. This will help you stay ahead of the game and avoid those last-minute scrambles to come up with something new to post.
Tip #2 – Batch your work.
Once you have a stockpile of ideas, batch your work by creating several pieces of content instead of creating your daily content once per day. This will help you use your time more efficiently and produce higher-quality content overall. You’ll also find that you get into a creative groove and it’s a lot easier to knock out several pieces of content once you start instead of starting from scratch at irregular times throughout the week.
Plus, if you make extra stuff, it’s always helpful to have a few backup pieces of content on hand in case you find yourself in a bind and need something new to post STAT.
Tip #3 – Set a schedule—and stick to it.
Another way to help ensure consistency is to set a posting schedule—and make sure you stick to it. Whether you commit to posting once a week or once a day, setting (and sticking to) a schedule will help keep you accountable and make it more likely that you’ll actually hit publish on the regular.
Tip #4 – Take breaks.
It might seem counterintuitive, but taking breaks can actually help you be more productive overall. When you’re feeling overwhelmed or stressed out, take a few minutes (or even an hour) to step away from your work and clear your head. Once you’ve had a chance to relax, you’ll be better able to jump back in and focus on creating great content.
During those breaks, I personally like to look for trends on TikTok and Instagram Reels. I’ll typically scroll quickly through content for about 5-10 minutes, looking and listening for trends in content or repeated audio snippets being used in other people’s content. I’ll save those trending pieces of content to go back to and make notes to myself on what kind of content I can add to the trend if I want to.
Tip #5 – Take advantage of automation tools.
Finally, don’t be afraid to take advantage of automation tools that can help make your life easier—such as scheduling tools like Hootsuite or content creation tools like jasper.ai.
Automation tools like Hootsuite can give you a little more personal time back because they’ll allow you to schedule out the content you’ve already created. If you do this right, you can create and schedule all of your content for the month in the first week and have one less stress on your shoulders for the remainder of the month.
One thing to keep in mind however with scheduling tools like Hootsuite is that your posts won’t get the same traction as if they were posted natively through each app. This is one of those things you need to keep in mind and see if the time saved is worth the engagement loss to your business.
When I stopped using a scheduling tool and started posting everything natively through each app, I noticed about a 10-14% increase in engagement. My posts were also more likely to have bigger explosions in growth when done through the app. Scheduling posts through a 3rd party tool is definitely easer but I personally feel like my content was more consistent in engagement and reach, and also consistently lower in both of those categories.
Bonus: My Personal Content Strategy
Ok, ready for a simple strategy to follow? Yes, it works…how do I know?? Well, the way I see it…if I can do it… (a Dad with of two managing multiple marketing campaigns for multiple clients, who’s day is cut short by the endless school carpool drop-off and pickup times…seriously I have to leave every day by 2:30 to wait in line to get my kids…) If I can do it and make it work consistently, you can definitely do it..and probably better than I do!
Enough pretense, here’s how this works. If you want the full breakdown with an accompanying video walking you through it all, check out my post called Content Creation Made Easy.
Step #1 – One “Concept” per week.
The first step to simplifying your content creation is to stop worrying about what you’re going to post daily or a few days a week, and start thinking about each week as one “Theme” or “Concept”.
See, is’t that easy?! Now you only need 4 “themes” or “concepts” per month! 4 sure FEELS a lot easier than 30 doesn’t it?
Step #2 – For each week, decide on a topic that has to do with your business. For example, if I wanted to teach marketing, Week 1 could be about “Content Creation”, Week 2 could be about “Sales Funnels”, Week 3 could be about “How to run social ads”, and Week 4 could be about “How to write effective sales copy”.
Step #3 – Once you have the themes for each week, you can spend 30 minutes or so on google to see what’s already been written on different blogs about each theme. Gather some ideas for each, add your own notes, and make an outline for a blog post for each theme.
The blog post outlines you create for each theme should have at least 4-5 main points each.
Step #4 – Once you have your outlines for each theme, fill in the minor points with your thoughts on each and you’ll have 4 great looking blog posts in no time.
You see, making the blog posts, 1 for each week, is the hardest part of your content creation process. Once you have these, you’ll realize they can be converted into multiple pieces of content each! In fact, you can squeeze out 20 pieces of content for your brand or business out of each blog post you create!
Turning blogs into content gold
Video record yourself talking though the entire blog post. Once you’ve record going through the entire post and all it’s points, break it down like this for maximum usage:
1 Youtube Video – the main video gets posted to YouTube in its entirety
1 Podcast – Use the audio from your video as a podcast. Be sure to create specific intros and endings for your podcast. (Welcome to the ____ Show! In today’s podcast we’re going to talk about ___)
3+ Instagram Reels – You can record short form videos either on each of the bulleted sections of your blog post or make a summarized version of your long video and break it up in to 3 parts. This will also increase your views as people who find you by seeing one of the parts will want to go back and watch the others to get the full benefit of your content.
3+ TikToks – Same concept as the Instagram reels above.
3+ YouTube Shorts – Again, the same concept as the Instagram reels above.
1 Instagram Carousel post – turn each of your bullet points in your blog post outline into an image and use them in a carousel post.
1 Facebook Carousel post – Same as Instagram post above
1+ Tweet(s) – Sumarize the concept/theme into a tweet and link to your post. You can also do this with each of the outline points if you want.
4 Live Videos – Upload your main video (the long one) to livepigeon.com and publish them as “live” videos to Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Youtube. Yes…you can “go live” without actually being “live”… Or, if you want to be a bad ass, look at some of the comments you get from any of the above-mentioned pieces of content you post and actually go live at the end of the week to answer any questions or comments you’ve received.
2+ Stories – Once you’ve posted content from your theme on Facebook or Instagram, tag your post in a story to drive more traffic back to the content you’ve already created. Make this even more effective by posting polls or questions that have to do with your theme and THEN lead people to your content. (Example: story 1: Poll a question like “do you guys struggle with _____?”, Story 2: link to video you’ve created about ______ theme)
Creating quality content on a regular basis doesn’t have to be difficult—if you plan ahead, batch your work, set a schedule, and take advantage of automation tools, you’ll be well on your way to becoming a content creation machine! Just make sure you do your best to squeeze everything you can out of the content you’ve worked so hard to create. Breaking down big pieces of content into smaller, bite-sized pieces makes it easier for your audience to consume and digest. More importantly, it’ll maximize your time and allow you to dominate your industry without feeling completely overwhelmed all the time.
Got more questions? I’ve got you covered. Join me in our private Facebook group for entrepreneurs or hit me up on any of the social platforms I reside on. I look forward to hearing from you and helping in any way I can!
