3.5 Ways to Speed up Content Creating
By Siân Morgan-Owen, Digitally Dazzling
Disclaimer: This post may contain affiliate links for which I may make a small commission at no extra cost to you, if you make a purchase. I only recommend products I love.
3.5 Ways to Speed up Content Creating
There are two types of content creators.
Those with a natural flair, find it quite easy and enjoy creating content. Lucky them, but most of us fall into the second type.
The procrastinating content creator. You know it needs to be done, but you just can’t pin yourself down to get it done.
So, if you’re discouraged about writing your next blog, newsletter or social media post or you just have way too many ideas that you don’t know where to start, then keep reading, this blog is for you.
By getting strategic with your content creation, you’ll save time and energy, without compromising on quality.
1. Plan
I know it sounds simple but block out some time in your diary every month for content review, planning and creating. You could make it the same time every month.
Review
It’s important to review the metrics and identify what has worked well. You can use this information to guide your future content creation.
Plan
Think about what you want to promote, have you got an opt-in freebie that will help your clients, or maybe you’ve got a new service, course, book, membership coming out soon. Think about what questions your ideal client would ask.
For example:
I’ve recently launched an OBM (Online Business Manager) Service. My clients would ask:
What is an OBM?
What’s the difference between an OBM and a VA?
How can an OBM help me?
Once you’ve got your “main” topic use the questions your clients would ask to break that down into 4 or 5 sub-topics.
Then plan out your posts using a variety of pillars:
- Expert – posts that remind people you know your sh*t, not you’re sh*t.
- Pain Point – posts that tell your audience you understand their issue an you have the solution to fix it.
- Who? – posts about you, your life, behind the scenes. These posts build your know, like and trust factors.
- Sales – posts that promote what you’re offering that month.
Genie Tip: Organise your thoughts and ideas by using a project management tool like Trello, a simple spreadsheet or even post it notes.
2. Create & Repurpose
I’m all for keeping sh*t simple so let’s not try reinventing the wheel.
You can create all your content for all of your platforms in a really simple way.
Podcasts
Do you have a Podcast, YouTube Channel or do social media lives?
Then using an app like Otter transcribe your piece of media and repurpose it into a blog and your social media posts.
Genie Tip: If you start monthly planning in advance you could incorporate your podcast/lives into your content creation plan so you are talking about the same topic across all of your digital platforms and cross promoting your content. Also keeps your messaging consistent across your platforms.
Blogs & Newsletters
If you don’t have a podcast then create a blog.
People think blogs are dead, but they’re not, they are still very much alive and kicking. See my recent blog – Are there still benefits to blogging.
Don’t over think this. Write about what you know.
Think about what you do, what pain point you’re solving and what questions your audience will have.
Again, think of one main topic and break that down into 4/5 sub-topics.
Genie Tip: Create a podcast or a live from your blog.
Once you’ve created your blog and broken it down into sub-topics each sub-topic can then be repurposed into your weekly newsletter.
Social Media
Blogs are a great for your website SEO and tell Google you’re got an active website.
Newsletters nurture your audience and keep them warm (as in leads, nothing to do with the energy crisis).
You can then break your blog down further to create your social media.
- Break down your blog for captions.
- Pull out quotes, stats and tips to create reels and carousel posts.
Remember, you are the only person that see’s 100% of your content Repurpose previous posts that have performed well. Social media is that fast paced people won’t remember something you posted 3 months ago.
“Today’s news is tomorrow’s fish and chip papers”
For more top tips about repurposing content see my blog – Going zero content waste
Genie Tip: Create your own branded templates in Canva that you can reuse over and over again. This will give your social media a branded feel. If you’re not particularly creative then buy ‘done for you’ templates. All you have to do is change the colour to suit your brand and the wording to suit your industry message.
‘Done for you’ templates. Either purchase templates from my template shop and rebrand or get a selection of branded, industry relevant templates ready for you to reuse time and time again.
3. Automate
Once you’ve decided what you’re going to share and when (don’t look now, but you’ve just created a ‘content strategy’) it’s great to automate as much as you can.
- Podcasts – you can schedule your podcast via Buzzsprout
- Blogs – most websites have a scheduling option for blog posts
- Newsletters – Mailerlite is one of my favourite tools and I use this myself. You get so much on the free version and it’s super simple to give access to someone else when you’re ready to outsource. The metrics are also easy to understand.
- Social Media – There are lots of scheduling tools out there. Meta have Business Suite for Facebook and Instagram but my favourite that I recommend to those clients planning to schedule across more platforms is Publer. Again, really simple (I like simple) to use, you can have 3 platforms on the free version. You can batch create and then tweak for each platform before you schedule. You can also schedule to YouTube from Publer.
Genie Tip: No matter how amazing schedulers are I don’t recommend the ‘schedule and forget’ method. Use schedulers to keep your social media consistent. Schedule a few times a week and fill in the gaps with ad hoc “WHO” posts to show people the authentic you. Remember social media is about being social so make sure you response to comments and engage with your audience.
3.5 Give it to me!
If you put all the above in place then yes, your content creating should be easier and quicker, however unless you’ve got a magic wand it’s still going to take you time to research topics, write the main piece of content, break it down, create accompanying graphics etc.
Or you can outsource it to me.
This is what we can do for you:
- Podcast transcripts – you can send over your transcripts and we’ll formulate a blog from it.
- Blog writing – with a brief outline we will create an approx. 1000 word blog
We can also add and schedule this to your website (with a branded image).
- Newsletters – we can repurpose and schedule your blog into newsletters to nurture your email list.
- Social media scheduling – we can repurpose your historical content and new content into static, carousel, reel and story posts.
- Branded images – create a batch of branded templates for you to reuse with your social media
- Strategy – support you to build a strategy, figure out your eco-system and make a plan for you to implement.
- Email list building – set up a funnel so you can build an email list.
Final Thoughts
Getting motivated to create content is a challenge, but it’s an important part of building an online presence and engaging with your audience. If your dream clients can be found online, then creating content is not just a good idea, it’s essential for your business success.
- Schedule some time.
- Check the metrics.
- Plan it out.
- Repurpose as much as possible.
- Automate what you can.
Creating content is a process, and it takes time and effort to see results. Keep pushing yourself to be consistent, make it non-negotiable. Celebrate your successes along the way (and share it across your digital platforms).
With the right mindset and approach, you can create content that engages your dream clients and helps you achieve your business goals.
Build on these simple 3.5 ways to speed up creating content.
I would only recommend platforms I love and have used myself.
