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Are you feeling overwhelmed and like you don't have enough time in the day? Do you feel pressure to always be coming up with the best content to stay competitive in your industry or niche? Don't worry, you're not alone.
Content marketing
Life on the social media content creation hamster wheel can be exhausting! Creating mountains of daily content for your business is a full-time job in itself.
The process of content creation, especially content that converts, can be a laborious headache, especially when you have customers and clients to service, and other jobs to do, outside of that task. Content creation is rapidly becoming one of the most time-consuming elements of an online entrepreneurs' day.
In this blog post, I will share 5 tips that will help you create more content, and get it showing up regularly in front of your target audience, in less time. With the right content creation strategy, you'll be turning out tonnes of successful content in no time.
1. Plan Ahead
The first tip is to plan and schedule your digital marketing. This means creating a content calendar that reflects your content strategy and scheduling your posts in advance. Planning will help you save time because you won't have to sit down and think about what content to create every day. I do mine every Sunday evening.
I find it helps sometimes to have a theme each week and to create content around these, geared towards the relevant audience. I then create any written posts or Canva posts that need to be done and schedule them for release throughout the week. There are a multitude of different content scheduling platforms to choose from but my personal favourite is Metricool, because it has an AI post writing feature, a stock photos and videos bank, UTM tracking code creator, and it creates monthly progress reports for my clients. But for an individual business then the built-in content scheduler that comes in Canva Pro is perfect as it allows you to schedule content seamlessly, directly from your Canva designs which streamlines the process.
2. Batch Create
The second tip is to batch-create your content. Batching means creating multiple pieces of content of the same type in one go. For example.... on Monday I create multiple Instagram Reels for my Instagram and TikTok and save them all into my drafts.
This means I make several videos in one go but only have to set up lighting, do my make-up, etc... once, instead of 5-7 times a week to produce a week's worth of videos. I can then release a single video, from drafts, every day for the rest of the week, without having to work too hard.
TOP TIP: If you are coach, service provider, influencer, network marketer, or any other business where YOU are the brand.... create a bank of photos of yourself that you can use. Whenever you are feeling good - take a bunch of photos of yourself and save them in your Selfie folder on your phone. This gives you a bank of photos that you can use in your content, on those days where you're not feeling "insta-ready"!
Blog posts are another time-consuming task so, on a Tuesday, I will often produce 2 or 3 blog posts on the same day and optimize them all for SEO. I just schedule several hours in my diary on a Tuesday to get this done.
On a Wednesday I will take the blog post and share it to Pinterest so I need to hop onto Canva to make an attractive Pinterest pin. Whilst in Canva I may also turn the content into an attractive IG carousel graphic. And, maybe, batch produce some other Canva graphics that are needed for the rest of the week.
You get the gist. Try and produce multiple pieces of content of the same type on the same day. You'll stay in the right zone mentally and save yourself valuable time and headaches!
3. Repurpose Content
Repurposing your existing content can save you a lot of brain-ache in trying to come up with new ideas every day for content across all platforms.
This is where the weekly theme comes in REALLY handy.
Let's take this week's theme as an example - one of my themes this week is getting more content made in a shorter space of time. So this week I will focus on creating content that fits that theme.
Yesterday I went live on my Instagram, my YouTube channel, my LinkedIn and, my Facebook Page talking about this subject and covering these same 5 points that are in this blog post. (HINT: You can go live on multiple platforms at the same time using a streaming service such as Restream. Click HERE for a $10 discount voucher or Streamyard).
Today I have taken those same 5 points and created a blog post which will also get repurposed into an email out to my list and a Pinterest pin which drives traffic from Pinterest back to my website. l could also upload the text to an autocue app like Teleprompter and use it to record a YouTube video (I won't this time as I already streamed live onto my YouTube yesterday). But I could.
I could also break these 5 points down into an engaging IG Carousel or "hints and tips" style IG Reel.
All my short-form videos, that get produced in Instagram Reels, then get shared out across multiple video platforms such as TikTok, Facebook Reels, and YouTube shorts. It doesn't matter that it's the same video as each platform has a different set of users.
And then I may well repurpose this content in a year or two's time, with tweaks to bring it up to date.
Do you see where I'm going? The key is to come up with creative ways to re-use the same content over and over. It's is a massive time saver.
4. Use Tech to help you
Those who know me know I LOVE a bit of tech help. The technology available to us these days, at a relatively low cost, is SO unbelievably powerful! You must leverage this tech to your advantage.
Unless you've been living under a rock, you will have heard of a plethora of AI solutions, such as ChatGPT, all designed to make our lives easier. One of my favorite bits of tech for content creation at the moment is a program called Jasper AI. Jasper uses artificial intelligence to write high-quality content for you at the touch of a button. Simply tell it what you want it to say and it will write great content for you in minutes. Unlike ChatGPT, Jasper is chargeable (and actually uses ChatGPT for it's source content). However I find that Jasper is just that little bit better at writing marketing content. Another good one to check out is Anyword.
If you're struggling to come up with ideas, or even if you just don't like writing, Jasper AI is an amazing option that can help you get high-quality content created quickly and easily. Whether it's a selection of hooks, a marketing blog post, article, social media post, Ad copy, a lead magnet, or an entire e-book, Jasper knows what to write!
It will also tailor its writing to whatever tone of voice suits your audience or industry. It's a huge time saver.
Jasper takes around 60 seconds to create an engaging social media post complete with hashtags, emojis, and even GIFs. You can also use it to help you come up with content ideas. And the best part is.... the basic plan is FREE!
And yes, I confess, Jasper HELPED me write this article - BUT I only ever use AI as a starting off point to build the framework. You will always need to check, tweak and edit anything written by AI as it can be notoriously innacurate!
Another great tool for quick content creation is the Canva Pro Bulk Create Tool. Using bulk create allows you to create a tonne of graphic quote images in one hit, by uploading the text in a CSV file (tip: ask Jasper to write a list of quotes for you). Canva will then populate a quote template with all the different quotes which gives you a tonne of handy "gap-filler" content ready to go!
Outsource
The final tip I want to share with you is to outsource anything that...
You can get done for less than your own hourly rate of pay.
It doesn't require YOUR skill/knowledge to get it done.
OR someone else can do it WAY better than you....
...then OUTSOURCE IT! For example... I have a lovely lady who regularly comes to my home, and cleans it from top to bottom! (She's a god send! Honestly, I'd be lost without her!). This frees up valuable time for me to create more content or work on my business.
Another example I have is book-keeping... I am NOT a book-keeper. In fact anything to do with accounts blows my tiny mind 🤯 and I tend to steer well clear. My book-keeper is incredible and she can do a much better job than I can in a much shorter space of time. So I hand it all over to her.
I also have a wonderful VA who takes on a lot of the Canva graphics and edits, does hashtag research and schedules in posts for me. This allows me to work with more clients simultaneously. I also use Fiverr freelancers for odd jobs that need doing such as setting up a chatbot or creating a batch of Carousels for IG.
A lot of the content I create, such as going live or making videos requires ME (or, at least, my online persona) to carry out that task. Nobody else can show up and be me for me. I have to do that part myself. But everything else can be outsourced.
In the hours I save from not cleaning my house, I can make A LOT of content (which converts to new clients and sales) which is more profitable to me than if I'd spent those hours cleaning.
I also have my groceries delivered each week. It costs me £6 a month for a delivery subscription from Asda that allows me to have as many deliveries per month as I like.
It's a LOT quicker for me to place a quick, online food order from my phone, than it is to drive to the supermarket and spend time walking around the store, finding what I need, queuing to pay, and then driving home again! (Plus, it saves me money because I don't buy things that aren't on my list - which covers the monthly delivery subscription charge). Stop wasting your time cleaning, shopping and doing admin tasks - this is valuable time that could be spent ON your business (or, gasp 😱, have some actual spare time to spend however you like!) Know when to OUTSOURCE!
I know this can sound scary, especially if you're in the growth phase of your business and money is tight. But how much EXTRA could you earn if you devoted those hours each week, to building your business? What other time-draining activities can you outsource? Ironing? Gardening? Decorating? Cleaning the car? Get rid of it all and focus on your INCOME PRODUCING activities that help you grow your business. NOTE: (I'm still waiting for somebody to invent a way for me to outsource exercise!)
In Summary
To be as efficient AND effective as possible with your content creation for your online business, the best strategy is to...
Plan Ahead - use themes to tie everything together and then schedule to release on each platform you use.
Batch create - have set days for different types of content.
Repurpose content - be creative and come up with as many ways as possible to re-use your existing work.
Use Tech to help you - investing in an AI content writer such as Jasper is WELL worth the money in terms of the extra time it creates.
Outsource - If it can be done by someone else and doesn't need your face or your voice or your brain.... find the person who can do it and outsource it!
I hope you've found these tips helpful. Adopt these regular habits and success is inevitable.
I'm always happy to help business owners navigate the world of social media and digital marketing. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me on social media or send me a message. :)
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