Putting out good content is essential to growing your business. But what is good content? Is it just throwing together a post to share every day on social media? Is it adding in a motivational quote? Is it only posting when you have something inspiring to say? Actually it’s quite the opposite. Good content is content that resonates with and speaks to your ideal client. It’s showing up consistently with content that helps bring value to your audience as well as helps to build that know, like and trust factor I talked about here. The three pillars I like to focus my clients around when creating and sharing content are: value, proof (testimonials), promotion (of your products or services). A mix of these three things will help you to attract and convert your ideal client.
Now that you know what makes up good content, the hardest part can be actually writing it. It can feel overwhelming or time consuming to come up with new, fresh content every week right? One of the first things I help my clients with when we start working together is helping them create a content strategy that makes sense for them and their business.
Here are four tips to make content creation easier and save you hours each week:
Identify your content buckets
I call them content buckets, but if you want to be more formal, you could also say content pillars. What are the things you want to talk about in your content and how can we organize all of those things into overarching topics? For instance, a few of my buckets include “organization and strategy”, “tools and systems”, “marketing strategy”, etc. That way everything I write about goes into one of these buckets. When I talk about tools like Asana or Acuity or Active campaign - that goes in the tools and systems bucket. This blog post would fit into either organization and strategy or marketing strategy. This helps you to make sure that the content you’re creating is on brand.
Don’t recreate the wheel
Repurpose your content. If you’re writing blog posts, pull your content from your blog to share on social. I try to structure my blogs so I can give easy tips that are pulled apart as one off posts. Some people love to read blogs, others would prefer to take in bite sized pieces of information. Breaking down your blogs into social posts helps to give you an abundance of content as well as not having to re-write what you already shared.
Reuse your promo posts
Since you’re sprinkling in promotional posts about the products or services you offer, you can reuse the same posts time and time again. I have consistent posts I use to book discovery calls with me, talk about my 1:1 services, 4 hour intensives, free strategy workbook, etc. These grow as my services grow and I don’t always promote the same things each week, but that’s why I don’t have to recreate new promos each week. Write out a handful and cycle them in and out of your content. Plus, the other thing to remember is this. For one, only like 5% of your followers actually see any given post, so the likelihood of them seeing all of your promo posts is slim. Two, repetition is important. People may need to see something 3-5 times before they choose to purchase, or work with you. We’re often distracted when we’re on social media so maybe reading your post that time resonated with them differently than the time before that. Or maybe they weren’t ready then and now they are. Don’t be afraid to reuse that great copy you’re already using on your website either and turn that into a promotional post for your services.
Plan ahead of time
Take some time to sit down and think about the topics your target market wants you to talk about. What can you help them with? What problems are you solving for them? Create a list of blog topics and then plan them out ahead of time. That way you already know what you’re writing about each week and you can jot down ideas in the notes section of your phone, or on a piece of paper to inspire you for that next post. This will make it seem less overwhelming or stressful when it comes time to write it.
If this still seems overwhelming to you, you can always outsource your content writing to someone else. I don’t always love to write my content, but I do it because I want my stories, ideas and tone of voice to shine through. Is it something I’ll do forever, I’m not sure, but I feel it’s important as my business is still growing that I’m the one that’s writing my content. If you do have someone else write it, I encourage you to find someone who can write in your tone of voice. I also encourage you to write bullet points or a rough draft of your content that maybe someone else can finesse. Remember people are hiring YOU, so you want to make sure that the content you’re putting out there represents you in terms of who you are, what you do and how you serve and bring value to your clients.
Do you find content creation to be a struggle in your business? Or, what tips can you share to help make this process easier?
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Katelyn Hamilton is an Online Business Manager and Get Your Sh!t Together Strategist. She helps busy entrepreneurs organize, strategize and prioritize their business to go from overwhelmed to out-in-front.
After spending 6 years in the corporate world working with multimillion dollar companies, top-rated chefs and celebrities, she launched her own business to find more flexibility and freedom. She matched her corporate salary in just one year of starting her business.
Katelyn is also a soon-to-be wife, stepmom, dog mama of two furry friends, fitness lover, sports fanatic (Go Dawgs) and dreams of living at the beach.
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