Social media is a hungry beast. The need to keep churning out content can be overwhelming, and you invest so much into just one post, blog or video only to turn around and create fresh content tomorrow. What if you could turn 1 piece of content into 10? And plan an entire month’s socials in just 30 minutes? We got you.
The trick is turning your existing resources into a content machine. Whether you’re a solopreneur wearing allll the hats (marketer, videographer, photographer, copywriter) or you’ve got a small but mighty team, you can stop wasting time and money on content creation right now. Here’s how.
Here’s the secret – you need an integrated content strategy. Every single one of your channels plays a role in building out your brand, so play to your platforms’ strengths.
Rather than separating your video production from your social media scheduling, or your eDMs from your sales promos, you’ll package it all up together as one cohesive content machine. Cross-pollinate your creative, so your social assets get resized for eDM banners, and sales page copy turns into video talking points.
Now you’re doing less work, leveraging every single creative asset harder and improving the cohesiveness and consistency of your messaging across every customer touchpoint.
Follow this quick hack to integrate your content strategy:
1. Brain dump every single customer touchpoint in your business. Think big picture, from cold audiences to loyal fans. You might include: Organic socials. Paid socials. Youtube. Email. Blog. eCommerce website. Live Chat. Messenger. PR. Events. Point of sale. Shipping. Sales promotions. And more!
2. Assign each touchpoint a role: Facebook is great for awareness while blogs are perfect for educating your audience. Reviews provide credibility while Live Chat gives reassurance. Insta Stories for entertainment, Facebook Groups for connection – you get it.
3. Now think about how you could leverage every single one of those touchpoints across whatever content theme you’re rolling with. From seasonal sales to new product drops, you can create tailored messaging for your audience across each one of these platforms from just one content theme. No more wondering what to post, where!
Start with your anchor content – a video, a long format blog post, a podcast or an ebook. Let’s say it’s a video. Whether you’ve filmed it on your phone or produced it in a studio, when you’ve got audio and visuals together you’ve got a gold mine of potential content. Here’s how you’ll turn that 1 video into 10 audience-building pieces of branded content:
1. Upload the video to YouTube, Vimeo or your streaming platform of choice. TIP: Make sure you accompany your video with a kick-ass description, including keywords for SEO, links to your other socials to build followers on other platforms and time-stamped content prompts so viewers can easily grab the best content in seconds.
2. Take the audio and create a podcast episode. Share this EVERYWHERE. (Get tips on how to expand your podcast reach with this insider’s guide.)
3. Grab key snippets or takeaways from the video and create quote graphics for social media. TIP: Expand on the snippet in your caption and link back to the video or podcast so your followers can take a deep dive into your subject.
4. Create a blog post from the script of your video. Embed the video thumbnail so web visitors can watch rather than read. (And don’t forget to add closed captions to your video, so your audience can consume with sound off.) Include a link to the podcast so they can listen on the run. TIP: Promote your new blog post on your socials, either as the link in bio, or add a link tool like Linktree, Linkin.bio or Smart.bio.
5. Create an infographic of key points from your video and publish a separate blog post that’s solely about this one element. Share it on your socials as a free resource. TIP: Send your infographic to potential partners/publishers or complementary businesses to share with their audience. Fresh eyeballs for you, free content for them.
6. Expand on your topic with a downloadable guide or cheat sheet. TIP: Set up a data capture form to access the download – now you’ve just delivered a tonne of valuable content AND grown your email audience.
7. Include key bullet points from your video in your subscriber eDM. Don’t forget to link to the long format blog post, video and podcast from your eDM so you can point your email subscribers to all the other channels they can connect with you.
8. Create a sound snippet of the best quote in your video using an app like Waave and post to your socials so followers can listen as well as read.
9. Edit your video into 30 second grabs and run these as a series on Instagram and Facebook.
10. Take your best performing short videos and turn them into ads to generate even more leads
This strategy is not just for creating new content. Go back through your archives for great eDMs, best performing blog posts, social posts that got a heap of traction and apply the same strategy to these. You’ll gain fresh content from work you’ve already published. Now you’re really doing less, for more. Build your own content machine in 5 easy steps with our downloadable content machine worksheet.
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