In this episode, what I’m going to be talking about is how I go about my content creation and create HEAPS of content for my business… and how YOU can do the same.
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If you add up ALL of the content that I create in my business every single month, there is quite a lot.
I TOTALLY get it!
I do:
- A podcast episode every week
- A newsletter that goes to my list
- Three posts on my Facebook Page a day
- Facebook Lives (usually most days of the week)
- Posts into several Facebook Groups every single day
Plus, things like course content, creating webinars, my masterclasses… The list goes on.
A lot of people wonder how on earth I create all of this stuff. Well actually, it’s a lot easier than you think.
I would say that for a lot of this, it has been a practice and a process of learning what works for me and what doesn’t. What my audience want, and what they don’t want from me. How to be really responsive and how to use stuff to the best of my ability. And how to repurpose.
A lot of this is refining over many years.
I started my business in 2013, so it’s not like this is my first year in business and I’m still not 100% sure on my message.
I’ve been refining and learning as I go for a long time now.
But, there are certain things that I’ve done from day one, and I think these are very relevant and applicable to you as well.
1. Create structure around your content
I’ve had “content pillars” in my business since 2014.
What that means is every time I sit down to do a content plan for my business, I look at: What are the pillars of my content going to be as I move forward?
I’m going to explain this in a little more depth for you.
For me, my content pillars are related to the different sub-niches that I serve in my business.
I work with people who are:
- In start-up
- Creating leverage with courses and programs
- Learning to be great at their own business strategy
- Looking to nudge past that 6-figure mark in their business
I have offers that help people in those four areas:
- Take Off for start-up
- Courses with Heart for leveraging and courses
- Heart-Centred Business Academy for helping people to get good at business strategy
- Rising Stars Mastermind and 1:1 for people looking to nudge past 6 figures and beyond
I know that I need to make sure that my content is speaking to that specific audience during the lead-up and launch of that particular offer, so I try and stick to those content pillars as much as possible.
I also have a fifth content pillar which is more the personal, behind-the-scenes, insights and the things that I get ranty about in my business.
Whenever I’m doing my content planning, I’m making sure that I relate that content back to one of those pillars and in particular, the most appropriate pillar for the thing that I’m in the launch of at that particular point in time.
For you, you might just have ONE sub-niche. When you’re in start-up, you’re usually a lot more focused on one niche in your business so you might just have one area that you’re focused on.
But you can still break it down into pillars.
For example, if you work in the health and well-being space and you’ve got a particular focus on women and gut health, you can actually have different content pillars as well.
You might have one content pillar that’s information on the importance of supporting gut health. Every now and then, you’re doing blogs, videos or Facebook Lives on WHY it’s important to nurture your gut health.
You might also have a content pillar that is your HOW-TO. You’re consistently sharing how to support your gut health with your diet, how to support your gut health through meditation, and 5 unexpected ways to support your gut health.
(I’m totally just making this up.)
But that content pillar is the HOW-TO, practical things.
Then you might have a content pillar on CASE STUDIES and EXAMPLES. You do different blog posts where you talk about case studies of clients that you have worked with. Or examples of specific things that people have had issues with and the way that you’ve supported people to achieve the outcomes that they’re looking for.
Then you might have another content pillar that’s about BEYOND gut health.
It might be all the different things that gut health contributes to that people might not even think that their gut health contributes to.
Can you see how with those content pillars, it’s now a lot easier for you to brainstorm what goes on underneath each and every one of those areas?
If you can come up with 3 ideas under each content pillar, all of a sudden, you’ve got 12 blog posts mapped out for your next 12 weeks, and you’re 3 months in advance knowing exactly what’s going on with your content.
Once you’ve got it planned, it is so much easier for you to create it.
If you’ve ever sat down to record vlogs with no idea about what you’re recording, you’ll know how much longer it takes to get it all sorted because you’re doing it all from the top of your head and in the moment rather than being planned out about it.
The other way you need to make sure you’re clear on the structure of your content is to also start thinking about the call-to-action at the end of those blogs, in particular.
You’ll notice when you’re listening to my podcast that every episode has a free thing attached to it.
I’m getting people to take that next step with me – jump on my mailing list if they’re not already on there, get a bit of extra insight from me, learn a little bit further so that we can continue growing our relationship together.
For each pillar, you might like to come up with a content upgrade to a great piece of content or freebie or an opt-in so when you’re sharing a blog post that’s about that particular content pillar, you’re also sharing the freebie that goes with it.
A lot of people ask me, “What the point? Most of the people who listen to your blog are already on your mailing list.”
Yes! But it’s getting people to take another action.
It’s getting people to continue that conversation and that relationship with you.
If you distribute your content really well, then more and more people that come and find those blog posts won’t already be on your mailing list.
You’ll be making sure that they are if they happened to be one of those people.
Put together some structure. Give yourself a good plan for what you’re doing with your content.
That can be the basis from which all other content creation branches off.
Content sticky notes for content creation scaling and growth
2. Create structure around your process
Being consistent is always better than being inconsistent.
Being consistent and imperfect is better than being inconsistent and getting it perfect.
Create some structure around your process – particularly your process of creating and your process of distributing.
I also have some structure in the way I collect ideas.
I have structure in the way I create my content, and in the way that I distribute it.
In the Academy, I’ve actually been teaching people how to start automating and outsourcing from the distributing end.
A lot of people really struggle with outsourcing their content stuff because they think it means they have to outsource the content creation. But there’s a lot of other stuff that can be outsourced around that that makes the structure of your process a lot easier.
To give you an idea of how I do this, I have a content creation bible.
Whenever I’m in a client session, on Facebook, working on my business or when I’m on an Academy call and I get a great idea for a piece of content, I put it at the top of the page in my content creation book.
I have this go-to bible of content ideas.
I’m collecting those ideas in a really structured way.
With the creation of my content, I have a content plan that I share with my team.
I try and batch the way that I record my podcast episodes. I’ll do a good chunk of them at a time.
The better I get at this, the more that I can do in one chunk at a time, but I’m always at least a few weeks ahead of my team in that content creation.
I also have some structure in the way that I create Facebook Lives.
I have some structure around the way that I post on Facebook.
That makes it a lot easier for me.
Have a think about whether you can structure your content creation.
Then there’s structure around distribution.
This blog post/podcast, when it goes live, will be scheduled up to be distributed in a number of different ways:
1. Onto my YouTube channel and onto my website
2. Into my newsletter and sent out to my mailing list
3. Scheduled up to be posted on my Facebook Page the day that it goes live, 3 days after that, 8 days after, 2 weeks after, 1 month after and then 2 months after
It goes to my Facebook Page 6 times – scheduled up straight away so I don’t have to think about it. But I know that it’s going to be shared consistently on my Page for the next few months.
Then my team schedules it to be shared twice into the Heart-Centred Facebook Group – once when it’s due to go live and then again about a month later saying, “Did you catch this podcast episode? Here’s why you should go and watch it.”
It’s also being redistributed to my Facebook Group.
You can see I’ve got structure around the way that I distribute that content.
The reason being is that if I’m going to go to all the effort of doing this amazing content creation, then for goodness sake, I’m going to make sure that I distribute it effectively and make sure that as many people see it as possible.
Now, if you are just starting out with your business and you’re nowhere near having that level of complexity to the way that you create and distribute your content, do not get overwhelmed by this.
Just know that the more than you can (1) structure your content and (2) structure the process through which you collect information, create content and distribute content, the more that you create structure as you move forward, the better you’re setting yourself up for success.
Maybe, for now, you just want to create a simple structure and you’ll create a little more of that complexity and maturity of model once you’re clear that your messaging is right.
Just start by creating a little bit more structure for now.
3. Pay attention
I never create podcast episodes based on my ideas alone.
They come from:
- Questions people are asking me
- Things that I’m talking to people about in 1:1 sessions or on my group coaching calls
- Hot topics of conversation that I see over in the #ladyposse
- Things that I’ve talked about in a Facebook Live that have got a heap of traction
Sometimes it’s unexpected. I’m like, “Wow! This is clearly something people want to hear about. I’m going to make a podcast episode about it.”
Pay attention. Your audience is already out there asking the questions that you can answer with your gorgeous content.
Test them out with Facebook Lives first.
Test them out as #geniustips in the Heart-centred Facebook Group first.
Make sure that it’s actually something that’s juicy for people, and then create some delicious content to go with it.
I’ll always do #geniustips in the Heart-centred group every week without fail because it’s a great way for me to test whether my tips are the types of thing that people want to learn from me.
And if so, I can go into more depth when I share it as a podcast episode.
Be consistently paying attention to what your audience is saying and create content in response to that.
4. Respond to your tribe
“Oh, I just go and see what my competitors are talking about and I do similar stuff with that.”
Well, yeah, you can do that if you want to look like your competitors and try to steal people away from them.
But often, that’s not your exact target market – your tribe.
You know who they are.
Get out there and ask questions of them.
“If I were to share one of these four things with you, what would you want me to share?”
Ask those sorts of questions on your Facebook Page and in your own group where you know your exact target market hang out.
If you’re in bigger organisations or bigger communities like in the Heart-centred Group, maybe you could say, “If I were to answer one burning question for you about your gut health (for example), what would that burning question be?”
There are some really smart and savvy ways that you can get in touch with your exact ideal audience, ask them some questions and then be responsive to what they need.
And a quick word of advice if you do use big communities as a way to gather information and market research, is to make sure that you qualify the audience when you’re asking those questions.
For example, when you’re working mostly with healers, say, “ATTENTION HEALERS – Here’s my question…”
Ask a question of your sub-niche.
Those are my 4 pieces of advice for you on content creation, and how to create HEAPS AND HEAPS of content for your business.
An extra bonus tip: Let go of perfectionism.
I think in the first 6 months in my business, I might have created 6-7 video blogs.
It took me forever to create them!
I had to do all this massive editing, I tried to find the perfect background, and I was doing my hair and makeup perfectly.
Then I decided to do it out on my deck because it was in nature and that matched my videos.
Honestly, it took me forever to create great content because I was trying to get it perfect.
Instead, just create lots of it.
It’s all a practice and if you go to the trouble of creating it, remember to distribute it far and wide.
If you have any other insights and “aha’s” from this episode, make sure that you use #podcastaha when talking about it in the Heart-Centred Soul Driven Entrepreneurs group, and I always love seeing any questions or aha that come up from each episode.
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
