One challenge that I hear a lot is that people don’t know what to post when it comes to content. One thing I want you to remember is that you are probably making it harder than it has to be. The key is to be consistent. You need to be showing up authentically and often. Create a system and a schedule that works for you, your business and your audience that you can stick to. Here’s how:
You are going to be sharing a mix of curated and created content. Curated content is other peoples’ content that is relevant and adds value to your audience. Created content is content that you create yourself.
The key to your success with content is going to be creating a plan. When you create a plan, 70% of the work is done. Creating a calendar and planning ahead will take so much stress off of you. Each month you are going to look at the month as a whole and map out the following things:
- National holidays: Christmas, New Years, Fourth of July. You’ll want to create social content around those and also be sure to post about any affects to your business. Are you closed? Different hours, does your office celebrate with a party, etc?
- Social media holidays: you’ve seen these. There is a day for EVERYTHING. Donut day, margarita day, dog day. You name it. Which of these are relevant to you? Personally or professionally? That is easy, low hanging fruit you can capitalize on. Take advantage of those hashtags and encourage engagement. There are so many lists out there that round up these “holidays”. Choose some that are right for your audience and brand and create content.
- Any cool or interesting that you are doing during the month? An event, a sale, a meeting or conference? Plug those in to remind yourself to post about them.
- Anything happening in your local community? You can share these events on your social pages (collaboration over competition). Post about when you attend them. When you do, don’t forget to tag the hosts, the chamber of commerce, etc. If your post is reshared by those accounts, you will be exposed to a bigger audience.
After you’ve plugged in the items above, you want to create posts that either add value to your audience or call them to action. Here’s how that works:
Adding Value
To add value, your content needs to do one of 4 things:
- Save someone time
- Save or make them money
- Teach something
- Add joy
Brainstorm all the different things you can share that do each of those 4 things. That way when you are planning and scheduling content you can come back to this list. And you can add to it when you get a new idea or create new content.
We have already talked about how to create calls to action that covert, but reference that for creating a list of strong calls to action that resonate with your audience.
Curated Content
After you map out what you can for the month, each week you will revisit your calendar and add anything that has come up or that you forgot. One thing to keep in mind is that you do not have to create new content every day for the rest of time. You can repurpose existing content, and also fill in gaps with curated content.
How to find curated content
When you are looking for third party content to share, keep a few things in mind:
- What is the source? Make sure you are sharing from trusted, reputable sources.
- Read the content you are sharing. Don’t just go off the title.
- Avoid click bait. Everything you share is a reflection on your brand, whether you wrote it or not.
- Make sure it adds value for your audience
Where to find it?
I use a site called Feedly to follow relevant websites and find content to share. Feedly compiles news feeds from a variety of online sources all in one place. You can create content categories and save articles for later. It is also a great place to find inspiration for blog articles and content to create.
Feedly’s platform automatically curates content to fill up your social media calendar. Instead of scrambling for news or relevant pieces to publish to your audience in-between your own posts, Feedly does the legwork for you.
Managing your social feeds shouldn’t eat up all of your free time. Tools like Feedly take the pressure off of marketers to constantly save and bookmark content for future sharing. Add a scheduling tool with a browser extension like Buffer, and you can schedule curated content to be published to your accounts at a later date.
If you are looking for ideas for what to post on social media, join the free social media content challenge. You’ll get a full month of social post ideas which will help you get in the habit of posting consistently.