Hands up if you're feeling overwhelmed and stuck?
You don't post on social media as often as you want to
Some of your social media feeds look neglected
You don't email your subscribers regularly
The thought of content marketing and content planning makes you feel overwhelmed
You don't have time to create content
If this sounds familiar, I've got a content planning method to help make life simpler and get the absolute most benefit out of the time ane effort you put in!
The content funnel
Look at your content marketing as a funnel, with a blog post being fed into the top of the funnel. You'll repurpose the blog post, and use it as inspiration, for content in your email and social media channels.
Why every business needs a blog
Does every business need a blog in 2020? Maybe not every single business, but most do! Blogs still have amazing SEO value because they are packed with relevant keywords, especially for the more obscure 'longtail keywords' or unusual Google searches. So, your blog will make your website easier to find, which is a massive plus!
But more importantly, you're telling your audience what you do, showing that you can be trusted, letting them get to know your business and building a relationship with them. Your blog will also bring people to your website who can opt-in to your email list or be remarketed to with Facebook ads.
If you're a service provider then a blog is usually a no-brainer, but what about product-based businesses, should they blog? It depends... it's not always appropriate. But if you can use your blog to show your passion for your product niche and help your customers solve their problems then yes, you should do it.
Help, I have no idea what to blog about!
When you sit down to plan blog content, ask yourself, "is this interesting, or entertaining, or encouraging and why should anyone spend 5 minutes of their time reading this?" Your blog is not the place for boring company news updates or giving people the hard sell. Brainstorm 20 blog topics loosely related to your niche and keep a note of them, then a few days later come back and edit that down to keep the very best ones. Keep notes on your phone any time inspiration strikes you of a potential blog topic.
Top tip: Hate writing? Outsource it! You can even just outsource the research and basic writing, then do the polishing up yourself.
How often should I blog & send emails?
Your content schedule should be sustainable to you and reflect what you can realistically maintain, but at least monthly. In my opinion showing up consistently but not that frequently is better than staying stuck and doing nothing! Blogging once a month is fine if that's what you can commit to.
Your blog post becomes your email topic
The topic of your email can be based on your latest blog, just give it a snappy and intriguing subject line to encourage people to open the email. Maybe include an excerpt of the blog post to get people interested and then send them over to your website to read more. Besides your latest blog post you can also include some social media highlights that they may have missed and if you've been blogging for a while, you can re-share some old favourites if they're still relevant.
Your blog post becomes your social media content
Your finished blog post can feed your social media in two different ways:
You can share it more than once per channel (and you should do this, sharing it once on Facebook is not enough and doesn't justify all that effort you went to!)
You can take excerpts and topics to inspire your posts.
You can do this all in one hit using scheduling apps, and schedule the shares and mentions out over a few weeks or months so that you're not boring people with the same topic all the time.
Top tip: Use Canva Pro to easily re-size your blog images to be the correct sizes for different social media uses
On Instagram
Use Linktree so that you can easily link to multiple URL's in your Instagram bio, including your latest blog post.
Cut out excerpts and use them to inspire Instagram captions, some will direct readers to your blog (if you have less than 10K Instagram followers you will need to send people to the link in your bio).
Not every Instagram post inspired by your blog should be directing followers to your blog.
Use images from your blog post, stock photos or your own photos to suit the caption.
Can your blog post inspire some infographics or quotes to share on Instagram?
Talk about the themes in your blog on your stories.
On Facebook
Share your blog URL at least twice, with different intros.
Re-purpose your Instagram content to use on Facebook.
Ask a question or start a poll related to your blog post.
Share your blog post in relevant Facebook groups.
On LinkedIn
Share the blog post on your business page.
Share the blog post on your personal page with a different caption.
If it's appropriate, share your Facebook posts to LinkedIn as well (use a scheduling app to do this all at the same time).
Re-share your "evergreen" content
Is the blog post you've written going to be suitable to re-share in a few months or even years time? If the answer is yes then you can either go ahead and schedule re-shares now or make a diary note to check it in case it needs updates, and re-share it later.
Is this enough?
Honestly, no, you need some variety in your social media feeds, so besides your blog conent you should create a few social media posts on other topics (find ideas here!). If that feels overwhelming then I recommend you pick the one social media channel that your customers use most, and focus on that and not worry about the rest.
What do you think?
I really hope this was useful to you, I'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas in the comments. If you'd like to receive more tips like these, then please join my email list and I'll drop into your in-box monthly with some (I hope) useful inspiration to make content marketing easier for you.
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