One of the best way to serve your audience, connect with them, keep them coming back for more, and make them want to buy from you is to consistently put out quality content online. But sometimes the pressure to post can be so overwhelming. Today I’m sharing with you my best tips for how to create consistent content online without increasing your stress!
How to Create Consistent Content Online
When it comes to creating content, I hear a lot of objections from people as to why they don’t do it. And I get it! I’ve been there, done that, got the tshirt! My goal is to make things easier for you and help you see how to remove the roadblocks in your way from doing what you were meant to do. So I’m first going to share with you the three biggest objections I get when it comes to creating content and how to overcome them.
Why don’t you post content consistently online?
There are 3 big objections that I hear from people most commently.
- I don’t have anything to share (or I don’t know what to share)
- I am not good at writing (or talking on video)
- There isn’t enough time for me to post content consistently
Let’s take each objection one at a time!
How to Brainstorm What to Share to Your Audience
Sharing Content on Social Media
First, let’s talk about social media posts. This can be Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest (though Pinterest isn’t social media; it’s a search engine!), whatever. I have had so many people say to me that they don’t have anything to share! This is usually because they are either new to business, it’s their slow season, or they are a service-based business so they don’t have photos of a product to share.
Creating consistent social media content when you’re new to business
There are so many ways to create consistent content even when you’re new to business! You can get involved in a styled shoot if you’re in the wedding industry. You can have a branding session and share photos of you mixed with stock images. You can also do free sessions or just create whatever your product is and post images of that!
The best piece of advice I have for anyone new to business is to practice! Make shoots happen if you’re a photographer; do your friends makeup and take photos if you’re a makeup artist; paint or design or make things if you’re an artist. The sky is the limit! And when you’re new to business, the best thing is that you have the FREEDOM to create exactly what you want to create. This can in turn help you secure your ideal clients!
Creating consistent social media content when it’s slow season
When it’s slow season, you can TOTALLY share old content on your social media page. NO ONE CARES! Honestly. If someone posts something on their IG feed, I don’t care if it’s from yesterday or from 3 years ago! As long as I want to see it and it’s relevant to me then I don’t care when it was created. So feel free to pull out your old work and intersperse it with more recent work or the same things that I mentioned above for new businesses. You can even add quotes or text-based images too!
Creating consistent content when you’re a service-based business
If you don’t have portfolio images (like a photographer or an artist) or images of an actual product to share on social media, that’s okay too! You can still create loads of content online. Hire a branding photographer to take photos of you, your office space, you working with a client, or anything like that! Branding photographers are seriously geniuses and can help you get TONS of content! You can also share quotes, text-based images, or stock images.
A word about stories
When it comes to stories, the approach is much different! People expect stories to be more personal in nature. So for stories, just share with your audience what you’re doing that day! One social media guru I know made it simple. She says just “show us what you’re doing in the morning, in the afternoon, and in the evening.” Easy, right?! And even if you feel like “your life is boring” honestly, so is everyone else’s hahaha. If they follow you on Instagram, they want to connect with you and get to know the real you! You can also build engagement by using polls, quizzes, and question stickers.
Sharing Content on Blog Posts
When it comes to blog posts, I hear two main objections. First, people think that blog posts are only for their portfolio work, so when it’s slow season or they don’t have much going on, they don’t post. It’s time to stop thinking of your blog as just a place for your portfolio work!
Your blog is, more than anything, a place to reach potential clients via search results. So you want to be posting about things your clients are interested in. Try to get inside their heads and write posts that are either questions they will be asking or things they will be typing in to Google to find people like you.
- What questions are your clients asking you?
- What questions are your clients asking about other parts of the process?
- What kinds of things are your clients searching?
- What kinds of things do you know how to do?
- What do other people in your field ask you?
Brainstorm a list; I guarantee you it will be really long. Don’t hold anything back!
Some people recommend breaking things down into categories to give consistency and regularity. If that helps you, go for it! Try to come up with 3-5 categories that you want to talk about on your blog and brainstorm topics you can post in that category.
For more help with search engine optimization specifically, check out my free mini training on Blogging for SEO
How to Overcome Writers Block to Put Out Consistent Content
- Type as if you were talking to a friend
- Film a video and write out the gist of it
- Record a voice memo
- Just start! It doesn’t have to be perfect.
- Also, it doesn’t have to be long! Blog posts just need to be at least 300 words, captions don’t have to be long at all.
- Use captions as a place for people to get to know you
How to Create Content Quickly
Work in Batches
Once you have your list of topics you’ve brainstormed, it should be MUCH easier to create consistent content. But one way to make things happen quickly is to work in batches. Instead of stressing out about having to post something new every single week, you can actually plan a time to work on multiple IG posts, blog posts, or podcast episodes, etc. at a time. For more specific help on batch work, check out my blog post on Batch Work.
Utilize a Scheduler
Guess what. You don’t have to be on Instagram 3 days a week to post 3 days a week. You can use a scheduling app like Later.com to schedule multiple instagram posts at once! You don’t have to get sucked into the scroll vortex, I promise! And guess what, you don’t even have to post blog posts once a week either! Every single blogging platform should have the option for you to schedule your content for a later date. So if you are working in batches and writing in batches, you can schedule multiple posts at once.
Use Templates for Your Graphics
One of the thigns that used to take me so much time was creating graphics. But then I discovered Canva! Canva makes things SO easy. And the best part? I can create TEMPLATES in canva so that I don’t have to spend a ton of time designing a new graphic each time. I have templates for my cover images for my blog posts and for my pinterest pins as well. Also, all the pins from this post were created using Tailwind Create, and it was seriously a breeze because they auto-create pins for you. All I have to do each time I want to make a new graphic is swap out the photo and the title text! And every now and then I batch upload new images or stock images to choose from.
Repurpose Content
The absolute best way to save time is to repurpose content. You absolutely do not have to come up with completely unique content for Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, your blog, your podcast, or videos you make. That’s just crazy, and nobody has time for that! Also, your audience is most likely no following you on every single platform. You’ll have different people connecting with you on differnt platforms, so share the same content!
I recommend connecting with your audience with one new piece of content per week and repurposing that across multiple platforms. This doesn’t mean that you’re sharing the exact same content in the exact same way on every single platform. Not at all! You can showcase the content in different ways for each platform but you can make the meat & potatoes the same so you don’t really have to do any extra work.
Let’s take this episode as an example!
Here was my process for this episode:
- Create Cover Image
- Create FB Live event in my Facebook Group & use cover image
- Outline & organize content – this also becomes my speaking notes for my podcast/FB live
- Write blog post – this becomes the show notes for my podcast
- Create pinterest images either via Canva templates or Tailwind Create
- Go Live
- Save audio
- Upload audio to Anchor (my podcast host)
- Link to blog post in show notes
- Embed podcast audio to blog post
- Add pinterest images to blog post
- Publish blog post
- Pin all images to Pinterest via Tailwind
- Share one Pin to Facebook
I am not on Instagram these days, but one thing you can also do is take your blog post content and share it on Instagram! If you have 3 steps or 5 steps to something, you could make an instagram post for each step and share that as one post and the next step the next day or a couple days later! And since you’re using a scheduler like Later, this is all done at the same time that you would schedule your other content. It really doesn’t take any more time!
