How to make content creation easy

Alright guys, welcome.

Today we are going to talk about how to make content creation, easier in your business, and I think this is something that a lot of people struggle with. I see people talking about this all the time online and in Facebook groups and I see so many people trying to help business owners make content creation easier by outsourcing it to agencies like Sam DiNicola Digital. We can create all the social media content, all of your email marketing content all those things for you because it can feel so overwhelming.

There's so many platforms these days, where should you be where shouldn't you be and not only creating content but you have to engage all of these things, right, but for a lot of business owners when you're first starting out, you are going to be creating your own content, outsourcing is not going to be realistic for you for budget reasons and things like that. A lot of newer business owners or people who haven't outsource their content creation, really struggle. What am I supposed to post? What do I talk about?

I have a freebie all around content creation. We have a great content calendar that's available for, I think, $7 so I would definitely check that out. We have an entire course content to clients that is available on Sam DiNicola Digital Comm, right, but there's a few really easy tips that you can implement to make content creation feel a little bit easier, because it always feels hard for you, you're not going to be consistent at it, it's going to feel like a slog you're going to like, oh God I have to create content, you're going to put it off you're going to put it off, and what's going to happen is all of a sudden you haven't posted in a month. And with content, yes we want it to be quality content we want it to be good. We want it to be educational, entertaining, all those good things right, But there's still a certain level of consistency there, you still need to be showing up, right.

If you are really struggling to create any content, I think this is a couple of tips that are going to be really helpful. So the first thing that I would really recommend is a lot of us mindlessly consume content already, right, you're in bed at night and you're scrolling through Tik Tok you're scrolling through Instagram you're scrolling through Pinterest those are all content creation brainstorm opportunities. So what I would say is whatever platforms you find yourself, consuming content on the most, whether that is Instagram, Tik Tok, Pinterest, or email newsletters, whatever that is for you.

Come up with a system to save content that you consume that inspires you, that gets those wheel turn wheels turning and get into a habit of thinking about how could I create content like this, right. That's not to say we're copying anyone's content, but you can very much use the content that you are consuming as a jumping off point. Oh here's a tip top trend. It's funny you know whatever. Oh, I can really easily make a video using this tic tock trend for my business right and it could look like this, right, so get into a habit of when you're consuming content, look at it through that lens of how could I create content like this, that's relevant for my audience that's relevant for my customers, and then what you want to do is just create an easy way to save that content to come back to later, right, so in Instagram, I have a collection. If I see something that's like, oh my god this is like such a funny video or dance or whatever and I could really easily create some real, like this but you know for my business for my niche, I save it to an ideas collection so I can come back to it later. Same thing on Tik Tok I have bookmarked collections right, Pinterest, I have a Pinterest board of content ideas, okay, I have a use pocket and so if there's a newsletter that links to an article that I find, like, oh I could write something, I don't agree with this article but I could write something similar but from my point of view on this right I can save it to a pocket to come back to you later. What that's going to do is is when you're sitting down to create content, you basically now have a list, and going back through that list is going to put you into that creative mode, a lot faster.

So by doing this you're not going to be stuck, kind of, twiddling your thumbs like, Okay, what should I post today? You're already 20% of the way there because you saved ideas previously. Okay, so this is a sneaky way to make when you are passively consuming content a little bit more active, a little bit more productive for you.

This is an easy way to save sound relevant sounds right, if you see something that's, oh that makes sense but I don't agree with it, you know, these are all great ideas that you can then sit down, and when you are creating your content and you're thinking about what content you should create you already have those ideas and it gets you into that flow state a lot faster. The other thing I really recommend doing, I cannot stress this enough, is batching, your content. If you are relying on yourself to create content every single day of the week, you are setting yourself up for failure right shit happens, life happens, you're not always going to have time to sit down and create that piece of content every single day. You need to be sitting down at least once a week or once every two weeks, once a month, whatever works best for you and what is most realistic for your schedule, sitting down and creating a bulk of your content for that time in one sitting. Why do we do this, okay, you're going to lose less time with task switching right where you're okay now I'm creating content and I have to go over here and work on client stuff now I have to go over here and pick my kids up right you're losing less time with task switching, you're in that flow state, and it's so much easier to just okay great, I'm gonna sit down and record five videos right at once in one shot, so you're not having to do your makeup, you're not having to do your hair five different days, right, you could just sit down and record those videos and you can do an outfit change or whatever, but you are working a lot more efficiently by batching your content, what that's next going to be able to allow you to do is to schedule your content ahead of time, again do not think on yourself, remembering to schedule content every single day. Instead, set yourself up for success by batching that content and then batch scheduling that content because now all of a sudden, your content is good to go for a week, two weeks a month however long you're going to create it for. This is so so so key for you.

Use a content calendar that's the next thing, when you're going through this process of batching your content, you know, coming up with content ideas batching that content and then back end batch scheduling your content by using a content calendar, and by using saving that content to be able to repurpose it later, those are the two next things we're going to talk about, because what that does is you're setting up a system and a process around your content creation, which is again going to rely less on you and your self discipline instead you're leaning on those systems you're leaning on those processes so that when you're tired when you're busy, you don't have to say, okay, no I have the discipline, I'm gonna sit down and do this, instead you rely on those systems and processes to make sure it still gets done, even when you don't feel like it. Use a content calendar, we have used a Google spreadsheet for years for our own content for our clients content, it's a super easy way for clients to review the content to comment on it, it's a really easy way to have an archive of content available to us at our fingertips.

If you want to go check that out it's on SamDiNicolaDigital.com I think it's like $7 I really really recommend using any content calendar, but you can check ours out and I have a tic toc that explains it. But next I want you to say you're going to save that content because what you're going to be able to do is you're going to be able to come back later and say, okay, I use these hashtags. And looking back at my analytics at the end of the month, these hashtags performed really well for me, these hashtags didn't. Okay, great. So I'm going to use these hashtags are there other versions of those hashtags I can use that performed really well, right, Are there different versions of these hashtags that didn't perform as well that I can test to see if they perform well, right, by having those hashtags that you're using that you sat down and batch, you know listed out for yourself and they're part of your content calendar, you now have that archive that history of those things. So when you're asking yourself those questions those answers are right at your fingertips when you're looking at your analytics and so it's really really easy for you to pull in those relevant hashtags that you know have performed well for you in the past right versus trying to think about hashtags on the spot again systems and processes that are going to save you time on the back end. You can also say you're really busy right so you get sick, you can dig into your archive of content and repost some of that content later so that you don't need to create fresh content every time and we talk about that really in depth, repurposing and recycling content in my content to clients course.

I hope this was really, really helpful content creation does not have to feel hard. If you go through these steps, it can feel a lot easier and be a lot more accessible for you. So try out these tips and let me know how they work for you. And thank you so much for listening to this podcast every, you know, week, every month. If you haven't already, make sure that you leave a review for no fluff Small Business simplified every single month we choose a reviewer to get a free coaching call with me. This is by far the easiest way for me to look at your business. So if you are struggling with content creation, leave that review and getting that free coaching call we can dig into your systems and processes around content creation. Why does it feel hard, how can we make it feel easier, how can we make it more realistic for you and for your schedule. Right. But we can't do that. If you don't leave a review if you don't take the 10 seconds it takes to go and leave a review so that you have a chance to get that free coaching call right so make sure you're going to do that, and I really really do appreciate you guys listening, if you are interested in finding that content calendar if you're interested in looking at the content to clients course, those are both available on SamDiNicolaDigital.com, and I am always available on Instagram for questions sam.de Nicola, again, on Instagram. And I will see you next time on No Fluff, Small Business Simplified.