Here I will share my complete content strategy for 2020 and 2021 in this article and video lesson and show you:
How to create a mindful, sustainable, repurposable content strategy – that will work for you in the long run.
May of us can relate to the feeling of being stuck in a hamster wheel of content creation that’s just spinning fast and faster. The whole thing feels like something we’re not in control of, but rather an external force spinning faster and faster that we try our best to keep up with.
It’s exhausting!
And yes, I’ve been there and I still fall back into that feeling sometimes. But I decided to take another approach to content creation than just trying desperately to keep up. By doing so creating content started feeling FUN again and ideas started to come back. I stopped feeling run over by the speed of which the world of social media moves. Back in the driver’s seat if you will.
That’s the feeling I want you to have as well, so I’m going to introduce you to a strategy that may flip your priorities around a little bit. Because it so easily happens that we (myself included) hop on the Instagram content frenzy and just start shooting content wildly around us.
There are many forces at work that make us do that like:
- Instant gratification in the form of likes, comments, shares and so on.
- We feel like we’re a part of something, like we’re “in the gang”.
- We feel seen.
Just to be clear, I’m not here to judge. We’re all people and therefore we fall for these things. I do as well. But when we’re aware of this it’s a little easier to make an active decision to change things up.
If we fall for it we’re right back where we started and need more and more content for all the platforms we try to keep up on. Our brains need to work tirelessly and kind of unfocused, always in a hurry for the next rush of social media gratification.
By changing your view on content creation and approaching it more from a business perspective, and in my opinion a more sustainable perspective, you’ll have a better feeling towards the whole thing and feel way more in control of it.
To be honest, for myself, this shift has made me feel happier not only as a business owner, but as a person as a whole. This content strategy will be at the base of my business for the rest of 2020 and going into 2021.
The 4 Phases of This Strategy
Phase 1
At the top of this content strategy you find the Pillar Content. This is the content that is longform and will be put on platforms that are SEO based. These content pieces are also the ones that I will later repurpose into smaller pieces of content for my social channels. In this phase I also place my email list, with which I will share my pillar content first of all and give some more insights.
Phase 2
Second we find social media micro content. These are smaller pieces of content that fits into the format of the channels I want to be using. For me that’s Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn at the moment. So even though it stems from my pillar content, it’s still original content pieces for each platform.
Phase 3
The next phase is all about listening to your community after you’ve posted your content. Try to not take their reaction personally and just view it objectively. What input do you get? Did they enjoy it? Did they find it interesting? Do they want more information about something?
Everything that you can get out of this is pure gold in terms of content creation! Because then you can plan new content that is directly generated from your audience. And that’s pretty neat!
Phase 4
After you have listened to your community you can either go back up to the top of this eco- system again and start all over. Or if you want to try out some topics first you can create some community driven micro content and try it out on your social channels first.
Wrap up
By creating content with this framework in mind you’ll have a process that both will cover all the channels that you frequent and continuously keep on generating content ideas for you. And by not putting all your faith into the algorithms of social channels, one can sleep a little better at night (I know I do!).
Since building an online business is a long game I feel a need to have sustainable systems in place that work in the long run. And not just shooting out posts in Instagram (in my case) hoping that my people will see it. By doing that I feel like I give in to a fast paced, fast consumer-world that I don’t feel is sustainable. It’s not how I want to build my business and really: live my life.
In short: The focus needs to be to get my content to live and be useful for longer than 2 seconds.
For you: Downloadable content strategy template
We have been though quite a bit already in this article and the video, but to make it even better and easier for you to implement this strategy yourself I have created a PDF for you with more guidance and a printable template for you to fill in.
This PDF is filled with all the actionable information you need to get started working with this content strategy for the rest of 2020 (and going into 2021) at this very moment!
PS. If you want to learn more about building your email list, one of my mentors Amy Porterfield has a free masterclass to get you going (affiliate link)
