How to save yourself time and stay consistent with posting on social media

Your Dream Business

English - November 02, 2020 00:00 - 31 minutes - 57.8 MB - ★★★★★ - 34 ratings
Careers Business Marketing Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed

Previous Episode: The systems I use in my business that save me time and money

Next Episode: How to create content and engaging captions for Instagram

In this week’s podcast I talk about how I post content consistently on social media, post varied content, plan my content in advance, and how I manage my own social media platforms. I will also be sharing some content ideas and time-saving strategies for your own social media content and management.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCASTIn an ideal world, you would create different content for each platform – but you don’t HAVE to do this as it may be unrealistic for you.It is better to have something go out than nothing at all.You do not have to be on every single platform – pick your favourites!Curated content is usually an image created in Canva or photoshop which can then be used on social media.The three main buckets of content are; entertain, educate and call to action.Come up with content categories you can group your content into – think about what you need to talk about for your business (eg. Testimonials, FAQs, Blog Posts, Products).Schedule each of your categories to be posted 2 or 3 times each week.Just because you have posted a piece of content 4 times, that doesn’t mean you can’t post it again – it is very rare someone will have seen it every time it has been posted.Decide on your publishing schedule – plan out your week with different content categories.Organic reach on social media is really low which means very few people will actually see every single piece of content you post.Make sure you have enough content in each of your categories and work out how often you want those categories to go out – this will create your structure.
THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…

Scheduling and planning your content in advance not only saves you time but also ensures you are consistent across your social media platforms in terms of posting and look.

HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN’T MISSManaging each social media platform – 04:32Creating content – 11:11Creating a specific look for your content – 19:04Using Agorapulse for your content – 20:20Creating a content structure – 28:49
LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE

Join the waitlist for my academy!

Get Agorapulse FREE for two months

Listen to my podcast episode about lead magnets

Transcript below

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How the devil are you? I hope you're having a great week. So it's really funny, actually I feel like I'm winding up for the end of the year already, which is insane because as I record this.

It's literally coming towards the end of October. We have two whole months still to go. But I think one of the reasons I'm thinking this is because one I've just closed the cart on the Academy so and no one else can join. So I, haven't got to think about that at the moment. Um, two all the activities are planned out for the rest of the year in the Academy.

So I know what's happening there. And three I'm organizing our one day event, which is all about planning for next year. So. I decided that this week I wouldn't give you an interview. I would kind of follow on from last week's episode. If you didn't catch it, it was all about the systems and tools I use in my business that helped me save time, save money, and make me generally more efficient.

And I told you about loads of different tools, I told you about Kajabi. And I told you about Loom and I told you about Trello and loads of different...

Scheduling and planning your content in advance not only saves you time but also ensures you are consistent across your social media platforms in terms of posting and look.

Join the waitlist for my academy!

Get Agorapulse FREE for two months

Listen to my podcast episode about lead magnets

Transcript below

And I told you about loads of different tools, I told you about Kajabi. And I told you about Loom and I told you about Trello and loads of different things. But one of the tools I did mention, and I said, actually, I think I'm going to record an episode about it. So this is that episode I talked about using Agorapulse.

And also I gave you an offer where you can get two months free of Agorapulse. If you sign up using my special link. And I will put that in the show notes. So. I wanted to talk about now, just so you know, you don't have to use Agorapulse for the stuff I'm going to tell you. This is how I do it. And I happen to use Agorapulse to do the scheduling.

However, what I'm going to be teaching you in today's podcast. Is the strategy behind how I stay consistent, how I put very content out there, how I plan my content so that I'm not having to do it on the fly and how I manage my own social media. And if you follow me on any of the platforms, you know, I post a lot, you know, that on Twitter, I'm probably averaging between, I dunno, five and seven tweets a day on, on Facebook I'm probably doing like two LinkedIn, probably two a day. And then Insta, I treat a bit differently and I will tell you about how I treat that, but I wanted to talk to you about how basically I work that out. Now I have done an episode on this before, but not as specific in terms of this is my routine. This is exactly what I do in my business.

So, hopefully this is going to be a great one for you. There's lots of good content ideas in here. There's lots of good strategies in terms of how to save your time. Now, first off, I want to start by saying I wasn't always like this. I have gone through that many different scheduling tools, different strategies, different way of looking at my content.

And this is where I'm at today. Now. Well, I change very possibly. Is it, uh, am I, done? Is this the perfect way of doing it? Not at all. This is just where I'm at today that works for me. Also I want to be really realistic with you about all this, because I know how hard it is to run a business and manage social media.

And I want to assure you, even though I have a team, I am pretty much the main person who does my social media, it's something for me that I feel is, has got to be my authentic voice. It's, uh, I am such a perfectionist. It may not always look like that when it comes to how a post might look from a design point of view.

So I tend to do that and I do have the team help me on certain things. And I will tell you about which things they help you on. So, like I said today, hopefully you're going to get lots and lots of good strategies and information. And a very realistic view about how I manage this in my own business. Okay.

Let's talk about the platforms in general and if you kind of, well, they're not even do's and don'ts, they're kind of just my thoughts on managing all this. So the platforms I'm using currently consistently is Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter. Now for me, Facebook and LinkedIn are okay. I don't spend a huge amount of time over there.

Twitter is better cause I like the interaction. And also, um, Instagram's my favorite. So that's where I spend all my time. One thing you have to know about this strategy that I'm going to talk about. I do not include Instagram in this strategy. I will tell you about how I think about Instagram differently than why I do that.

But basically what I'm talking about in terms of this strategy for content is I'm mainly talking about Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. So the first thing to say is, in an ideal world. And I say ideal that I'm not in that ideal world, because I am doing this and I have a business to run. But in an ideal world, you will create a different content for each of those platforms.

You might have different types of images, different texts. But I don't do that. Okay. Because for me it's more important that something goes out rather than nothing at all. Because if I had to create enough content to put across all those platforms to be as consistent as I am. That's all I would be doing.

So even now I can sit here and happy to tell you that in an ideal world, you would create different content for every platform. The truth is I create one bit of a content and I share over all three platforms. Okay. The other thing I need to quickly say, as a caveat here is you do not have to be on all the platforms.

This, I did a live training recently, a free live training. I don't know if you attended it, you might have done, but this was one of the things I talked about. The actually point number, whatever it was, three, two was pick your platform. Now, if I didn't do the job I did, if I didn't help and support people and businesses in all aspects of marketing, including social media, I wouldn't be on all the platforms.

I would choose my favorites and just go all out on that one. So you don't have to be on them all. So when I talk about all the platforms, it's not because I'm suggesting to you that you need to be on all the platforms. What I am suggesting to you is this is how I manage, because I do all of them. So just take it for your one or two platforms, don't think, "Oh, right now I've got to do all of them."

Okay. So that's the first thing. So Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter kind of get lumped together. Now there's a reason they kind of get lumped together in the fact of the size of the image, the image and the dimensions of the image can work well on all three. So I tend to use a landscape image. I don't know what the dimensions are.

I'd probably pick one of them in Canva and basically I use the same size and image type for all three. The reason Instagram isn't in there is because obviously when I do stories or posts, it's a completely different size image. Also, the other reason Instagram isn't included in this is because there's type of stuff I create that I send out on those platforms is what I would call curated content. Now, when I talk about curated content, what I mean is I have gone into Canva and I've created an image, whether that image has photos in it, where it has icons, whether it's just text and color, whether it's, whatever that image is, it means I've created it in something like Canva.

And then I have used that image on a social media post. You will see that I very rarely use a curated image on my Instagram grid. So on my grid, the only two curated images you will see are quotes. So I often put quotes out there and obviously I make them in Canva. And the other one is about podcast interviews, because I realized that if you look at my feed, there's very little about the podcast and, and it's not that I don't want to talk about the podcast. I should be what it is is that because I choose only to put photos up, it's really hard to get a photo that depicts it. I've now had a photo shoot very recently it's on my Insta. You can see it where I'm photographed with my microphone. So actually that helps because I can talk a bit more about it.

But like I said, you'll only see those two different posts. One. A very nice picture of someone I've interviewed and the other one is about the quotes. So those are the only two curated type images you see on Instagram. The other reason I don't include Instagram stories is because I can't, because basically there is no facility currently that will automatically post to your stories. Now what there is are platforms that will give you a push notification. And what I mean by this is you go onto the schedule, a platform, you go onto the whatever system you're using and you put your picture up and you had, see, I don't even know how it works.

I've never actually tried it, but I've seen you put your picture up and you might even have some like texts that goes along with it that you might want to put on top of the image as you would on a story. And then you schedule it for a certain time. And then what happens at that time is your phone will sort of give you a notification and says, it's time to post this thing.

This used to actually be the same with the feed, and I never liked it then either. So. Then, what you do is you go into your phone and it copies everything automatically. It's fairly easy, but, but for me, I just wanted it to be done. So I didn't have to think about it because in truth, and I I've talked about this on many podcasts where I talk about productivity is I have my phone turned upside down on my desk and I don't look at it. In fact, I don't even know where it is right now. Just looking right at my desk and I can't see it. So I'm assuming it's like I've done something or I've left it somewhere. Absolutely. Honestly, I try really hard not to look at my phone in the day, so that wouldn't work for me.

So that's why I just haven't even bothered scheduling stories and I only ever do real authentic at the time stories. Okay. So. Like I said, let me go back. I went down a bit of a rabbit hole with Instagram a bit, but let me pull you back a bit. So I've just said to you that I create images for LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, and they're all exactly the same size and they're all exactly the same images.

Okay. So I don't know how I got onto that and why I jumped straight into that but I think I was just talking about the difference between the platforms. So let me kind of come back to the beginning in terms of how I start this process, how I start coming up with content, because the truth is what I do is I create a lot of content.

I spend a good, probably. I think it was about five or six hours in the first instance. And you probably sat there thinking what the actual five or six hours, but you know what? I did that at the beginning of the year and I've barely had to touch it since. So I have saved myself many, many, many hours. So, and don't get me wrong.

Uh, you might be sat there thinking you'd been putting the same post, like almost the entire year. You'll see how this works in a sec. So, okay. So I sit there and the very first thing I do is I come up with categories. Now, I've talked about categories before, and I've talked about three main buckets and those main buckets are entertain, educate, and call to action.

So I have talked about this before, but this is a bit different. Now, those buckets are designed to give you a steer of the type of content you're putting out there. So. They're great as a kind of reminder about those things. And you might choose to kind of post in different ways for those different categories.

So for instance, the entertained stuff tends to be my organic stuff. So it's, as something happens, I will post or share or do something along those lines. Whereas the stuff that's scheduled tends to be along, the call to action and the educate as you will see and see. Okay, so categories. I think about what categories I want to include in my social media.

What sort of things do I need to talk about on my posts? Now, the podcast obviously is a category because this is my main content. So if you have some main content that you're putting together and putting out there, then that's going to be one of the very first categories you have. The aim of my, this activity is to probably get between like, 9 and 12 categories.

Also, if you've heard me talk about categories of Instagram these are different. Now, I'm really trying hard not to confuse you here. It sounds like I'm really kind of, not all over the shop, but like it's times like I am going do this, but don't do this, but please stay with me. I promise it's not as confusing as I am managing to make it signed right now.

So like I said, we focus on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. It's not to say that you can't do the same for Instagram. I just choose not to because I choose to see it differently. So the first thing you come up with is 9 to 12 categories. And my categories on those platforms tend to be more business related than lifestyle related.

Whereas my Instagram tends to be more lifestyle related. So the categories I have chosen for my social media content are obviously "Podcast". That's got to be one because every single week we put out a podcast and we need to talk about it. And as I've talked about it, before we talk about it, two or three times on every platform during that week. The next one that comes really naturally is "In case you missed it", that is a category. And in that category goes any, any old podcasts and bearing in mind, we're on Episode 142, like that is a lot of podcasts. So we tend to choose. I say, randomly, it's not random. It's actually kind of. Okay. When did we last talk about this? And we do do it in a kind of running format, but we make sure we're constantly reposting old podcasts as well, because you might come to have come to this podcast.

And this might be the first episode you're listening to welcome by the way, if it is, thank you so much for listening, you'll get used to my quirky way, but. Obviously, if you've only just come to the podcast, then you don't know I've had Michael Hyatt, James Wedmore, Amy Porterfield, Pat Flynn, Dean Graziosi, all these amazing people.

So that's why we're constantly checking out the old episodes. Now, am I worried that people are going to see them and think, "Oh, I've seen that already?" Not in the slightest, not at all. In fact, I'm just going to make a note that we need to talk about reach and the kind of rescheduling of stuff. And then I can just explain how I feel about that.

Okay. Literally just made the night. So let me talk about another category before I fall down that rabbit hole. So another category I've got is "Lead magnets". Now, if you don't know what lead magnet is, I will put a link to the show notes in the show notes to my lead magnet episode. I can't remember what it was off the top of my head, but basically this is a something that gets people on your list.

That's fairly long and short of it. So I post my lead magnets constantly, even though they are the same, probably five, six lead magnets I've had for awhile. It doesn't matter that evergreen and you know what I get people opting into them constantly. So. Don't feel like, because you've posted that four times.

Oh gosh, can't talk about that again. So that's one of my categories. Okay. So I've got Podcasts. I've got In Case You Missed It. I've got Lead Magnets. I've got "Upcoming events". Now I speak for a living or part of my living. Now, obviously at the moment it's all online, which makes me very sad and probably a little bit depressed.

I'd really like to stand on a stage again, but you know, it's coming, hopefully. So. What we do as part of our marketing is that we help people promote their events. So I share events that I speak at. So what we do is hopefully they have some graphics or they have a sort of speaker graphic to say, I'm speaking there and I get them to send it me.

And then we. We put that in as a category. The other category I have, or another category I have is "Tools". So if I talk about different tools that I use and tools that I like, I will use that one thing to note on the tools is I use affiliate links. So there's a chance that I could get some income from that.

So I, I post about tools. Another category is "Testimonials". I like people to know that I'm good at what I do. And I have successes with people. What else did I got? So upcoming events, tools, testimonials, podcasts, lead magnets, in case you missed it, guest appearances. This is a good...