Welcome to episode 299 of Hit the Mic thee Stacey Harris.
Hello, hello, episode 299 is here and we’re going to talk about maximizing your content today. I know you are producing amazing content each and every week, or month, or whenever you create content. Are you making the most of that content? Are you really making sure it’s getting in front of the right eyes, or ears? Creation for creation’s sake does not grow your business. That’s not content marketing, that’s just creation. I want to make sure that you are really maximizing that content, getting the most out of every single bit of it, and really using it to serve your audience. Ultimately that’s why we create content, is to serve our audience. If we don’t tell them about the content, or we don’t produce it in a way that they consume it, or if we don’t produce the kind of content they actually need, it’s not going to do us or them any good.
Let’s start with talking about the content they actually want and need to consume. I want to talk about this in 2 ways. I want to talk about it from the perspective of actually sort of building out your editorial calendar, and then also making it consumable for them.
First let’s talk about your editorial calendar.
I know I’ve talked about editorial calendars on the show before, but it’s worth remembering that there’s not just 1 way to build that. There are a lot of ways. I use Google calendars, I just have a editorial calendar setup in my Google calendar. It’s not on my regular appointment calendar, it’s just sort of in it’s own calendar. That’s really nice because it makes it really easy for me to see what’s ahead, what’s coming up.
It also makes it really easy for me to move things around. Here’s the deal, when it comes to editorial calendars, you are creating something that is just going to be there to make things easier. It is not sort of set in stone, rules to live by, the only options. If you get inspired, or you have a question that keeps coming up, or you just have something you have to talk about right then, move whatever was on the calendar. It’s not sort of your commitment, and you have to do it, and it’s the only way it can be. No, it’s totally flexible. Remember again, this is to make things easier for you, not more difficult. That’s why I like having Google calendar cause I can just move it around if I need to. I do probably once a month where I decide to shift around because I want to talk to somebody right then, or something new comes up, or whatever. That’s first and foremost, find a tool that’s going to let you build an editorial calendar.
If you’re a paper and pencil person, use paper and pencil, that’s cool. For a long time I actually had a monthly paper calendar, and I wrote it out on the days of the month. Next up, how do we find out what goes on in that editorial calendar? I like to use the content, and the questions I’m getting from my community already. The questions that come up in Hit the Mic backstage all the time, the questions that come up when I am engaging in other Facebook groups, the questions that come over and over again on client calls. If you’re somebody who is doing discovery calls, sales calls, those kinds of things, the questions that come up over and over again there. The problems that are coming up in those calls over and over again, those are great content because it’s content that’s going to very easily feed into a discovery call. It’s really easy to convert on that content.
Q and A’s that you do, whether it’s on a Facebook live, or in your Facebook group, or in other Facebook groups, or on your Facebook page, or over on Twitter. The things that people are talking about in Twitter chats. Sometimes I will sneak peeks at the questions that are coming up on some of the big social media Twitter chats, and that’s going to help me inform what I should talk about in the content, the things that people are confused about. The struggles that are coming up over and over again. If they already have these questions, start answering them. It’s really that simple. Answer what they’ve already got.
Then put it in a format that’s easy for your content, or your consumers to actually consume, your audience to consume. If that’s audio’s, do podcasts. If that’s videos, do videos. Do Facebook lives, whatever. If that’s written content, do blog posts. Later on we’re going to talk about why doing it in multiple ways is a really, really good thing. That’s first and foremost is focus in on what your audience needs and wants. If you’re writing content for the sake of content, or you’re recording podcasts for the sake of recording podcasts and it’s not actually helping your audience, you’re kind of wasting your time. You’re actually super duper colossally wasting your time, and I don’t want to see you doing that. Check out what your audience wants and needs.
Number 2, don’t forget to share it.
T\his one is so, so easy and so, so mishandled in a lot of ways. Some of you are producing just epicly awesome content, and you’re just not sharing it. When you create content use your strategy, use your social media strategy. Share it on your networks, schedule it into your social media foundation. Be putting it out in your networks, be talking about it all the time. If you have a Facebook live coming up on Thursday and you got a new blog post going out on Tuesday, then the great thing to talk about on that Facebook live would be something from that blog post on Tuesday. You can push that traffic back to that post.
Make sure you’re sharing it, and you’re sharing it in all the places. If you see a question come up, and you’ve answered that question so thoroughly with great resources and a blog post, you don’t need to rewrite that blog post in response to the question. Give them a little bit of an answer, give them some immediate value, sort of instant gratification answer. Then say, “I dive way deep inside of this post,” or, “On this podcast episode,” and then link to it. That’s not being sleazy, that’s not being promo-ey that’s helping them, that’s providing them with the resource they’re requesting.
I do again, like to give them that little bit of value saying sort of, “Here’s the quick answer, but here’s way more information in this post,” so that I’m not just sort of driving traffic to my site without any sort of regard for a reason to go there. Absolutely share that content. Remember, if you’re not telling people about it, it’s going to be really hard for them to find it. It’s going to be really hard for them to use it, and learn from it, and get better because of it. Share it in all the places. This goes back to using your plan, building your strategy, what networks are you on, how often do you share? Then it goes to what tools are you using? Are you using something like a HootSuite, or a co-schedule, or a MeetEdgar, or a eClincher, or a Buffer, or whatever it is you’re using. Then where on your calendar do you have time to fill those tools so that this content is being shared? That this content is being seen, and this content is actually providing the value that this content is intended to provide. Again, share, share, share.
Number 3, repurpose it everywhere.
I was terrible about this, and I’m undoing that actively right now. This is episode 299 of this show, on Tuesday we’ll go live with episode 300. I have literally hundreds of episodes of this podcast, and some of them have been repurposed, but a lot of them haven’t. I can go through and I can utilize that content for a lot of things. An example, now with this show immediately after I hit done and export on the recording for this, and it goes into my website and all of that … or I’m sorry, it goes into iTunes and it’s all set. I also get a transcription made, I use Rev.com to create my transcripts. Then that transcript, with a couple of edits for clarity, go right into the show notes. There is 2 ways to consume this content.
Moving forward when I get back into doing regular Facebook lives now that we’re settled here in California, we’re going to be re-purposing that into podcast episodes, we’re going to be re-purposing that into YouTube content with transcripts. I want you to be able to consume video, audio, or that in written format if that is what you want to consume, that’s how you best consume content. I want it available in every way, and then I take those transcripts and they get edited further to be guest posts. I take parts of that, and I turn it into a LinkedIn publisher post. Those publisher posts can feed back to my podcast on my website.
You can also then take that and make quote graphics, and tweet-able takeaways, and everything else from 1 piece of content. All of that knowledge, all of that value, I want you to be re-purposing it, I want you to make it literally all the things. Then be sure that you’re going in and you’re keeping content updated. If you have added new resources, or you’ve talked about sort of 1 of the things you talked about in a blog post, go in and link it to the other post, go in and add some information. Keep your content fresh, keep your content updated and actionable so that people can utilize it over, and over, and over again. Then re-share it, go back to number 2 and share it over again.
When I repurpose content I share all the ways I repurposed it. Pretty much all of my guest posts are also podcasts. I don’t just share 1 or the other, I share both all the time using the recycle cues in eClincher. Make sure you’re giving your content a lifespan it deserves. Not just the 3 days after you posted it, but forever and ever. Re-purposing it can be a great way to breathe new life into content that already exists.
To recap, maximizing our content. Make sure you’re creating content that your audience wants and needs, make sure you’re sharing that content, and make sure you’re re-purposing that content. These are the things that are going to make the difference in whether your content is content marketing, or just content that exists on the internet that no one ever sees. All right, reminder. Tuesday, we’re live for episode 300. We’re going to talk about 300 episodes podcasting, we’re going to talk about what I got going on as far as this show and my commitment to you in the next 300 episodes, we’re also going to have prizes. I’m going to be giving away some very cool stuff. Also make sure you join us live at 9:00 AM Pacific on Tuesday the 20th, September 20th, right here. Go to TheStaceyHarris.com/Episode300 and you can get an email reminder to join us. If you have any questions, best place to ask questions is inside of Hit the Mic Backstage. Let me know in the comments on the show notes. I will see you on Tuesday live.
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