How to map out a year’s worth of content in one day

Because let’s be honest you started a business to what you do best - and not to spend all your time thinking about what to post to your socials…

Staring at a blank screen, backspacing and overthinking, because you know you gotta post something, but nothing is coming to you. And you’re waiting for that inspiration to hit but it's crickets.

Oooor Instagram has just launched another new feature  - thanks Instagram - and now you have to think about what you’re gonna post over there -

If you know what I’m talking about, and you’re struggling to keep up with feeding your social channels - or what one of my old clients used to call - the CONTENT MONSTER.

Then this episode is for YOU.

We are mapping out a year's worth of content IN A DAY?

Crazy. No, it’s actually very possible.

Because I know you guys are juggling a million things, and social media is just ONE of them. 

You don't have time to waste randomly posting for the sake of posting.

So I want this episode to help you: 

A. get strategic about the content you post.

B. use this process to get SMART about how you create your content

Because here’s the thing: 

Creating content should not mean constantly coming up with a bazillion new ideas for each channel. (Say it again, Hayley - for the people in the back)

You do not need to be coming up with fresh ideas every. single. day…

AMEN…guys

So let's get straight into 4 steps to getting content smart.

1. Identify your content themes.

How do you know what you should be posting about in the first place?

That my friends are where our CONTENT THEMES come in.

In your niche, the area you're speaking into, whether you’re a copywriter, lawyer, surf instructor or jewellery designer.

You should be able to identify between 3 - 5 themes in which your content would live. Maybe you’re already doing this instinctively. 

If you look at the content you’ve already posted - could you categorize them into 3 - 5 MAIN categories?

Let’s take the surf instructor as an example. 4 themes they could post about are:

The Ocean - learn the playing field, understand it, know what to do and what not to do, how do waves work, how can we protect our oceans. 

The Gear - what do you need, what surfboard is right for you, how to clean your board

The Technique - the steps to learn, tips and tricks.

The best spots - beautiful locations to surf, surfing retreats, what to pack…

You want to keep your themes tight and focused within your niche.

But as you see there is a lot of content ideas that you can cover under each theme.

Setting your content themes is going to help you make content so much faster. Because you have a base to start from instead of being random. One week it's this, one week it's that, it's going to give a lot more structure and intention to what you're posting. It gives patterns and order.

And Your audience will be able to position you in their mind as the go-to person for surfing, or fitness, or family holidays, or whatever you want to become known for as the go-to person.

2. Map out your hero content.

Here I’m talking about the juicy, longer-form content where you deep dive into a specific topic, that could be a written blog post, a Youtube video or this podcast episode right here. If you take look at your content themes what are some hero content pieces you could write about?

Remember that the BEST content is in response to your audience’s needs - so if you do get stuck for ideas you can always ask your audience what they would like to know more about. Or Check your comments for popular questions that they might have around your category and create content that answers them.

For example one of my Themes is Social Media Tips and this episode: How to Map out your content for a year is one topic.

3. Repurpose your hero content.

Basically, you are taking ONE idea and breaking it down into multiple pieces of content to feed your channels.

Take your HERO topic and look at all the ways you could give it a tweak, a fresh new angle or a new format. For example - I can use the transcript of this podcast and repurpose it into a written blog post, turn it into captions for Instagram and Facebook, create an infographic for Linkedin. Plus it gives me content for an emailer. 

And if I wanted to take that to the next level - I could put a camera up while recording this episode and upload that to Youtube.

I remember the Linkedin team used to present this idea to us at the agency as the Turkey Theory. You put a lot of love, thought, energy and effort into making ONE big roast turkey - which you can then carve up into many different ways.

I find a mind map really helpful for planning…

You can also REPURPOSE your hero content is by targeting a different audience. So our surf instruction could give surfing tips for a beginner, and create another piece of content with surfing tips for pros.

4. Batch it out.

Here is where time-blocking your calendar will help you. Basically whenever you can block out some time in your calendar as if it were a meeting so you don’t put this off. Close your emails, and put the phone away. So you’re not tempted and end up scrolling Instagram. Get comfy, pour yourself a coffee and start writing out content.

The key here is to let the writing FLOW. 

Don’t worry about trying to get it perfect the first time, remember you can always edit it later. What's more important is that you get ALL the good stuff out of your head and down on paper. I’ve blocked a couple of hours every Sunday to get a week's worth of content written down. 

This means you won’t get stuck wondering what you’re gonna post on the day. You’ll have a source of content to plug into your content calendar.

You may be thinking - what if my audience notices that I’m repurposing content, or repeating a message, won’t they get bored?

The truth is NOT EVERYBODY is going to see our Instagram post or read our email.

I mean only about 5 - 10% of your audience will even see your post on Instagram… and people are busy, right… so some people may have not had a chance to even check IG that day, or they were busy with school runs, 

So you don’t need to worry about tweaking and reposting the same idea.

In fact, it is important to repeat your ideas in order for them to even LAND.

Most studies agree that it takes up to 7 times for a message to be remembered. So REPETITION of your key ideas is actually super important for your business.

And by repurposing your message in different formats you are recognizing and celebrating the fact that we all have different content preferences - while some people may love listening to your 20min podcast, others may want to just read an Instagram caption and some people will prefer to see it summarised in a quick graphic.

Don’t feel like you have to reinvent the wheel with every post. 

It is totally ok to tweak something you have already posted about before.

I hope this helps you get over the content overwhelm moves your business forward.

Alright friends, aaand that is your Social in 5 On our mission to make social media work for you and not the other way around. 

 Got a question you need answered? Send me a DM on Instagram @hiltonhayley.

Chat to you soon. x