Have you ever thought where does my day go? You don’t mind working hard, but most days it feels like a constantly struggle to get anything else done other than creating and scheduling content for your business social media accounts? In todays episode I’ll be sharing the three systems I’ve implement, to help solopreneurs get ahead, stop content burn out and help you to free up more time, so that you can focus on other important business goals and tasks you want to achieve within the month. Too tired to read ?! Listen to the end of year self reflective tutorial – Episode. 020 Available on >>Apple Podcast<< or >>Spotify<<
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Thank you, Olivia x
Welcome to the brand made podcast, thanks for joining me self-made listener,
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Olivia Goodenough
The Content Hamster Wheel
Time: 00:33
We as small business owners are constantly making content. Producing, editing, scheduling and publishing. We use content as a form of marketing and connecting with our audience online. The issue as a solopreneuers, we have one set of hands and content becomes this never ending cycle, kind of like laundry every week you have to do another load. I’ve seen entrepreneurs and solopreneurs become victims to content burn out, heck, I’ve experienced it first hand! And it’s not until earlier this year I had a realisation, that I needed some organisation a system to help me consistently create content, without it taking over my daily to-do list.
My biggest fopar was I wasn’t creating enough sustainable content. I was putting all my content eggs in one basket…Instagram. I was creating content for one platform, but all of these post had no long-term goal or value. I was producing content that would have a life expectance of less than 24 hours! No wonder why I was run out of ideas, couldn’t stay consistent, content fatigue and basically just became uninspired by the end of each month. Even though what I was posting was good helpful information there was little rhyme or reason to why I was really creating this content at that point in time.
So I’m going to reveal in this episode my three systems that I’ve implemented to help me create more sustainable content that can help you free up more time and helping you keep your head above water, without feeling overwhelmed.
So rewind to the start of this year 2021, that’s when I detoxed and boycotted creating content and instead being on that hamster wheel you’re on right now. I took myself off and sat down and worked out a system, something that would work for my small business owners. We need to remember that we are one person and that we can only create and produce a certain quota of content a monthly, unless you outsource for more help. So, lowering your expectation and stop comparing the amount of content you are produce to another small brand that has a team of 10 employs working behind the scenes!
System One | Content Creation
Time: 03:19
My content creation system was the first thing I worked out. If you haven’t already now is the time to start producing a piece of long-form content weekly. There are three types of Long-form content Blog, Podcast, Youtube channel. This piece of content is your starting stop, it pushes you take time to research and produce in-depth information that can actually help your audience move the needle in their small business and solve a problem with your knowledge. It’s a chance for you to shine and show of your expert methods and skills!
I realise you need to be publish at least one pieces of content that will live longer than your IG posts. Publishing long-form ever-green content means that I can help a group of business owners today, and that same piece of content work can also help more solopreneurs 6 to 12 + month later after the publish date. You spend a little extra time to create a primarily piece of content it can keep paying off!
So once you’ve create a long-form piece of content the system doesn’t stop there! You then need to make this long-form piece of content work harder for you! To do that you need to repurpose this piece of content in 5 to 10 different and feed it throughout your other social media channels, such as Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest etc. By breaking points of this in-depth piece and creating more manageable bite-size pieces of content for your Instagram account, that could be a carousel explaining a few points for you long-form piece, it could be a quote you re-shared, you could use the introduction as a Instagram post description, a infographic of statistic etc.
No need to come up with multiple brand new content topics and ideas, drip feed your main piece of content through out your other channels this will save you massive amounts of time, and pull people to the meatier piece of information your providing. By having a content system with long-form content at the heart of it, you give your posts every week and month direction, you’ll know exactly when where to talking about certain thing on your social media channels and which one your using.
System Two | Batching
Time: 06:03
The next system I want to talk about is all focused around batching. If you didn’t already know batching is when you group the same or similar tasks together to get them done quickly. Batching is a key tool in time management and productivity.
Instead of toing and frowing from a load of different tasks throughout the day, I use batching to organise my time more efficiently. When you batch similar actives or tasks you can stay focused for longer and helps me get into a deeper level of concentration than if I kept changed halfway through. I batch a lot of tasks within my business, emails, scheduling, editing, etc. Using a batching plan coincides perfectly with creating content. The majority of your content creation tasks should definitely be batched! Otherwise you’ll be trying to catch up and stay on top of things weekly!
For example, instead of writing one podcast episode, record the audio, edit that one audio and scheduling it to go live all in one day. I batch theses tasks and produce more volume. I write either 4 or 5 podcast episodes, once all my scripts are written up. I then record all episodes in one or two sittings. One once all the audio is recorder then I move onto edit each episodes audio.
If I didn’t batch my long-form content I would never be able to focus my time and attention to other important task for my business. If I created my podcast episodes weekly that’s all I would do for the majority of every week. Instead I know every 3 or 4 week I have to batch my long-form content it can take a 4 or 5 days to complete. But once it’s completed I have some room, some breathing space to focus on something else and away from the content rate race.
I also batch produce my Instagram feed posts and will be batching reels to. With Instagram I batch all the visual content, then write up all the individual post descriptions. I do the same for Pinterest create all the visual pins for the whole month.
Batching obviously doesn’t have to be implement just for content creation purposes you can do with all your usual weekly tasks. You can always go that one step further after batching by allocating a specific time slot in the day when you’ll complete these tasks. You can batch type of activities and them the day of your week, such a client project Mondays, Admin Tuesdays, Big project Wednesday, Content Creation Thursday, Catch up Fridays. When we use a batching system within our business, we can start to filter our tasks and to-do’s more effectively, instead of letting any random new tasks take priority for that day, we can allocate it time and place within our batching system and have the patience to know we will get round to it.
System Three | Automation
Time: 09:10
Moving onto automation systems, if your a one woman business owners you need to implement an automation system within your small business like yesterday! Having automation set up, basically gives you an extra three arms! And helps you from dropping the ball far less. I automate so much within my business from week to week.
My first automation system is Dubsado, when someone lands on my site fills out a form they are automatically put into my business management tool. They’ll receive an automated email from me so even when someone inquire they hear from me straight away! I also have email responses ready at my figure tips! Dubsado has so much more feature to find out use the link in the description bar and receive a discount, full transparent I receive a small commission if you use this affiliate link.
I also schedule and automate out in advance about 70% to 80% of my content. So once I’ve create a month worth of podcast episodes, I hop onto Buzzsprout to automate each episode to go live every Wednesday at midday. I go to WordPress to schedule all blog post together and integrate the audio into each. I also then use later to schedule my single IG post for my feed. I create multiple posts with description etc with push notification on. I use Tailwind to schedule my Pinterest pins too.
If I had to manually have a hand everyday on a live post or episode I would have time to get anything else done in my business. I would most likely forget posts I create, get to caught up in a task and forget to post one day or not get round to my more pressing to-dos on my list that day because I’m to busy trying to catch up with producing content.
Rounding up the key points
Time: 11:10
I’ve made a content system that work seamlessly for soloprenerus. It’s helped me feel like I’m always showing up online with valuable information for my ideal customers, whether that’s a quick tip or this in-depth episode. I’m no longer just adding to the content noise for the sake of it! Remember to pick your preferred type of long-form content, repurpose it as much as you can to get more bang for your buck, because us solopreneurs only have on pair of hands! Batch all your content creation, editing and scheduling tasks together, to provide yourself with longer breaks away from thinking about content. Automation 70 to 80% of your content through scheduling programs and get on with other task you have for that day! Get ahead of your business content, it still needs to be done but with these three systems you can make more and save yourself bags of time!