We get it. You’re busy! With a recent study from Hootsuite reporting that you should be posting at least once a day on every platform, content creation can seem like a daunting task to add to your schedule. Yet, with social media hosting 4.62 billion users between its different platforms, it’s definitely worth the investment.
While it can seem overwhelming and time-consuming to post consistently, it doesn’t have to be! By following these five steps of listing, assigning, designing, writing, and posting your content, you can create one week’s worth of social content in only one hour.
List Your Content Ideas
Start thinking! Idea generation can be the hardest part of the content creation process if you let it. While you can spend hours on weekly brainstorming sessions, instead, think about ideas throughout the week and write them down as they come to you. As you scroll through your own social media, keep a lookout for ideas that you can incorporate into your own posts. It’s okay if the idea is only half there. Write it down anyways! Right now, you are simply creating a vault of ideas that you can call upon later when it is time to start creating.
Some types of content are easier to produce than others. At the start of the week, determine which types of content you will post that week based on the amount of time and resources you have. Try to post a variety of content to keep your followers engaged.
There are lots of different types of content you can post, including infographics, short stories, memes, interviews, and more. The photo on the right contains a non-comprehensive list of content ideas that you can try. Think about how you can implement these ideas with your own brand.
Assign Each Idea to a Social Platform
You have your ideas! Now it’s time to decide where to post them. Different types of content do better on different platforms. The figure below matches social media platforms to the type of content that performs the best on it.
Keep this information in mind as you decide where to post each of your ideas. As you post a wide range of content across the platforms they are best suited for, you will see an increase in engagement and sales with time and patience.
Design Your Content
It’s time to get creative! What are your posts going to look like? You don’t need to hire a graphic designer to create content for you. You can do it yourself! There are many tools like Canva and Adobe Express that are easy to use and have lots of fun templates to choose from.
When producing lots of content, it can be a good idea to have go-to templates with your brand, colors, and fonts. These templates will allow for more efficiency and more time to focus on the actual content rather than design.
As you design compelling content, consumers will be drawn to your profile.
Write Your Captions
Once you have your designs, you can start writing matching captions. When writing captions, it is important to be short and simple and to express personality. No one will read your content if they find it to be too long or bland. Always start your caption off with a hook and end with a call to action if applicable.
Another piece of advice for writing captions is to include statistics or data. This will help you gain credibility, and thus, followers!
Post Your Content
Your content is ready to post! When do you post it? The best time to post varies widely across different industries and accounts. The following infographic shows the best days and times to post for each platform on a global level, as recommended by Sprout Social.
Do your own research to find what days and times your account sees the most engagement, but use these recommendations as a general rule of thumb until then.
To make the posting process more efficient, schedule your posts. There are plenty of post-scheduling platforms you can find online, like SocialPilot or Buffer. By using one of these platforms, you can save yourself tons of time by not having to log in to each account to post every day.
While the thought of social media content creation can seem overwhelming, it’s really not that hard! Follow these five steps of listing, assigning, designing, writing, and posting your content. Before you know it, the follows, engagement, and sales will come pouring in!
If content creation still sounds like it’s not for you, try reaching out to a third party! Here at Stage Marketing, we offer creative services including content creation that can help you generate leads, delight your customers, and grow profitably. Contact us now!