Automation as a Time Saver! Part 3 - Content Planning
While part of me hopes you have been on the edge of your seat awaiting the last of this 3-part series on how automating repetitive tasks and activities can save you extraordinary amounts of time, lol, I realize this week is nuts and you may or may not read this... but at least scroll down to see our hilarious team holiday photo at the bottom of this blog!
To increase the odds you might keep scrolling during this hectic time, I promise to keep this both relevant to you and personal to me.
One year ago, I was a complete mess online: no website, no blog, no social media to speak of, no email marketing, barely a contact management system, no team, the list goes on… EEK.
Then I got over myself and realized 3 things (Golden Nugget Alert!): 1. I’m not alone, 2. I can put simple systems in place to remedy the situation, and 3. I don’t have to be the only one doing everything.
Since we are talking today about how to SAVE SO MUCH TIME by automating your social media content, I am sharing our (Visions Internships’) weekly social media content planning 3-step “secret sauce”– which includes creating and scheduling the content with the help of my virtual assistant and a few tech tools.
- Set weekly theme-based content schedule (scheduled on FB & Ig using FB Business Suite), i.e. Mondays for Inspiring; Wednesdays for Promoting; and Fridays for Educating. Manual posting of different content (usually weekly Blog) to LinkedIn on Thursdays.
- Type upcoming week’s content into monthly calendar in a Google Sheet (spreadsheet) as Content Calendar (we also recommend Canva for this)
- Design (images/captions/hashtags), review/approve before scheduling to post
Additional Tips on Content Planning…
Make sure you are clear about who your ideal audience is and where they hang out online. It is better to put out quality, consistent content on fewer of the right platforms than to try to be everywhere, unsuccessfully (and unnecessarily).
Also, feel free to recycle your content in different places within the week or month. For example, we send out a weekly email using the same basic content from that week’s Blog… and we like to refer to similar concepts in our social media whenever possible.
These reinforcing messages build a more cohesive online brand that will resonate with more people.
Now that we have a duplicatable system (that takes ~3 hours per week), I can tell you, from first-hand experience, that if we just “work the system” – the “system will work.” (And you know the other side of that coin.)
Sooo much less time stressing when you “plan the work” and then “work the plan” — a key insight that applies to most things in life, above and beyond Content Planning ;)
Happy, Healthy Holidays to You and Yours!
Amy
P.S. We must finally be doing something right if the Worcester Business Journal is running digital ads every Monday --and their Metrowest 495 Biz publication every Thursday-- until the January 12th application deadline for our Spring 2022 Visions Internships Program (“VIP”) for Young Professionals (Thank You, WBJ!). Please feel free to pass on our program information to purpose-driven young people in your life who might be seeking meaningful real-world experience AND the support to succeed.
P.P.S. Hope you enjoy this photo of the Visions Internships team even half as much as I do! I asked everyone to come our meeting ready to share what they will be doing over the holiday break-- OMG too funny! Yes, I need to catch up on my ZZZs!
