Episode 131: 3 Golden Rules for Creating Content
From being in masterminds with entrepreneurs with large followings and platforms, here are the 3 golden rules I learned about creating content smarter in less time. If you are tired of creating content and spending hours on social media, this episode is a must listen to shave hours off your content creation so you can get more ROI for each piece of content you create!
Here’s What We Cover and More:
Create powerful, enduring content to develop deep connections with audiences and drive sales for the business.
Apply strategies to repurpose long-form content across various platforms that will maximize the brand’s reach and voice.
How to master DIY public relations and land media exposure without the need for a large budget.
Understand how to navigate the media landscape, position yourself as a go-to expert and unlock speaking and feature opportunities.
How to measure the return on investment for your content and prioritize activities having long-term value.
By focusing on crafting evergreen content, maximizing its repurposability and harnessing the power of media attention, entrepreneurs can build lasting relationships with their audience and convert content into sales on a budget,
Product Businesses! Download my free HOW TO GET INTO A GIFT GUIDE/PRODUCT ROUND UP roadmap for free HERE to get more sales and traffic to your site this season.
If you want to land your first feature for free without any connections, I want to invite you to watch my PR Secrets Masterclass, where I reveal the exact methods thousands of bootstrapping small businesses use to hack their own PR and go from unknown to being a credible and sought-after industry expert. Register now at www.gloriachoupr.com/masterclass.
Resources Mentioned:
Join the PR Secrets Masterclass
Join the Small Biz PR Pros Facebook Group
DM the word “PITCH” to us on Instagram to get a pitching freebie https://www.instagram.com/gloriachoupr
Connect with Gloria Chou on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/gloriaychou
Join Gloria Chou's PR Community https://www.facebook.com/groups/428633254951941
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Transcript
00:00:00 Gloria: Welcome back to another episode of Small Business PR where we make PR and marketing super accessible for the everyday small business hero. Now the topic of today is content. You can't live with it, can't live without it. And we are in a content age where everyone is pushing their content out to try to get more eyeballs on their products, their services, their community. And it all means that we're just constantly producing content.
00:00:23 Gloria: And here's the thing, it can be a never ending chase of being on that content rollercoaster. of creating content, trying to go viral, trying to understand the latest hacks, algorithms, tips, tricks, hiring different social media managers, content marketers, content plan. Ooh, there is just, seems like every single day, there is a new strategy, a new tool who promises to take things off your plate and make things easier and faster, but we end up still making more content than ever.
00:00:48 Gloria: And here's the thing. It's all about working smarter and not harder. And this is something I talked to my PR program members about. It's, how do we measure the ROI for any given time that we're spending. And when I think about content, I think, okay, most of what I'm doing, like recording this podcast is content. And I don't care if you make bath salts or if you're a coach, we have to make sure that our content is not only just out there, but it aligns, that it converts, that it resonates and does the thing that we need it to do.
00:01:17 Gloria: Now for me, I am not trying to be an influencer. I'm not trying to get free merchandise or sell ad sponsorship. So my take on content is for sales, is for building that know, like, and trust factor so that people can get to know me and convert. So whether you're selling a product or service, if you are also trying to not be an influencer and get more sales, this episode is for you.
00:01:38 Gloria: Now coming from building a podcast, being on hundreds of different podcasts of other people's and building my Instagram following and being in masterminds with other people who have “gained a big following,” I learned that there are three golden rules that have really worked for all of us, for people in my peer mastermind and for myself when it comes to content. So here are three things that I always do.
00:02:00 Gloria: The first thing is, think about the ROI and lifespan of any content that you're making. What does that mean? It means that for every content that you're making, is it going to go the extra mile for you? I'll give you an example. I always talk about how I'd rather get on people's podcasts, get that SEO, get those backlinks, right? Repurpose that one video content, which is a podcast into YouTube Shorts, YouTube long Reels, audiograms, quotes, carousels, then spend all my time making 20 different Instagrams. Because to me, that's a higher leveraged activity. It's repurposable. So always ask yourself, can your content go the extra mile? Can it be repurposed?
00:02:38 Gloria: And this is also the reason why I don't do Instagram Lives. Because here's the thing about Instagram Lives. The chances of someone catching you live is pretty rare because everyone's busy. It's not announced, right? And even if you announce it, the chances are, okay, then maybe they'll be live, but Instagram is such a short attention span medium that they're probably gonna click out of it. And here's the thing, even if they do catch you live, let's say you did all the reminders, they're on live. If they miss any part of your beginning, they're probably gonna drop off because there's no context.
00:03:09 Gloria: So that's why I don't really spend my time doing any Instagram lives with people because to catch someone and to bring them through that whole duration of the live so that I can transform their beliefs and get them to take an action is just very rare and it's gonna be a very difficult thing. So for me, I'd rather record a workshop, even if it's on Zoom. I'd rather go into someone else's platform and do a free talk and ask for the recording. Those are things that I can then use, you know, a streaming software like StreamYard so that I can stream it later into Facebook.
00:03:42 Gloria: And so that's kind of what we do with our podcast. So I record this episode, right? And this episode is going to be spliced and diced up into various little snippets that we're going to repurpose for reels with captions, that we're going to repurpose for blog posts with our show notes, that we're going to repurpose for our email newsletter, that we are going to repurpose for other carousel posts from this one piece of content. And so to me, that's a much higher leverage activity because one, I can repurpose and two, I have control over it. Whereas Instagram Lives, you don't know who's gonna be able to be on live at that point. So that is the question to ask yourself is, is the lifespan of it gonna give me a good ROI?
00:04:21 Gloria: Another thing is that Instagram Lives, they don't have a great lifespan. You can't really repost it on anything. So for me, it lives on Instagram, it stays on Instagram and that's it. Whereas if I record it natively on my own application, on my own desktop, or if I get the recording from being on someone else's, I have that asset, then I can repurpose and stream however I want. There are so many different streaming platforms. There are so many different ways that you can automatically repurpose and schedule your content with Hootsuite and later so that I'd rather do that all day. That's the first golden rule.
00:04:54 Gloria: The second golden rule for making content work for you, again, we are not out here trying to just make content endlessly. I am not getting paid as a content creator, so I need my content to work for me. The second way to make your content work for you is to think about having a long form content. Because remember, if you have a long form content that you start the week or month with, whether it's a long form newsletter, whether it's a blog, whether it's a podcast episode, whether it's a video recording, at least, I wanna say at least 10 minutes long, then you have something to work with that then you can repurpose for social media. I'd rather do that all day and have control by splicing up a long form content, then starting natively from scratch and make 20 different reels, hoping it'll go viral.
00:05:39 Gloria: So content mastery comes from repurposing and the best way to repurpose is to start with a long form content. If you're a writer, for example, if you don't wanna be on a podcast, that's fine. If you write an email to your newsletter, and by the way, the money is on your list, so make sure that you are cultivating your email list, making sure that you're emailing your email list, try to write a longer form email like I do every week with my newsletters, we have different sections of what we're celebrating, of stuff that's on our mind, of the different tips and tricks.
00:06:07 Gloria: From there, you can splice that up into different Instagram carousels. You can use different sections for, let's say, a caption. You can use that as a talking point for later. You can also repost that entire email on your blog. It's the same long form content, you're just repurposing it. So that's what I mean. Always think in terms of long form content and how can I repurpose? That is really the key to mastery.
00:06:31 Gloria: So to recap, the first one is what is the ROI and lifespan of my content. Two, to work smarter and not harder. Content mastery comes from repurposing long form content. So always start with a long form content first. That way you don't have to scramble to fill up your content calendar and you'll already have content so that you can have at least five, 10, 20 pieces of things to splice and dice up. So even if you, let's say go a week on vacation, that's okay because you have a long form piece of content that you can create many different pieces from.
00:07:00 Gloria: The third golden rule for creating content that really works for us is to think about the shareability. How can I incentivize other people to share my content? So it's not just me having a one-way dialogue with someone that I am also getting people to share, to tag, to promote. And there's a couple of ways you can think about doing this. You can obviously, the most easy way is to invite someone on to do a co-speaking with you. So you can say, hey, I'm doing this workshop or I want to do this 30 minute training, I think you have some great tips. Like would you be willing to come into my program or my community or my Instagram to talk about X, Y, and Z?
00:07:35 Gloria: Make sure you record it natively though so then that way you have that content. That's a great way to give someone, platform. That's a great way to have them also cross promote. So, always think about, how can I get someone else involved in creating content so that it's not just me creating content, but I'm sharing the platform and thereby I am leveraging their audience. So you want to be strategic with who you share, who you pick to, you know, do like a co-host session with. I'm not gonna pick someone who doesn't have an aligned audience for me.
00:08:00 Gloria: So think about someone who's not a competitor, but someone who has an aligned audience. So if you are in, Bath and Beauty products, maybe it's someone who talks about wellness. If you're a mompreneur, maybe it's someone who writes about, you know, parenting or education. So think about ways that you can align with adjacent, but not competitive partners that can get you more eyeballs on what you're talking about because they're going to want to share, they're going to want to tag.
00:08:24 Gloria: Now here's another little known thing. If you feel like you have someone in your industry you've been wanting to get ahold of, but they seem a little bit out of reach because maybe they have a lot of followers or you feel like they're very busy, a great way to kind of get on their radar is to mention their name, is to in whatever content that you're making, tag them, say, oh, I learned this incredible thing from this person who's always dropping gems or go ahead and follow these five people who are constantly doing work to elevate this community.
00:08:51 Gloria: By giving them a shout out and singing their praises, they slowly get to know your name and who doesn't love to be complimented, who doesn't love to be tagged and wake up to something that's like this person tagged you and had nothing but great things to say. So that's also a little trick. If you wanna get on the radar of someone who is a little bit out of touch or a little bit, not out of touch, out of reach is to tag them, sub-mention them, talk about their work, whether it's a quote, whether it's a book they shared, whether it's anything from their content, it's a great way.
00:09:20 Gloria: So this is a short and quick episode, and I hope that after this episode, you'll be able to think about working smarter, not harder. You'll be able to think about how you can create content in a way that works for you and doesn't drain you by creating long form pieces of content and then splicing that up because content mastery comes from repurposing long form content.
00:09:38 Gloria: As always, thank you so much for listening. If you know any small business heroes who can benefit from this podcast episode or overall this podcast, please send them to listen to this podcast. That's the only way people can find out more about it. And thank you so much for being here. Please rate and subscribe and leave me a review so I know exactly what you think of this episode. Thank you.
00:10:01 Gloria: Hey, small business hero, did you know that you can get featured for free on outlets like Forbes, the New York Times, Marie Claire, PopSugar, and so many more, even if you're not yet launched or if you don't have any connections? That's right. That's why I invite you to watch my PR Secrets Masterclass, where I reveal the exact methods thousands of bootstrapping small businesses use to hack their own PR and go from unknown to being a credible and sought after industry expert.
00:10:28 Gloria: Now, if you want to land your first press feature, get on a podcast, secure a VIP speaking gig or just reach out to that very intimidating editor, this class will show you exactly how to do it. Register now at GloriaChouPR.com/Masterclass. That's Gloria Chou, C-H-O-U-P-R, dot com slash Masterclass. So you can get featured in 30 days without spending a penny on ads or agencies. Best of all, this is completely free. So get in there and let's get you featured.