Best Of: How to Plan Out 30 Days of Your Social Media Content in One Hour or Less
We hear it all the time – “I know I should show up consistently on social media, but I don’t know what to post” or “I want to share helpful content on social media but it takes too much time.”
We totally get it, and if you’re nodding your head in agreement with either of those sentiments, you’re going to love this episode we’re bringing back about How to Plan Out 30 Days of Your Social Media Content in One Hour or Less.
Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:
- Why it’s important to have a variety of posts on social media
- The 3 different categories of posts you should include
- 5 examples of types of posts you can put on rotation every month
- How to come up with 30 days or more worth of posts each and every month
If you want to be more consistent on social media, but it has just felt too time consuming to come up with ideas for posts and videos, tune in to find out how to simplify the process.
BTW…I have a free guide that covers what we’re going to talk about in more detail and it’s called Social Media Planning Made Easy. This is a handy guide you can refer back to over and over again with a ton of ideas for coming up with social media posts, including 16 ideas for posts that you can put on rotation each month to build awareness, grow your email list AND convert followers to clients.
Strategy #1: Use a variety of posts.
Sharing a variety of posts on social media helps keep your feed interesting and more importantly, it keeps your audience engaged and coming back for more. Think about the people you follow and why you follow them. We get bored if we see the same types of posts on a feed over and over again, so you want to keep it interesting.
Let’s talk a little bit about your social media strategy before we go into specific ideas for your posts.
In addition to having a variety of posts, you want to keep the customer journey in mind with your content. We talk about the customer journey a lot on this podcast because it’s so important. Think of the customer journey as a sales funnel where people go from just finding out about you all the way to eventually becoming a paying client. On social media, this means incorporating posts that will turn some of your followers into clients, rather than just posting for the sake of posting. Likes and comments are great but being intentional about what you’re posting will make a huge difference in your results.
Some posts should create awareness about you and your services, some should lead people to the next step with you by either joining your Facebook group, reading a blog post, downloading a free resource to get on your email list, or scheduling a discovery call, and some should directly lead to sales. The more touch points people have with you, the more they get to know you and trust you, and these are the people who are much more likely to enroll in your programs.
Needless to say, including video (live or recorded) as part of your content strategy is critical if you want to stand out and dramatically expedite the customer journey.
Strategy #2: There are 3 main categories of posts you want to include as part of your social media strategy
- Awareness & Nurture – This is where people become aware of who you are and get to know, like and trust you. These posts can be informational or inspirational. These can also be posts that are humorous and relatable in some way.
- Lead generation – Turning followers into subscribers by sharing your lead magnets (free offers).
- Sales – Inviting people to enroll in your paid programs. This will either be with a free discovery call or strategy session for 1-on-1 coaching or directly to your group online program if you have one.
So, Awareness & Nurture, lead generation and sales are your categories. Use a mix of these posts throughout the month, and notice which posts get the most engagement, responses and results and do more of those.
Here are 5 examples of types of posts you can put on rotation to get you started and I include a total of 16 examples in my free guide:
- Quote graphics – these are great because they tend to get a lot of shares which can get you in front of new people. (Awareness/nurture category)
- Behind the scenes with you – what are you working on or what is your latest find that you love. People also love sneak peeks of things. You can share that you are working on a new program a webinar, or a challenge, for example. (Awareness/nurture category)
- Share a success story about you or a client – this makes what you do come to life when you share stories about how your life changed or the life of your client. (Awareness/nurture category)
- Promote your freebies to grow your email list – remember that social media is where people find you and you want to connect off of social to build trust and invite people to work with you. (Lead generation)
- Book a call with you – the #1 way you are going to get clients will be through free calls, so the more you do, the more clients you will have. (Sales)
Strategy #3: Come up with 8-12 core pillars of content
Make a list of 8-12 topics that are related to your services or coaching program. The key here is to use topics that tie into how you help your clients, so the more specific, the better. Using a Google Sheet for this is helpful, so you have it one place to refer to and you can continue to add more ideas as they come to you.
Once you have your 8-12 core pillars, break those up into smaller topics until you have at least 5 for each pillar (8 pillars x 5 smaller topics will give you 40 different topics. If you have 12 pillars with 5 topics, you have 60).
Here’s an example of what this could look like: If your niche is helping moms who have food sensitivities transition to a gluten free diet, what 8-12 main topics would you cover with your audience that tie into your offers and coaching programs? Consider some of the common questions you get since these can be good topics too.
Here are 8 examples of pillars of content for this niche that you can break down into smaller topics:
- Hidden sources of gluten
- Meal planning when you’re the only one in your family who is GF
- How to avoid cross contamination in the kitchen
- How to shop GF on a budget
- Eating out while traveling
- Gluten free baking tips
- How to eat healthy while GF (some GF food is junk food)
- What to do if you consumed gluten by mistake
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When you start using the pillar content strategy, coming up with content for social media will be so much easier and you can do this in one hour or less each month.
The other great thing is that it also helps you focus on topics that are centered around not just your zone of genius, but also topics that relate to your niche and the programs you offer.
If you open up a Google sheet, you can add your 8-12 pillars of content across the top, and then list your topics down each column and add to them as you go. Another option is to create a new tab in your Google sheet for each pillar. You can also use Trello or Evernote if you prefer. You just want to keep a running list, so you can continue to add to it as ideas strike, so whatever tech works for you is fine.
Remember to repurpose your content. For example, one topic can be used for a story, a video or livestream and a static post.
If you have 8 pillars and you have at least 5 topics in each one, you are set for more than 40 days because you likely don’t post 7 days a week. Maybe you post 5 days a week, so 40 posts would be 8 weeks of content. You can add or change pillars as you go. If you can only think of 3-5, start there.
You want to include the 3 categories we mentioned too: Awareness & Nurture, Lead and Sales. So, when you add in posts for those, you’re going to have so much content ready to go.
You have to write out the posts or video outline, but that’s usually the easy part – keep it short, sweet and helpful and imagine your post is only for your ideal client – it’s not for everyone. Imagine you are writing to one person.
Are you feeling a bit more enthused about this now? We hope so.
Recap
Let’s recap what we covered about how to plan out 30 days of your social media content in one hour or less each month.
Strategy #1: Use a variety of posts.
Strategy #2: There are 3 main categories of posts you want to include as part of your social media strategy: Attract & Nurture, Lead generation and sales.
Strategy #3: Come up with 8-12 core pillars of content.
BONUS TIP: You can schedule your posts ahead of time with a scheduling app like Planoly which works with Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest, or MeetEdgar for FB and IG. You can also google “social media scheduling apps” and look at more options.
Be sure to download your free copy of my guide, Social Media Planning Made Easy. It’s going to save you so much time and help you come up with better content that moves your ideal client along on their customer journey. You’ll also learn the #1 secret to getting engagement on your posts.
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