You need to stop wasting all your time creating social media content. Social media isn’t the endgame.

Yes, the girl with multiple social media marketing certifications is telling you to stop spending so much time on social media. Don’t get me wrong, there are, of course, many benefits of social media for your small business.

Benefits of Social Media:

• Easy entryway or “top-of-funnel” for new leads to find you
• Enables you to stay top of mind when posting consistently
• Allows you to build authentic relationships with clients and leads in the DM’s

Downsides of Social Media:

• It’s ever-evolving and it will consume a vast majority of your time trying to keep up with the latest trends
• You can easily get sucked into an unproductive 2-hour scrolling vortex
• People’s attention is fleeting and it’s very easy for someone to “move on to the next one”
• You don’t own your account and can be removed or “blocked” by the algorithm at any time

Despite the vast downsides of social media, the benefits will usually and almost always outweigh the downsides, and are seen as doing more good than bad. Thus our continuous effort to keep posting, scrolling, and social media-ing. But does social media need to be the main hub of your content creation? Hell, NO!

How To Start Creating (Better) Content

Outline your ideal customer in great detail. Understand where they are hanging online, how they consume content (blogs, podcasts, social, etc.), and start creating a plan of how YOU can show where THEY already are.

Create a content hub that you OWN. Whether that’s a blog, podcast, or email list.

Plan your content cadence. How often will you be creating new content for your main hub? Once a week? Twice a week? Three times a month?

With your content cadence in mind, you can plan out when you will need supplemental content throughout the week, to post on social.

CONTENT PLAN EXAMPLE: Your weekly blog post is published every Tuesday and you plan on posting to Instagram and LinkedIn 3 times per week.

• Tuesday IG – Create a post about an overarching topic on your blog
• Tuesday LI – Republish your blog as a LinkedIn article
• Wednesday IG – Create a carousel going into detail about one aspect of your blog post
• Wednesday LI – Pull a quote from your blog post and create a graphic
• Thursday IG – Create a reel outlining the bullet points within your blog post
• Thursday LI – Create a poll directly related to your blog post

BOOM! One week of content for THREE platforms is done!

You’ve just knocked off your social posts AND your main content hub for the week.

The best part? You can reuse the above formula over and over again, week after week!

Why Creating Content Outside Of Social Is Important

• It allows you to create a content archive that you can always redirect your followers to if they have a question about something you have previously discussed.
• SEO baby! I show up on page 1 of Google when you type in Instagram Content Pillars and that single blog post (written in 2020) has brought THOUSANDS of new web visitors to my site. Those web visitors then turn into email subscribers, digital product customers, and sometimes even 1:1 strategy clients!
• It’s YOURS! Buy a domain name and you can literally post whatever your heart desires. It won’t get ‘punished’ if you disagree with mainstream media or write about controversial topics. I’ve firsthand witnessed my Instagram story views decrease as soon as I re-share an article from a conservative news source. Meanwhile, if you add a vaccination “sticker” to your Instagram story, your views will soar.
• It looks more professional to potential clients looking to learn more about you and your expertise.

Looking for more content tips? Download this free Content Marketing Blueprint.