You know it to be true, don’t you? You can’t just throw spaghetti on a wall and hope it sticks when it comes to your content. But more often than not, we get in a rut of not knowing what to post, and instead of digging our heels in and creating signature content that would consistently draw people to our brand’s voice, we keep putting off THE VERY ACTIVITY that helps us chorale all the moving pieces of our brand together and systematically deliver, not only effective content, but content that establishes our voice, our experience and our perspective every single week!
For the purpose of this post, I’m going to assume you have your brand somewhat nailed down. If not, no worries! We can explore all that in another post, because knowing who you are, who your customer is, what their pain points are and what you deliver to serve them is crucial when it comes to your brand and what you talk about the majority of the time. But also, doing this exercise might further shed light on what your brand should be about and help you go back and reconfigure your brand a bit, if need be.
So, assuming you are familiarized with that or at least have a good idea where you land, let’s skip to the good part, shall we?
creating your signature piece of content (SPC)
First of all, we want to ask the question: what will my signature piece of content be about? Let’s start by brainstorming a list of 52 things you can post about that specifically pertains to your brand, what your ideal client’s pain points are and how you can solve them. Why 52? Because there are 52 weeks in a year and you want to produce one piece of signature content every single week. If you are into baking, that content would be comprised of different recipes you can bake, baking tips, types of baking equipment, why you love baking, etc… If you are a fitness trainer, that content would be 52 areas of fitness you can home in on like exercises for lower body, how to schedule your weekly fitness, what to look for in a fitness coach and foods you should avoid before or after working out. If you are a beauty consultant, the list would be comprised of beauty tips, product recommendations or resources you can share. If you are a realtor, it would be 52 different areas of home buying, home selling, financial tips and things to look for in a kitchen, bathroom or neighborhood you can share. You get the gist!
Write your list out as soon as possible. Don’t overthink it. We’ll put the list in order on the next step. Just get as specific as you can about things your ideal client might want to know about.
- 3 Things You Need to Look for When Thinking About Buying a Home
- 5 Ways to Raise Your Credit Score
- Top 10 Areas to Buy a Home in the Midwest
I want to encourage you to set aside time to get these ideas down very quickly. Why? Because you don’t want to keep posting haphazardly and miss ONE MORE MOMENT not reaching your ideal client and becoming an expert in their eyes. If you don’t have time right now, set aside an hour or two this week and make this list your top priority.
give your list a date
Once you’ve brainstormed an exhaustive list, organize the list in a way that it makes sense to you and put it on the calendar. Once you have this anchor of 52 content ideas, you can then get to work sliding those ideas into each week of the year. If you’re starting that list right now, in August, for instance, you can and should curtail the list to the seasons, life events, the holidays, current news and all things that might pertain to that time of year and have an impact on what you are talking about. This step is crucial because, then, it’s relevant to your viewers, readers and listeners. You might be able to move it around a little bit once you’ve made the decision where it should go, but I find it easier to just put it on the calendar and stick with it. Now you can start to build out your content and quit worrying about it. Again, don’t overthink it. You’ll get better at this by doing it!
- Week 1 (8/14) – Back to School Tips for New Home Buyers
- Week 2 (8/21) – Making Your New Home Holiday Ready
- Week 3 (8/28) – Staying Sane While House Hunting Around the Holidays
I love this so much, because no matter what your brand is about, you can easily have 52 topics to choose from and expand upon!
choose a day of the week to create your content
Do you see how we’re widdling down your obstacles one at a time? By now, you have explored what you can post about, you’ve written your list and you’ve given each signature piece of content (SPC) a date. But none of that matters if you don’t commit to a day and time where you can consistently create the content. Maybe you create your content every Sunday evening at 6pm or maybe it’s Tuesdays at 6am. Maybe you set aside the first Wednesday of every month to batch your content for the following month or you book a hotel room for a weekend once every quarter to batch for 12 weeks at a time. How and when you do it doesn’t matter. It only matters THAT you do it.
Disclaimer: The first couple of times that you set time aside to work on your content will be hard. You will second-guess yourself. You may even wonder if what you’re doing is really worthwhile or this content topic you’ve chosen for this week is even relative to your potential client. Do it anyway. Second guessing is natural. We all do it. The distractions and frustration are part of the process. We’ll talk about that in other post, but here’s what I want to remind you: If it were easy, everyone would do it. You’re not everyone.
weaving your SPC into your weekly posts
Once you’ve created your SPC (signature piece of content) in a place like a blog, a vlog on YouTube or a podcast, now you can use that content to branch out and sprinkle across all your social media channels in various forms. The challenge is not where you should post, but more: where are your ideal clients hanging out? If you don’t know, test it and see!
So how does this play out?
Let’s say your blog post this week is about Getting Kids Back to School Ready since, as I write this, we’re in the dog days of summer staring down the barrel at the first day of school. Once you write that content or do a video or a podcast episode about it or all 3, you’re going to then create snippets of that content on reels over on Instagram. You’re going to talk about it in your stories, you’re going to share ideas on Facebook throughout the week (including a Facebook Live with a Call to Action and Lead Magnet) and if you’re super fancy, you’re going to weave it into a Pinterest post people can save or a LinkedIn post that pertains to working parents.
See how this works?
becoming the authority in your space
I hope, by now, this is making sense to you and you are understanding how you can become an authority in your space and develop your vocal brand by planning ahead and creating engaging content that your specific audience needs. I also hope, by now, you realize what the disconnect might be with the content you are currently posting and your audience’s response to it. And I hope that, by now, you can clearly see the importance of offering themed, value-driven and regularly delivered content that you can pull from in order to draw people into a storyline and help them see the clear value of what you offer and why they need it.
where do you begin?
Whether you already own a domain name or you’ve never started a blog, I would definitely suggest having a blog or a place where you can share your ideas and bring together all your content in one place! You can start fairly basic and inexpensive and build upon it, but I would suggest you have something that is yours. If you know you aren’t a writer and a blog just isn’t for you, but you enjoy speaking, training or sharing, you can always start a YouTube channel, a Clubhouse room or even host your own podcast. Nowadays, there are so many options and ways people can find you, so don’t get caught up in what or where, just start producing content and putting it out there. I highly suggest figuring it out as you go!
final thoughts
The take away I really want you to have with this is to just say no to posting random content and once and for all, get really really clear on what you have to offer. Don’t just show up and post things that get likes or comments! That’s OK sometimes, but I want to encourage you to become the expert, go-to person in your field or space! Chances are, if you are reading this and in my circle, you already know your calling is higher than where you currently are. There’s no shame in beginnings, my friend. And there’s certainly no shame in starting small and building. But I want to urge you to GO NOW and build your vocal brand by creating your signature piece of content every week and sharing that content out to the world! And we at The Vocalpreneur are here to help you do that!
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