Working Efficiently
Who doesn’t want to create less work for themselves by working efficiently? (definition: maximum productivity with minimum wasted effort) It’s a goal and idealized dream for many but at times feels like an unreachable quest. Working efficiently takes on even more importance when reinventing, restarting and regrouping to create your ideal lifestyle and businesses. (read: Getting Things Done Through Deep Work)
With the emphasis on content creation as a thought leader, repurposing quality content has been one of my goals to extend my reach not only on social media, but email. Articles, video, podcasts and posts all work hand in hand in working efficiently as most can be repurposed.
Here we will approach the why, what and how to use your content in multiple ways. Why repurpose, what is the lifespan of your content on social media and how to repurpose for future access of your valuable content.
Why Repurpose Content?
A workable system will free you up. It’s what I speak about in the webinar Working Remotely Through Any Economy. If you have a good, automated system in place, you can step away from your business and it will keep going. It’s also a secret to creating residual income that works while you sleep!
However, it does take planning. Here, will talk about how to expand your business with four basic steps including starting with a plan, replicating the plan, customizing your process and creating your repeatable system.
What is the Lifespan of Content?
If your content is on your blog or website first, that content will live there for as long as you keep it active. The challenge is getting people to visit your land, or your business place of residence.
When posting on Facebook with over two billion active users, you can expect a five-hour lifespan where it will receive three-quarters of its engagements. Twitter has approximately 330 million active users with about five-hundred billion tweets made per day. But Twitter has one of the shortest lifespans with a 15-20 minute window. Images also have more click throughs.
LinkedIn has about 300 million active users but over 80 percent of social media leads generated by B2B marketers are made via LinkedIn. Most posts live about 24 hours. I suggest you not only have your blog articles posted on LinkedIn, but also cut-paste much of your blog article to create a LinkedIn article, which will stay archived on the platform and can be easily searched.
You can find most of this information online from multiple sources, but the point is that content doesn’t last very long unless you have ways to repost it. It takes planning, but once you have a good system, it’s very doable and keeps your name and brand active.
How to Repurpose Content for Future Access
Repurposing your content not only creates more value for work you’ve already done but does aid you in working efficiently. I will share my current process or system with you, but I encourage you to create your own. Mine has evolved through the years and at this time what I am sharing works best for my personal routine. With a good system you can duplicate, your business will be scalable and even less work.
When creating an article, I first create it in Microsoft Word. You can use any editing program you want, but if you keep a folder on your hard drive or the cloud of your articles, you can write, then rewrite. (then rewrite again!) Even if I don’t have time to finish an article, it has helped me to document my ideas to come back to later.
I used to start with just an outline for my podcasts, but since I now write an accompanying article for each one, I write much of the article before even producing the episode. For interviews, I create an outline and write the full article after producing the episode but take detailed notes while interviewing to make it easier to complete the article.
For every podcast episode, I write an article or blog post, release that article in my weekly newsletter (subscribe here!), then put the MP3 on YouTube with a graphic and share it on all platforms. The podcast episodes are longer than any other video I create on YouTube, but I have found that some people just listen to the MP3 on YouTube. At times, I even create memes to link back to the article. The main article is then repurposed and published as a LinkedIn article.
Since getting my system down, this doesn’t take me a great deal of time and my name and content shows up often. With the flood of content posted every day (1 billion hours of YouTube content watched daily!) at least there’s a greater chance of being seen.
Social Media Scheduler
One of the essential online tools I have used for a number of years is a social media scheduler. I use Buffer but there are many others available. My V.A. (virtual assistant) can then post the memes I create for courses, products, webinars and other events on all my main platforms, multiple times a day.
What I suggest is that you start small. Do this yourself before assigning the job to anyone else so you get your own system down. I have included a social media scheduler guide in my online course (A New Way of Doing Business Course) that is editable. Even if you start with a few basic memes, it’s not too early to get used to scheduling them often.
I often say, If you never start, you’ll never finish! (See: Living with Intention) Don’t be afraid of creating content. When I look back at some of my articles, I laugh! It’s just like looking at some of those old photos from the 70’s! But I was doing it! My articles and content were much briefer, but I still developed my own list and own following. I encourage you to do the same in demonstrating your uniqueness and the value you bring to the world! You can do it!
If you are interested in growing and learning, check out our online courses here: Online Learning
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