5 Ways to Streamline Content Creation

Is the term “content creation” overused in Marketing World? Absolutely.

Is it still something you need to do as a business owner? Yes.

Before we get into how to streamline your content creation process, let’s talk about the different kinds of content you might create a business owner:

Social media posts
Blogs
Text graphics
Photos you take
Videos you create
Emails you send to your list
Flyers or other printed material
Your website (specially updating or adding pages and the copy on them)
Product descriptions
Artiles you submit
Podcasts
Common emails you send in your business

And probably some things I’m forgetting to add to the list above.

When you look at it that way, no wonder business owners get overwhelmed when it comes to creating content for their business.

However, with a little bit of planning and organization, you can streamline your content creation process to make it faster and more effective.

This isn’t about churning out as much content as possible. This is about creating content that helps you connect with your audience while also helping you reach those big picture goals.

Create a Content Calendar 

If we’re going to streamline your content creation process, we’re going to need a plan and that plan is called a content calendar.

You know how you make important birthdays, meetings, and dates on a regular calendar?

A content calendar is just like that, but instead of personal appointments, you’re using a calendar to map out when you are going to post, on which specific platform and when.

It can be simple and plain or elaborate and detailed, but having a content calendar means you can plan ahead instead of posting on the fly and hoping for the best.

Whether your sketching your content calendar in a notebook or take it digital and use something like Airtable or Excel here are some things to keep in mind:

How often do you want to post on different platforms?

What kind of content will you be sharing (video, photos, links, or plain text?)

What assets do you need for your posts? If you’re posting on Instagram you’ll need a photo AND a caption. If you’re posting blog posts, you’ll need copy AND photos.

How does each piece of content fit into your overall marketing strategy? Some different jobs your content may have:

Educational
Designed to get engagement (comments and shares)
Get leads or make a sale
Share your expertise or insight
Build community

While making sales is the goal of having a business, you can’t just make endless sales posts. Think about what kinds of content you respond to and why. How can you create that experience for your own audience?

Mapping it out in a content calendar means you are able to do that with thoughtfulness and planning.

Reuse, Repurpose, Recycle Your Content

One of the biggest hurdles for small business owners is time. There are so many things to do, so many things to juggle, and something is always pulling your attention away from what you want to be working on.

Reusing, repurposing, and recycling content is one of the best ways to make your content work harder, increase your impact, and give yourself time to work on other aspects of your business and marketing.

Instead of spending time creating something new from scratch you can repost your best performing content or use a single piece of content in multiple ways:

A blog post can be broken down into several social media posts.

A social media text post can be turned into a video.

An Instagram carousel post can be turned into a Story post or even a Reel

A podcast episode can be turned into a blog post.

Repurposing your content saves time and allows you to reach a wider audience since people learn and consume content in different ways. Some people love video, but don’t read blog posts while others love a long juice blog post, but aren’t interested in Instagram carousels.

This also helps you fill your content calendar and helps you stay on message when it comes to talking about what you do or promoting your services and products. Over time you can build your own library of reusable content.

You don’t have to box yourself into a small niche, but your audience does need to have a grasp on what you offer or they’ll get confused.

Want to go deeper? Grab the Creating Content with Purpose Mini Course!

Use Templates

If you think templates will make your content boring or uninteresting, let’s look at how templates are used.

The English class example of a paragraph - an intro, followed by supporting sentences, and ending with a conclusion sentence? That’s a template.

Almost any blog post starts with an intro paragraph and ends with some kind of wrap up - that’s a template.

Movie credits that roll at the end of the movie instead of the middle? That’s a template.

Bedrooms have beds and closets? Also a template.

Templates let you take a shortcut in content creation. It is one less decision you need to make. You can just get on with the creation piece and worry less about the look and format (because past you already made those decisions).

At a minimum, you’ll start having a general idea of what is needed. If you reuse the same template over and over it becomes even easier because you’ll know exactly what you need and your audience will always know what to expect. Instagram carousels are a great example of this.

When you tie templates to branding your audience will even be able to spot your content based on your colors and fonts before they even see your name.

Create Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)

Do you ever forget how to do something in your business?

Or maybe you have to remember not to forget a step in sending an email to your list, updating products on your website, or some other task you don’t do often enough to have every step memorized?

If you’ve ever wanted to hand off some tasks in your business to an assistant, but feel stuck around how much time it would take to train them to do what you do…SOPs are the answer.

These can essentially be step-by-step instructions for everything you do in  your business. When it comes to content creation, SOPs are a clear and concise roadmap for your content creation process, making it easier for you or your team to understand and follow (yes, do this even if you're the whole team - it is a HUGE timesaver in the long run).

The best way to start creating your own SOPs is to start writing down your processes or use a program like Scribe to record your screen and create the instructions as you go.

An example of a very basic SOP for an Instagram post might be:

Source photo
Edit photo
Write copy
Spellcheck/proofread copy
Research hashtags

Create a new Instagram post
Add photo
Add caption
Add hashtags
Add location
Post
Share new post to Stories

Maybe your process has more steps. Or maybe your process is different than this. Or maybe this is what you’d like your process to be, but you always forget a step.

How much time would you save if you had your own checklist for all the tasks you need to do?

Plan to Share Your Content

I hate to be the one to tell you this, but creating content isn’t the end of the process. You also need to promote it and make sure it is working hard for you by reaching your people.

If you don’t also share the content you create, you’re letting your hard work go to waste

What does promoting your content mean?

If you’ve created a blog post, share it with your email list and on social media in general.

If you’ve created a new Instagram post, share it in your Stories.

If you have a new video, share it across social media platforms and even with your email list.

You can also utilize Pinterest, SEO, and even paid ads in this process if you’d like.

Sure, you can put out new blog posts, podcasts, videos, and other types of content and hope they show up organically in front of the right people or you can nudge the process along by making a point to promote it to the people who would be interested in seeing it.

Yes, creating content for your business can feel like an overwhelming task, but chances are you’re already creating content of some kind. Why not find ways to put it to work and make sure it is aligned with your overall business goals instead of doing it haphazardly?

Having a streamlined plan in place will also help reduce decision fatigue, missed opportunities, and help you reach your business goals.

If you’re looking to go even deeper into streamlining content creation, ChatGPT is also a fantastic option to help you come up with ideas, create outlines, and even write some of the copy for you. If you’d like to learn more, check out my ChatGPT for Content Creation Mini-Course