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Six Things To Do Before Starting A New Content Marketing Platform
Have you thought about adding a new content platform to your marketing strategy, but aren’t sure where to begin? Well, I can tell you what typically happens. Normally, we decide we want to be on a new platform, and we immediately jump into learning all about best practices from the experts. Then we jump into creating that content, we post our first piece, and we hear … crickets. We end up frustrated by a lack of response, because we were promised that if we just did it the “right” way, that we would see explosive growth. And that motivation to create content for that platform? Gone.
Instead of seeing a platform as the key to your explosive growth, and focusing on best practices, I want to encourage you to start slowly so that your new platform can be sustainable. Then, once you’ve gotten a feel for how you’re using the platform, you can learn more about best practices and improving your content.
But first, you’ve got to just begin. So I’m sharing 6 things you’ll want to do before starting on whatever new platform you’ve been thinking about.
Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
- Need help with your content strategy? Book a 1:1 Content Marketing Strategy call
- Are you looking to improve your content without spending a ton of time and mental energy doing so? Whether you’re looking for help knowing what to talk about, setting up content systems, or improving your launch strategy, the Chasing Simple Shop has something for you. From A Year of Content Prompts broken up by type of content, to my Launch Strategy Mini-Course – the Chasing Simple Shop is the quick and simple way to take your content to the next level. And you can get 10% off any item by using the code LISTENER at checkout! Just head to amandawarfield.com/shop/ and again, that code for 10% off is LISTENER!
- This week’s episode is brought to you by the Chasing Simple Content Planner and you can grab your own at amandawarfield.com/planner/
- This week’s action step: If there’s a new platform you’ve been thinking of utilizing, go grab your username and set up your account.
- This week’s book recommendation: Overseas by Beatriz Williams (Wild premise. Time travel .But incredibly well done.)
- Find me on Instagram and tell me you completed this week’s action step: @mrsamandawarfield
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Rather Read? – Here’s the Transcript!
*Just a heads up – the provided transcript is likely to not be 100% accurate
Have you thought about adding a new content platform to your marketing strategy, but just aren’t sure where to begin? Well, I can tell you what typically happens. Normally we decide we want to be on a new platform, and we immediately jump into learning all the things, all about the best practices from the experts, all about how to use the platform, how to create the best content for it, and then we jump into creating that content.
We post our first piece and we hear crickets. We end up frustrated by a lack of response because we were promised that if we just did it the right way, that we would see explosive growth on this platform and that motivation to create content for that platform gone instead of seeing a platform as the key to your explosive growth and focusing on best practices, I wanna encourage you to start slowly so that your new platform can be sustain.
Then once you’ve gotten a feel for how you’re using the platform, you can learn more about best practices in improving your content. But first, you’ve just got to begin. So I’m sharing six things that you’ll wanna do before starting on whatever new platform it is that you’ve been thinking about, so that you can create sustainable content on that platform and then use it to grow.
You’re listening to episode 160 of The Chasing Simple Podcast, and I’m your host, Amanda Warfield. This episode was brought to you by the Chasing Simple contact planner, and you can grab your own at amanda warfield.com/planner.
How do I run a successful business from my home? How can I possibly wear all of the hats? Am I the only one that struggles with staying? What am I supposed to do about work-life balance? How can I create a solid schedule and routine? How do I even stay productive? And the biggest question of all, how do I manage it all?
And can I really create a business that I love without being chained in my laptop? Welcome to the Chasing Simple Podcast. Where hard conversations and actionable education meet. I’m your host, Amanda Warfield, time management coach, online educator, and crazy Cat mama. My mission is to help overwhelm biz owners get more done and less time so that they have more time and energy for what matters most.
If you feel overwhelmed or occasionally lost in the rollercoaster that is entrepreneurship, I want you to know that you aren’t. Those things you’re feeling, you aren’t the first or the last to feel that way. The hard things you’re going through, someone else has already been there too. Each week I’ll bring you transparent conversations, actionable steps, and a judgment free community to encourage and equip you.
So grab yourself a cup of coffee or whatever your drink of choice is and meet me here each week for love. Practical tips and advice on simplifying your biz. Let’s do this entrepreneurship thing together, shall we?
Are you looking to improve your content without spending a ton of time and mental energy doing so? Whether you’re looking for help, knowing what to talk about, setting up content systems, or improving your launch strategy, the Chasing Simple Shop has something for you from a year of content prompts broken up by type of content to my launch strategy mini course, which will teach you my entire strategy.
Launching your upcoming online course. The Chasing Simple Shop is the quick and simple way to take your content to the next level, and you can get 10% off any item Just for being a listener of the Chasing Simple Podcast by using the Code Listener at checkout, just head to amanda warfield.com/shop. And again, that code for 10% off is listen.
So before you start using a new content platform as part of your marketing strategy, the first thing that I want you to do is to get on the platform and use it yourself. Get a feel for what does well, what is the algorithm of that platform pushing to you? What is. Popular. What do you enjoy on that platform?
What do you not enjoy? How are you using the platform? I want you to stop and think, as you consciously use this platform to get a feel for it. And get a feel for what’s working and what’s not. This is something that I did with TikTok is I used it myself for a few months before I even started posting my own things because that allowed me to say, okay, this is what does really well.
I’m noticing that there are these patterns with how long videos last, or which ones that I actually start and finish. What do they have in common? Look for those things that the type of content on whatever platform it is that you’re looking at. What do they have in common for the ones that do really well?
And what do the ones that you don’t enjoy, what do they have in common? This isn’t something that you need to make a big thing where you need to sit down and set aside time and have notes just as you’re using it. Think about what it is that you do and don’t like when you read or watch or listen to a full piece of content.
What made you stay? When you say, mm-hmm I’m bored, what made you leave? Look at those patterns and use the platform for yourself that is going to be so helpful for creating content yourself that has those. Those nuances of each different platform that keeps people sticking around. The next thing I want you to do is I want you to have a content bank before you get started.
Don’t start behind because what’s gonna happen if you start behind? Meaning that if you create a piece of content and you post it and then you have to create the next piece and post it and create the next piece and post it, what’s gonna happen is you’re gonna get overwhelmed adding an entirely new content platform to your content strategy.
You’re gonna get overwhelmed and you’re gonna ghost. What I want you to do instead is I want you to create content however long it takes you to create it, because at first it’s going to be harder and more time consuming as you get used to, it will take you less time and you can batch more efficiently.
Right? But. As you’re getting used to it, create a bank of content. If you’re going to start podcasting, record 5, 10, 15 episodes before you post the first one. Same thing with YouTube. Have a stack of content that you can drip out over time to give yourself the time and space to create more. This. Gives you the space to kind of get in the groove of creating for that platform, understanding how long it actually takes, and it’ll help you be able to reasonably determine how often you can actually show up in a month.
So if you set aside a goal and you say, I’m gonna create 15 pieces of content before I even planned my launch date, before I even do any of that, or maybe it’s 10 or maybe it’s five, whatever that looks like, creating those gives you an idea of how long it’ll take you to. A month’s worth of content, quote unquote.
And then you can say, man, this isn’t reasonable. I need to scale back on how much I’m trying to create in a month. And or maybe you can say, man, that was really fast. Maybe I can create more than I originally intended, but, Don’t put the pressure on yourself to, oh, I’ve got the launch date here and I have a week to create all this content.
It’s just, it’s not worth it. It’s going to go so much more smoothly if you have that content bank. If you don’t start behind and you get an idea and a feel for what’s reasonable for a month so that when you start showing up, you can be efficient and you can be honest with how often you’re gonna show up so that you are consistent for your people.
On the flip side of that, not really the flip side, the, an offshoot of that, I guess I should say, repurpose content from other platforms. When you sit down to start a new content marketing platform, it’s really easy to go. Where do I start? What do I talk about? I don’t even know where to begin. Take content that you have created on other platforms and repurpose it, reuse it.
If you are starting a new social media channel, take your long form content and take bite size pieces out of it. That’s where you get all of your beginning content from. Okay? If you’re starting a new type of long form content, well, if you already have other long form credit, let’s say you’re going from a blog to a podcast, read your.
Maybe spruce ’em up a bit, but use your blogs as your scripts for your first few podcasts. Take your best blogs, the ones that get the most traffic, the ones that you’re most proud of, and use those. If you’re going from a podcast to YouTube, you maybe you take the outlines that you already had and reuse them.
Same topic, same thing. Just instead, it’s video. Take what you’ve already created and repurpose it. And if you, you’re starting your first piece of long form content, well, okay, what have you posted on social media that did really well? Go look at your stats and if it did really well, how can you expand on it?
Or if you’re just getting started and you’re like, I don’t even, I don’t, I don’t know where to begin. Okay, go and look at all of your social media and look at ones that have similar themes and then create a blog post using all of those. There’s so many different ways that you can repurpose that content, but it’s going to help you again, as you get in the groove of that new workflow.
It’s gonna help you create content in less time, so repurpose content from your other platforms into this new platform. The fourth thing I want you to do is to have a mini launch. Now remember before you, you immediately shut down the idea of a launch. A launch is simply a marketing promotion meant to get more eyes on an offer.
A launch does not have to be this big, massive thing, and in this case, I want you to really, truly think a mini launch. But what I want you to do is I want you to. Make sure that you’re leveraging your audience that you currently have elsewhere and bringing them to your new platform. So your offer for this launch is the new content platform, and you want to do what you can to encourage your audience elsewhere to engage with the new platform’s content.
So you’re sharing about this new platform. Let’s say you’re on Instagram, okay? Well utilize your Instagram and say, Hey, I’m over in this other new place now. Are you over there too? Come join me, follow me. I’ll follow you back. Do what you can to encourage those people to move over to that new content platform, but set aside time specifically in your marketing plan to talk about that the week you start posting that new content, that whole week on your other platforms.
Lead them back to this new platform. That way you’re able to start building your audience from the start, and you’re not just throwing things out into the void. You’re taking the audience you already have and you’re pushing them over there to this new place. And that’s going to help you start building an audience and it’s gonna help that platform say, oh, this person, they get engagement.
And it’s gonna push you to new people as well. So leverage the audience that you already have, do a little mini launch in your marketing and send people to the new platform. Now the fifth thing, and you know these necessarily aren’t in order, but fifth thing I want you to do is to identify your goals.
What are your goals for using that platform? Specif. And if you’re not sure, go back and listen to episode 1 54. It’s all about how to leverage each different content platform, but you’re going to want to decide what is my goal? What is my purpose? Why am I getting on this platform? We don’t wanna get on platforms just to get on platforms.
When we do get on platforms, we wanna make sure that we have a specific goal in mind. Is it Legion? Is it, you know, just building more of an audience? Is it. Trying out this new way of doing things, is it just to add a long form content stream? Whatever it is. You wanna have one goal and in the end, eventually we have a million little goals for our content platforms.
Right? But choose one to begin with and if your whole goal is legion. You know, okay, I’ve gotta build my audience and I’ve got to make sure that strategically I am moving people towards that goal. So that’s your, your next step, or step number six to do before you start this new platform is to determine your strategy.
What are you going to do to reach that main goal? So if your goal, like I said, is lead gin, well what are you going to do to generate new leads? You wanna make sure that all your calls to actions are putting people onto your email list. Correct. Because that’s where our lead gin goes. So, you know, okay, every single piece of content needs a call to action that’s gonna get them onto my email list, whether it’s a freebie or a low paying offer or whatever that looks like you wanna move people to your email list, and that is how.
Use your strategy to reach your goals. Something that you might wanna do is to set KPIs for that specific goal. So one of your KPIs is how many mentions do you have for your email list throughout that week’s episode or that month’s episode, or that week’s blog post? And count how many times you’re doing it, and then you can start to see a correlation of how often you say something to how often someone takes action to how often the action gets fully completed, and how many people you actually have on your list.
But use KPIs after you’ve determined your strategy and set your strategy after you’ve determined your goal and your goal. You need to have after you’ve started to. Utilize the platform, and that way when it comes time to create the content and start putting the content on that new platform, you’ve got a strategy in mind.
And you’re not just throwing spaghetti at the wall. You’re not just saying, I’m here and I’m showing up, and I’ve got a ton of random content. You’ve got really specific content for your business. So here’s your action step. If there’s a new platform that you’ve been thinking of utilizing, go grab your username and set up your account.
You don’t have to do anything else. Set up your account, grab your username, and start using the platform for your own personal enjoyment. This week’s book recommendation is overseas by Beatrice Williams, and I’m gonna be honest, this premise is wild. It’s got time travel in it, which can often be kind of hard to read and understand and not feel like there are gaps in it.
But this is incredibly well done, so highly recommend overseas by Beatrice William. All right, my friend. Until next time, I hope that you will go out and uncomplicate your life in biz.
Thank you so much for joining me here today, friend. If you loved this episode, it would mean the world to me if you’d leave a rating and review. This is a great way to help spread the word about this podcast and. Help other wonderful women like yourself find it. You can find this episode show notes as well as tons of other great resources over@amandawarfield.com.
And if you aren’t following me on Instagram yet, I’d love to connect with you over there. I’m at Mrs. Amanda Warfield. Shoot me a DM and tell me what you love most about this episode. Thanks for being here, friend. I’ll see you next time.
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