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Unveiling the Impact of a Cohesive Content Engine
As I record this episode, we are all recently enamored with threads. It’s just a few days old, so I’m not going to be sharing any tips or tricks or strategies for how to use it, but it is relevant to another important topic about our content marketing – creating a cohesive content engine.
You see, we are all enamored by Threads because it’s fresh and shiny, but also because it’s enabled us to do what Instagram has been not allowing us to do lately – see growth. The real beauty of the app is that we have all been SO over Instagram, but not willing to fully leave because we love the community we cultivated there.
There have been so many complaints about not wanting to move to TikTok because learning a new app sounds like too much work. But the release of Threads has shown that it wasn’t the work, and it wasn’t the overwhelm from having to learn a new app – it was the overwhelm of having to build a new community.
Because, boom – Threads is a brand new app, with better engagement, but we also get to bring our exact community along with us since it’s connected to IG. And people have FLOCKED to it. In the first two hours, they passed 2 million sign ups. In the first four, 5 million. In seven hours, they hit 10 million, and the morning after it launched? 30 million sign ups.
It was never about learning something new. It was about not wanting to start over. But if you don’t have a content engine, you’re going to find yourself having to start over at some point, and that has the potential to truly devastate your business.
So, today, we’re going to talk about what a cohesive content engine is, how you can build your own, and how you can use it to run your business through all of the ups and downs of social media.
Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
- Really quickly, before we dive into this episode – I just HAVE to share something I’m really excited about with you. My book, Chasing Simple Marketing, is launching this July. I wrote this book for the business owner that stumbled into entrepreneurship because they were following their passion. But without that Masters of Business Administration (MBA) or background in business, they find marketing overwhelming and frustrating. Throughout these pages, I’m going to take you on a simplicity-focused journey to improve your content marketing and you’ll walk away with an actionable plan to simplify your marketing, so that you can fit your marketing into your business, without it taking over your business. To learn more about how to grab your copy, and even potentially get on the launch team head over to amandawarfield.com/book/ See you there!
- 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: Start your email list. Choose a provider. Welcome sequence templates. VIP Days for copywriting.
- This week’s book recommendation: Today Tonight Tomorrow by Rachel Lynn Solomon
- 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
As I record this episode, we are all recently enamored with threads. It’s just a few days old, so I am not going to be sharing any tips or tricks or strategies for how to use it. But, it is relevant to another important topic about our content marketing. Creating a cohesive content engine. You see, we are all enamored by threads because it’s fresh and shiny, but also because it’s enabled us to do what Instagram has not been allowing us to do lately.
See growth the real beauty of this app is that we have all been so over Instagram and Instagram’s lack of engagement But not willing to fully leave because we love the community that we cultivated there There have been so many complaints about not wanting to move to tick tock because learning a new app sounds like too much work But the release of threads has shown that it wasn’t the work and it wasn’t the overwhelm from having to learn a new app It was the overwhelm of having to build a new community Because, boom, Threads is a brand new app with better engagement, but we also get to bring our exact community along with us since it’s connected to our Instagram, and people have blocked to it.
In the first two hours, they passed two million signups. In the first four, five million. In seven hours, they hit ten million. In the morning after it launched, 30 million signups. It was never about learning something new. It was about not wanting to start over. But if you don’t have a content engine, you’re going to find yourself having to start over at some point.
And that has the potential to truly devastate your business. So today we’re going to talk about what a cohesive content engine is, how you can build your own, and how you can use it to run your business through all of the ups and downs of social media. You’re listening to episode 179 of the chasing simple podcast, and I’m your host, Amanda Warfield.
This episode was brought to you by my book, Chasing Simple Marketing, and you can grab your own at amandawarfield. com / book.
How do I find time to create content without overwhelming myself? Where should I even be showing up in my marketing? How do I come up with fresh content ideas? Where should I be focusing my marketing efforts? What is lead generation anyways, and how do I do it? Are launches still a thing? And most importantly, How do I put it all together to market my business strategically?
Can I really grow my business without spending all of my time marketing? These are some of the questions that float around in your head when you think of marketing. Welcome, friend. This is Chasing Simple, where practical marketing strategy meets simplicity. I’m your host, Amanda Warfield, simplicity focused content marketing and launch strategist, speaker, educator, and author of Chasing Simple Marketing. I traded in my classroom lesson plans for helping creative entrepreneurs sustainably fit marketing into their business without it taking over their business. so that they have time to grow their business, take time off, and live the life they dreamed about when they first decided to go out on their own.
When I’m working, you can find me working with one on one clients such as The Contract Shop and Rebecca Rice Photography on their marketing strategy and copywriting, or helping my students simplify their marketing and launches. And when I’m not, you can find me spending time outside with my husband, Russell.
Reading in our hammock, watching Gamecock Sports, traveling, or forcing our cats to snuggle me. If you feel overwhelmed by marketing, you aren’t alone. Many entrepreneurs find marketing frustrating, overwhelming, and simply an obligation. They know they need it, but they don’t enjoy how easily it can suck up their time when what they really want to be doing…
Is the thing that they started their business to do, which is why I’m here to help make marketing simple and less time consuming so that you can spend less time on your marketing and more time growing your business and doing what you love. Each week, I’ll bring you transparent conversations, actionable steps, and 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, support, practical tips, and advice on uncomplicating your marketing and business. Let’s do this entrepreneurship thing together, shall we? Really quickly before we dive into this episode, I just have to share something that I’m really excited about with you.
My book, Chasing Simple Marketing, is launching this July. I wrote this book for the business owner that stumbled into entrepreneurship because they were following their passion, but. Without that Masters of Business Administration or that background in business, well, they find marketing overwhelming and frustrating.
Throughout these pages, I’m going to take you on a simplicity focused journey to improve your content marketing, and you’ll walk away with an actionable plan to simplify your marketing so that you can fit your marketing into your business. Without it taking over your business to learn more about how to grab your own copy and even potentially get on the launch team head over to Amanda warfield. com / book. I’ll see you there. I have spent a lot of time talking about showing up consistently with your content marketing. However, when we’re talking about your content strategy. Consistency within your strategy refers to more than how often you’re showing up. That is a part of it, it is a huge part of it when it comes to your audience, which is why I talk about it so much, but it’s not all of it.
You also want to be consistent in your messaging, in your audience, in where you’re showing up, and in your content engine. So, if you’re only showing up on social media, it is past time for you to expand it. Let’s face it, Instagram is falling apart, and if you are only on Instagram, it is, if it is the only way that you are generating leads, your business is likely floundering right now.
But, if you have multiple content avenues… Well, when one of them starts to fall apart or not get the reach that you’re used to, your reach continues. And that is why it’s so important to have a content engine. You cannot have just one.
And you especially cannot have social media be the one place or even the main place where you’re showing up. Because social media is not a platform. Guaranteed. We do not own that land. We do not own our audience. At any point, our accounts can be taken from us. They can be suspended. They can be removed.
If you think that can’t happen to you, I’ve seen it happen over and over and over again. And sometimes for no reason at all. Your audience can disappear on social media at any time. Your content can be throttled because of the algorithm. Social media cannot be your entire content engine. Instead, you want those multiple content avenues.
You want to have a social media platform that you’re showing up on. You want to have some type of long form content, whether that’s a blog or… A podcast or a YouTube channel and you want to have an email list when you have all three of those different types of content platforms, you have a fully functioning content engine.
And when you have a full, fully functioning content engine and something happens to that social media platform where you are generating most of your leads. Your business won’t flounder because your reach is going to continue through that email list and through that long form content, your listeners, readers, watchers are built in.
So even if social media is not sending new people to your content, those people that are already invested will continue to have your content delivered straight to them. Or in the case of a blog or YouTube, they may have to go search it out, but they’re used to you showing up on a consistent basis there.
But when you add in that email list and you are sending your people that long form content, which we’ll get to in just a minute, when you’re sending your people to that long form content, it’s still being sent to them just in a different way. And so your reach continues. Your growth may falter for a bit as you have to pivot your lead gen, but your content and your reach continues through the nurturing you’re doing of the people that you already have.
It is easy. Well, the easier to pivot your lead generation, it is not easy to pivot your entire content engine. So if social media is your. The only place you’re showing up on that is your only place for lead gen. That’s the only place that you’re nurturing your audience when that fails and it will fail at some point, your business will flounder.
You have to start from scratch when you are using it simply as Legion and you’re sending people through your content cycle, your content funnel, you’re able to simply go, okay, how else can I find leads? Let me try a different way and it doesn’t feel like you’re starting from scratch because you still have a built in audience that you are Tending to and nurturing so your content funnel instead of looking at it as a funnel Which is the typical way that we look at Bringing in leads.
We, we get this visual of a funnel where it’s larger at the top, smaller at the bottom. You bring in this large amount of leads at the top and you funnel them through these different things to finally, Hey, they’ve purchased or hey there, you’ve decided to work with me, right? Instead, I would love to have you visualize it as a content cycle because this engine that you’re creating, all of these pieces are working Together.
Honestly, a web might be more accurate, but for the sake of simplicity, we’ll go with a cycle. When all these pieces are working together, it’s not just, this goes into this and then this goes into this, and this goes into this, and finally they work with me. It’s no, they’re a continuous cycle that you are sending people through.
So, Your social media, let’s start there. You have your audience on social media, whatever that is right now, whether it’s Instagram stories, Instagram threads, whether it’s Tik TOK, you’ve got that social media platform where you are looking to grow, be seen and make connections with new people. From there, you want to send your people to your long form content.
So you share about your blog. Or your podcast or your YouTube channel and you say, Hey, this is my latest content or Hey, I’ve got this cool snippet of stuff. And if you want more, you can go here, you send them to that long form content. Then once you have them in your long form content, you use your long form content as an opportunity to share about a free opt in that you have.
Now, that free opt in, once they join, if they decide to join, gets them onto your email newsletter. Within your email newsletter, you’re able to share about your long form content, which is why I said this is almost more web like, right? For the sake of simplicity, you will use your email newsletter to talk about your offers.
That’s not the only thing you’re using your email newsletter for. Again, we’re simplifying here. But you’ll use your email newsletter to talk about your offers and to share them and to send people links to them. And then people buy the offer. Within your offer, you encourage them to go follow you on social media so that they can engage and be nurtured there.
And then from social media, the long form content, to the free opt in, to the email newsletter, to the offer, to the social media. So it just cycles. Again, It’s not quite that simple. It’s more web like. Everything kind of sends to everything. But, that is the general idea, and so instead of looking at it like a funnel, looking at it like a cycle.
Might be more helpful for some of you who don’t quite understand the funnel concept. I know I didn’t. It still is hard for me to this day to really conceptualize that. So, the content cycle. It’s a lot easier to just pivot that one piece of it though. Versus the entire content engine. If social media is the only way that you’re sending people to your offer and then your offer to social media, what happens when that social media is no longer useful?
Social media is simply a lead generation tool. The goal is to get people into your content engine cycle. That way, when a social media platform throttles engagement, you just move on to the next lead generation tool. It may take some time to get the same amount of leads back into your business, but in the meantime, the bulk of your engine is still nurturing leads that you’ve already brought in and is sustaining your business.
We’re not ever going to see continuous growth with our businesses, right? There’s going to be moments of growth and moments where you’re sustaining and moments of growth and moments where you’re sustaining. And so we have to make sure that we’re planning for that. Without that core engine being something stable, your content strategy is going to be very volatile for your business.
So, your action step for this week is to start your email list. Choose a provider. If you are on a budget and you’re not even sure where to begin, I really recommend MailerLite. The first, I believe, thousand subscribers are free and you can get started there really simply and really easily. When you’re ready to expand, I really love Cardra.
I have been using it. I switched from using MailerLite and Teachable to Cartra because Cartra is an all in one and I’ve been using it since 2021 and I cannot foresee myself moving anywhere because it really does everything that I need and more. They are continually adding features that I I’m glad to have but didn’t even realize I need it.
So if you’re looking for something more advanced, it’s an all in one, it’s got your email list, it’s got my products, it’s got everything basically, the entire back end of my business, but it is pricier. So there are two different options for you, but choose a provider. And if you’re looking to get your welcome sequence set up so that you have something ready to go, I do have welcome sequence templates in my shop.
Not only are they email templates for what to send and when as far as the welcome emails that are just plug and play, but They also have a full funnel overview of what that looks like within your funnel. Um, there’s a visual guide to help you set that up as well. And if you are looking for someone to help you, either write your welcome sequence or write email newsletters so that you just…
Can get them put out there, but you don’t have to do it yourself I have copywriting VIP days that we could talk about that you can find more about on my website So your action step is to start your email list The very first thing you’ll need to do if you don’t already is choose your provider And if you need other resources to help you get started The welcome sequence email templates and my VIP days are a great place to start, but if you’re looking for something else, feel free to send me a DM and I can let you know whether I have something like that, or I can share a friend who has something that I think would be helpful for you.
Now, this week’s book recommendation is Today, Tonight, Tomorrow by Rachel Lynn Solomon. I know that I just shared another one of her books, but you know, sometimes I get in… in the zone with an author and I just read everything they have all at once. And this one is, again, another, she’s just such a well done writer.
And, um, this one is about two high school academic nemeses and they graduate and there’s this whole graduation party and then they finally actually get to know each other a little bit better and, you know, a typical like Romantic comedy type thing, but today, tonight, tomorrow, if you want to check it out, I will link to it in the show notes.
And until next time, my friend, I hope that you’ll go out and uncomplicate your marketing and business.
Thank you so much for joining me here today, friend. You can find this episode show notes as well as all the resources you need to simplify your marketing over at amandawarfield. com. If you liked what you heard here today, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss an episode. And if you could take a moment to leave a rating and review, it would truly mean the world to me.
Ratings and reviews are the number one way that you can support a podcast and ensure that it sticks around for many more episodes to come. I’ll see you next time, now go out and uncomplicate your marketing and business.
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