How to Create a Simple, Repeatable Content Strategy

Today I'll give you a basic framework you can use to create a simple, repeatable content strategy. The best part is, in the end, you’ll be able to generate a ton of content based on the things you already know. 

So let's get started.

First things first: Don’t overthink your content strategy.  

There a million things you can try. But I want you to keep things simple.

All you need to do is teach someone how to do something that you know how to do. 

It's that simple. 

You're an expert at something, and the goal for you is to teach somebody who isn't an expert at that thing. And again, it doesn't have to be super complicated. If you are in sales, can you teach somebody about sales that is either a junior team member of somebody fresh out of college? If you think about it with that mindset, you'll be able to probably bring something to them that they wouldn't already have. 

Here’s exactly how I do it. 

Step 1: List five things you can teach today

Pick five things that you can teach today. For me, I like to think about if I was fresh out of college, what are five things that I wish I knew then that I know now that I could teach myself?

Going through that thought process will help you get to a point where you can start listing 10 to 20 things that you can teach other people. You’ll start to create a running list of content that you are an expert at it you can help somebody else learn.

 Step 2: Record a presentation

The next step is to record a presentation. Create some slides, add your webcam, and hit record. You don’t have to do a bunch of pre-work on this. Try to go as fast and as quickly as you can to get the content out. 

I’m a big fan of Canva. They make it easy for a non-designer to create helpful, professional content. And you can use Google Slides or PowerPoint or whatever your presentation software of choice is. 

Then record. Get a screen recorder (I use Camtasia) and record your screen as you talk over your slides. Later you can slice it up and create a bunch of different pieces of content out of it. 

Like a video.

Step 3. Create a video

Your video doesn’t need to be fancy. You can throw an intro on and an outro on it, or just hit record, stop, and load it up.

The idea is to use your presentation as a pillar piece of content and build the rest of your content around it. You want to get the most mileage out of your content as possible, and video is a great way to do that. 

You can upload it to YouTube, LinkedIn, or Facebook. You want to put it wherever your audience is.

Step 4. Write a post

As much as I love video content, written content is still vital for a lot of people (and Google). This post is a good example of that. And if you're not a writer, you can go the easy route. 

Here is exactly what I did for this post.

1. Take the transcript of your presentation 
2. Download the transcript of it 
3. Take all your headings from your presentation and make those headings in your blog
4. Build out that content 

If you want to write a post from scratch, you can do that as well. But for me, I like taking the transcript and tweaking the wording. 

In some ways, it can make your content more conversational because you’ll sound like how you talk and not how you write.

Step 5. Create social content

The next step is to create social content. Again, the idea of this content strategy is to deliver a ton of content around a singular idea. The last thing you want to do is create one piece of content and let it die on the vine.

Here are five LinkedIn posts that you can create off of that original presentation:

Post one: The why 

So day one after you create your presentation, create a LinkedIn post to talk about why the thing you're talking about your ‘how-to” is important.

Post two: The how

This should be the easy one. On day two, show off your how-to content. 

You could:

• Post a step-by-step written text post.
• Put your video up. 
• Create a pdf version of your presentation.

Post three: Examples

Next, find a few nice examples of companies who are doing what you're talking about well. That will help people get an idea of what works and get some inspiration. 

Post four: Mistakes

This one is interesting too because there's always something that can go wrong. Give your audience the mistakes that you've learned or that you've experienced. Help people avoid those same mistakes. 

Post five: Resources

Finally, create a resources or tools post. You can take your original content and turn it into an infographic, checklist, or job aid. 

Or you can focus on the tools that you use to complete the task. List out your favorite tools and recommend what other folks should use. 

If you're talking about videos, for example, talk about the gear or software you use.

All of these posts are based on your opinion. 

Even if the topics don’t feel original, that doesn’t matter.

Put your own spin on it. 

Step 6: Repeat

Now, repeat this as much as possible.

The order isn’t all that important. I've done it before, where I'll write a blog, then turn the outline into a script for a video. 

Then take that video and flip it back. Take screenshots from it and put those back into the blog posts.

You build up a robust piece of content by interweaving all those different pieces. Again, work smart.

Take your list of five how-to ideas and amplify them. Those five, consistent ideas are going be way better than sporadic content. 

The idea of this is to keep it simple to start and then repeat that process over and over again.

Start today

Hopefully, this post gives you a good framework to start your own content strategy. If you ever have any questions feel free to reach out. I'd love to chat.