it just didn’t work!
Transcript:
Hey guys! I pray that all of you are physically and emotionally well. We’re doing good here! I’m just as busy in my business as before all this craziness, thank goodness, and we’re healthy and happy! I must admit the first week of shutting down the economy in my state was tough! It seemed like each day a new order came down shrinking the economy. That was the hardest part for me because I love business owners and the marketplace and helping my clients basically shut down the majority of their businesses was not easy! But we are all adapting and, hopefully, will be able to make a strong comeback!
A Look Back
I probably should do a podcast to help you with working from home, reduce stress, and other COVID-19 business topics, but I just want to write about something normal that’s not dictated by a virus this week. So let’s revisit my blog post from December 9th, 2019 on setting up my business systems and processes, especially for social media and content creation. I promised I’d give you an update so here it is: it just didn’t work! Let me share what I tried and what I ended up with.
Quick Recap
I first setup a system of:
Brainstorming what I wanted to post on all platforms and put those ideas in my iPhone Notes
Using a social media calendar that had columns of each social platform, dates to post, what I would post, content to create, and copy to write
Setting aside a day to capture and create all of the photos and videos
Sitting down and using my social media calendar to plan out all of my content for Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn
Editing and putting my content into my Plann app and scheduling it for the week
Also posting spontaneous content as I went
This. Took. Me. Days! It was so frustrating! I didn’t have DAYS to spend doing all of this! I wanted to up my level but not at the expense of my sanity. I had to figure out a different system. I needed to simplify it.
What I ended up with
After attempting all of that for two months, I sat down and looked at what was working and what wasn’t working. What was working was Notes. What wasn’t working was the social media calendar. It was a bottleneck. I threw it out and focused solely on using Notes.
I divide my note into different sections:
Business blog. At least four weeks of blog post ideas that are also social posts once the blog goes live
Personal blog. Same for personal blog topics.
IG Live. At least four IG live ideas and then I’d create my slides on Canva.com for those.
IGTV. I then save my IG Lives and post those on IGTV. I add captions using ClipScribe, a great platform for creating amazing videos and the easiest for closed captions.
IG Stories. Humorous or helpful and behind-the-scenes or tutorial. I love to post my keto recipes, too.
Using these categories I now have at least four days of posting ready to go. I then look ahead at what I need as far as pictures and videos and spend about 30 minutes (if that) grabbing and editing that content for the week.
I then decided to theme my days as a general guideline, which I follow loosely.
Monday motivation
Tuesday biz blog post
Wednesday behind-the-scenes/product/service
Thursday personal insight/about me/my why
Friday personal blog post
Saturday open
Sunday open
LinkedIn is a tad different. I usually don’t have personal insight. Instead I post a short educational slide show.
this helped a lot!
I spend about an hour going through the posts of my favorite influencers to get ideas. My favorite is Jasmine Star. I like Jenna Kutcher as well. I put those ideas in notes and put checkmarks next to them when I’ve posted them. I tweak them, of course. I don’t want to copy exactly. And it’s working!
future plans
I am going to check out Lovetagency’s Instagram Planner that I purchased a few weeks ago to see if it can help me, too. It looks really, really good. I’ll fill you in on that later.
The main thing I needed wasn’t so much a social media calendar; I needed a way to organize my thoughts. By doing that, I can spend just a bit of time each week creating and posting.
