You don't have to post a bunch of times a day on social media

That's a line that a social media agency is gonna give you. You wanna know why? Because if you have to post 1 to 3 times a day, like a lot of them say, then you need 30 to 90 pieces of content every month!

Say what? That's insane!

And if you need that much content every month, you need to hire someone to make it for you because "Ain't NOBODY got time for THAT!"

I am here to tell you that almost no one needs THAT much content. In fact, I encourage you NOT to post that often because once you post again, the life of your prior post is killed off without any chance of reviving it...unless you pay for it.

Each post needs a little breathing room between it and the next one. Of course, none of this applies to a huge creator with hundreds of thousands or millions of followers. Their audiences are big enough to withstand a lot of content.

But most of us aren't that big.

So how often should you post on social media?

It depends. (Ugh, I hate it when people answer a question this way.)

But hear me out. It depends on...

• What events or offers you have coming up,
• What stories you have to tell around that event, and
• Who needs to hear your message to know that what you're talking about is worth paying attention to,
• How many smaller pieces of content you can glean from your stories.

Even then, you are not ready to post a bunch of stuff on social media, unless you've done some serious research on what your ideal audience is into in life in general.

But I digress.

My philosophy is that HIGH-QUALITY content BEATS HIGH-QUANTITY content every time

A high-quality piece of content is usually:

• Evergreen, meaning that it's available any time,
• Long-form in nature, such as a written blog post or article, a podcast audio, or a video,
• Goes deeper into a topic than just a one-liner or one-phrase explanation,
• Published less often than a social media post, due to the intensity of the piece.

I personally like to call this MACRO content.

Once you make a good, quality piece of macro content, it can be the catalyst for dozens of social media posts or weeks of social media content, which I call MICRO content.

To repeat: MACRO content is the bigger, higher-quality pieces, and MICRO content is the shorter, social media posts that lead to the macro content (AKA content upgrades).

Let's ask this again...

So what long-form content should you publish?

See how this discussion keeps feeding a long game of chess? It's challenging, to figure out, to know what move to make next. I'm here to tell you that there's a formula behind this, and it depends on where you want that published content to lead.

If you're just getting started, there are a number of stories that need to be told, such as:

1. A 'dear client' letter that shows you understand your client's issues,
2. A personal story behind your brand to show why you care,
3. A brand hero story to demonstrate that problems can be solved (preferably with your solutions).

Each of these stories can be told over and over again throughout your content-making life, but you will learn how to highlight different aspects of them to attract the right people with the current problem that you are trying to solve at this moment.

 

 

 

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How often should you be posting on social media then?

I've gone round and round and still haven't answered the question, but we're getting closer.

If you plan to promote something new every 3 to 4 months, think of publishing at least 3 pieces of longer content that fit into the story prompts above. That means you'd publish at least one (1) macro piece per month, giving you an extra month to push an event more intensely closer to the date it is occurring.

Content upgrades are what you promote with social media

At this point, you take that content upgrade, the longer piece, break it down into bite-sized pieces, and that is what becomes your social media posts.

So that's the formula:

• Schedule your events or offers.
• Create a minimum of 3 macro pieces leading up to the event.
• Strip each macro piece into as many bite-sized pieces as possible to post on social media.

There's more to this puzzle, but I think you're getting the gist of it by now, right?

What makes good content that people will engage with?

Now, that's an entirely different question, but I have an answer. It takes a few things to make this a smooth process:

• Understanding who your content is for
• Know-how around what conversation to have and when
• Education around the soul, sound, and voice of your branding
• Story structure to keep your audience's attention
• An idea bank for daily, weekly, and monthly inspiration
• Some tech-y bits to ensure that your content is easily found, seen, and/or heard

You know where this is leading, surely. Because I have a system that helps you make this happen!

It's called the Stand UP & Stand OUT Content Creation Kit to exponentially EXPLODE your influence. It's meant for experts and changemakers, authors and speakers, bloggers and podcasters, coaches and consultants, artists, activists, advocates, service providers, products sellers, and anyone who has an important and inspiring message to share with the world.

Go ahead and grab it today. You'll get a free invitation to upcoming live workshops and sessions to get a regular content system going that amplifies your influence and growth!