1000 Ways to Market Your Business

Planning With Purpose

• Samantha Scott • Season 3 • Episode 2

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On this episode of 1000 Ways to Market Your Business, Samantha Scott, APR, is joined by Tricia Mullis, Engagement Strategist at Pushing the Envelope.

The two discuss the essential do's and don'ts of content planning, covering the importance of balancing structured content calendars with the flexibility to adapt to trends and events. The discussion delves into creating a strategy that prioritizes high-quality content, using data to guide decisions, and knowing when to repurpose successful content.

Have a question or feedback to share? Visit www.getpushing.com or one of our many social media channels. We look forward to hearing from you.

#marketing #business #communication #strategy

Samantha:

Hi, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of 1000 Ways to Market Your Business, a podcast brought to you by Pushing the Envelope. I am Samantha Scott, and today I am delighted to be joined by Tricia Mullis.

Tricia:

Hi, everybody. I'm Tricia Mullis, and I'm PTE's Engagement Srategist.

Samantha:

So she's underselling herself, she's a lot more than that, but she's the perfect person to talk about our topic today, which is the do's and don'ts of content planning. So if you're not familiar with that, we're going to dive into all the different aspects of it, the good, the bad, the ugly, and why you need this for successful marketing. So Tricia, kick us off.

Tricia:

Absolutely. So a lot of businesses either over plan and lose flexibility or they under plan and they kind of end up scrambling. So content calendars should really be kind of structured around what your target audience is looking for but allow room for those trends and timely topics and adjustments.

Samantha:

Absolutely. You don't want to be too rigid. You know, we plan our content ideally two months in advance. But if it's February now and I'm thinking about April, May, a lot can change from world events, trends, all kinds of different things can happen in the meantime, and it's so important to make sure that you remain flexible, to your point, so that your business can take advantage of those things, but also capture moments as they happen, and plan for that. And I'm sure you're going to dive into more of that, but absolutely, couldn't agree more. So, it's really more than just a plan, it's a strategy, right? Like, maybe you can kind of enlighten our listeners and viewers on why this is an important element. It's not just pumping out content to have it in the queue, but there has to be a strategy behind it.

Tricia:

One hundred percent. and that's kind of why we take that two month in advance approach. To really keep that solid strategy, but to the point of flexibility, we're able to have fun with the trends or adjust if needed based on the economy, timely things, you know, that may impact restaurants or retail, whatever the business might be. And really, you know, it balances out the evergreen versus that timely content. So I like to think about content calendars as kind of meal planning for the week. You have to have that structure so you have all your ingredients that you need for your favorite meals when you go grocery shopping. But you need that little bit of flexibility for when you're just craving that pizza and you want to order in delivery.

Samantha:

Right, exactly. I love that. I think that's perfect. Like, you have to have all the right ingredients, make sure you've got it on hand. But, you know, if a craving pops up, we can be flexible.

Tricia:

Exactly. And that's where we get into, you know, that evergreen content is, you know, what does your business do? Highlight your services, customer testimonials, educational posts, what your target audience is really interested in. And then all those timely things are things that we kind of talk about with holidays, trends, news or industry shifts. Those kinds of things that you can't really plan ahead for, but you have that flexibility and availability in your calendar to add those in when you need to.

Samantha:

Yeah, the whole point of this is making sure it's strategic. So you use the term evergreen, which we use to say like, content that could be essentially shared any time because it's not tied to a specific time of the year. It's important. What problems can you solve? What are the solutions that you offer your audience? And then it also helps you prevent those kind of knee jerk or last minute situations where it's like, oh, no, I don't have anything to publish this week or I have to write a bunch of content because in those situations you end up with lesser quality, lower quality content. I really want to make sure that the content is consistently high quality, well thought out, supportive of the brand and the strategy overall, because organic social media is only one piece of the puzzle, or as we like to say, it's only one tool in the toolkit. So making sure that it's aligned with what you're doing from a marketing and positioning perspective overall.

Tricia:

Absolutely.

Samantha:

So let's talk about some of the do's and don'ts. Cause we talked about kind of the theory of content planning and why this is important. So of course, plan ahead and stay flexible. I think we've talked about that and people understand why that's so important, but also balancing trends and the evergreen content, making sure that we're using data, you know, this is my favorite, it's where my heart is, using data to guide your decisions. So your audience will tell you just about everything you need to know, what they're interested in, how they want to get that content, what channel, what type, what day of the week, what time of day. So this is super important. Paige on our team is our data nerd. We love her and she goes over all the reports. But it's important for people like Tricia who are writing content because you're looking at that and saying, okay, this type of content or this particular campaign, this messaging performed really, really well, whereas this didn't. So let's do more of this and less of that. We can talk about that as one of the key do's.

Tricia:

Definitely looking at metrics and, you know, like you said, your audience is going to tell you every single thing you need to know. You just have to know where to find it and listen. And that's from posting times, you know, when they're active on social media. Not every industry is going to be the same, so you have to really know what your audience is, where they're at, what they're doing. And you know, same thing for topics. We actually track all the topics that we post about for our clients, and when Paige, gotta love her, our data guru, she tells us everything we need to know about, you know, how much we're posting about a certain topic and if it's actually getting the engagement we anticipated. And if not, we can kind of adjust our strategy based on those metrics.

Samantha:

Yeah, and it's so important. Look at that in real time. You know, you can go into Meta and see how things are performing or YouTube or LinkedIn, etc. They all have these metrics included and you can watch in real time. So if I posted a video today, I can look at it tomorrow and see how many people have seen it. Are they engaging with it? How much of it have they watched? That will also tell you how long your content should be. Or if a picture in a post is performing better than a video in a post, or a link, etc. And to your point, right, every industry is different, so make sure you're paying attention to that if you're in restaurant or retail or professional service. But also every channel is a little bit different. They're their own kind of environment. So the way things are going to perform on LinkedIn is different than Instagram versus YouTube, and paying attention to that is so important. And diversifying your strategy as a result of that.

Tricia:

For sure.

Samantha:

And like we said, planning for the unexpected, leaving space in your plan, making sure that you have somebody available should something change or something come up, that they can go in and pause a post, you know, great example of that. You know, we're based in Southwest Florida. Often we experience inclement weather, hurricanes, things like that. And if we're planning in advance, we have to be able to be nimble and thoughtful to say, Oh, hold on. If this is coming up, we need to cancel this post. It might be a little insensitive or tone deaf, or maybe something's not going to happen because of this weather. So making sure you're doing that. And then also creating content themes. You know, making sure that we avoid repeating ourselves the same old content. Keep it fresh. Make sure it still speaks to your brand, but make sure that we're kind of keeping things interesting. Because we've all seen the ads or the posts or things that we've seen a million times and just scroll over it. You want to avoid that.

Tricia:

Yeah, absolutely. And to kind of get into some of the don'ts, a lot of them kind of mirror each other. The first one is you don't want to overload your calendar. The last thing you want to do is burn out your audience. Yes. So, you know, people are online almost every day, if not tens of times a day. So, posting too often can kind of burn out not only your audience but your team, and honestly, it's really just not recommended to post that often, because you're oversaturating. You're going to get little engagement across the board, when really you want to focus on the data backed content that's going to perform really well.

Samantha:

So, that brings me to the point of our shift, where we made the intentional change as a company for our clients to do less but best content, based on that very idea of let's do fewer posts, but really, really good content, high quality, added value and see how they perform. And we've got tons of case study examples of that absolutely working. So great, great point is first, don't oversaturate. Make sure that you are publishing just the right amount of content and that it's really good content. And I promise it'll perform.

Tricia:

Oh, for sure. And a lot of that's trial and error, too. And we've kind of learned that through our clients. First you think, well, if I post half the amount of posts, I'm not going to get near as much engagement, when 99 percent of the time you're going to see the exact opposite.

Samantha:

Yeah, absolutely. So I think if you're just getting started with creating your organic social media strategy, I would say take a look at best practices. There's tons of resources, you know, Social Media Today, other resources, even Meta gives you best practices and details about what they would recommend in terms of post frequency. But then pay attention to what your audience is telling you. Are they engaging or are they pulling back? And you'll be able to gauge how much is the right amount for you.

Tricia:

Exactly. And to the engagement point, another thing that you don't want to do is ignore those engagement windows. If you just post at all the right times, whenever you just are kind of guessing, probably not the best idea. You know, find your audience when they're engaging and post, make your content be right in front of them.

Samantha:

Yes, we did that a number of years ago for the Early Learning Coalition. We were doing some work for them and we found that while we were publishing based on best practices and recommendations by channel, their audience was actually really engaged between like 6 and 8 p.m. And at that time, scheduling had just come out, because we've been doing this for a minute, and we told them like, we need to be changing when we're scheduling it, and we don't have to be at the computer at 7 o'clock at night to publish this we can schedule that and the engagement took off to your point because that was when their audience was online and most engaging with their content.

Tricia:

Exactly, and even thinking about the channels that you're posting on, you know, most people aren't on LinkedIn at 10 o'clock in the morning or 8 o'clock at night. They're gonna be checking when they first get to work, when they're on lunch break, you know, things like that because that's a really business driven channel compared to Instagram. I'm doom scrolling at 9 p.m. So really finding that time based on your audience and the channel. And another thing with that is you don't want to just follow these trends blindly because not every trend is a fit for your brand.

Samantha:

Yes, exactly. Ice Bucket Challenge, or what was that one where you did the freeze mode? There's all kinds of trends and things. I mean, and I'm kind of reaching back a little bit in the archives there, but you're absolutely right. You know, if you're a professional service firm, that might not be the best look for you. If you're a fine dining restaurant, maybe not the best. There are some that you can take advantage of for sure.

Tricia:

Oh, for sure. Even just some of the simple sounds that you can kind of tweak with the visuals to make fit for your brand. But certainly don't think that you have to jump on every single trend just to get into the, in the conversation.

Samantha:

And I think that brings up a great point is, what is your intent? You know, are you doing that just to get eyeballs? Okay, great. But then what does that ultimately do for your business? You know, that's the question we should ask with any content we're publishing, if it's organic or paid, or if we're getting on a trend is what's the purpose of this? What is the goal of doing this? And does that serve my brand?

Tricia:

Absolutely. Another thing that businesses don't wanna do is don't forget to repurpose content. If you have quality content that performs really well, you don't necessarily have to copy and paste it and post the exact same thing again, you know, cause that kind of just oversaturates your audience, but repurpose that messaging, because that message clearly aligned with what they're looking for.

Samantha:

Yeah, that's great. Video is a great example of that. If you produce a 20 or 30 second video, you can take pieces of that and make a reel, or a story, or something else with it. There's tons of ways you can repurpose that, or even repurpose it as b-roll, stuff for your website, a compilation of different little short things. Absolutely. Or messaging, to your point, that can go to a blog or, you know, any other kind of content that you're publishing. If it resonated with your audience, find ways to repurpose and put that back out there again.

Tricia:

Exactly, and really you're going to do yourself a favor in that too, because it takes time to make quality videos or quality content. So if that message really aligns with your audience, absolutely find other ways to use it. We don't want to skip reviewing performance. Data, data, data. Because, you know, a content calendar isn't just one of those things that you schedule it all because it's convenient, and then you forget about it. We're always constantly adjusting based on what's working, based on trends, you know, when you review performance, check what you have scheduled and see if you need to adjust anything, add anything, remove anything, the list goes on.

Samantha:

Yeah, great point. Performance, obviously, is my jam. I love data. However, this is really, really critical, all jokes aside, because if we're looking at the performance report for February, for example, once that's done, and I've already got content booked out for two months, but I'm seeing that this particular type of content is just not performing, it's not connecting with the audience, then we need to make sure that that's not in the future content, and sometimes that means going back and editing something that's already done. But it's preventing you from having content that's not going to perform as well as you would like. So, absolutely super important. And to your point too, also, algorithms change, right? Gotta love.

Tricia:

They change all the time.

Samantha:

And Meta doesn't give you a nice little memo that says, Hey, by the way, we changed this, so make sure you make edits. You have to be aware of that and looking at the data to see how these things are performing so you can make adjustments going forward. Really incredibly important. And of course, I'm a sucker for data and I would tell you that anyway, but, it really, really does matter because ultimately, every single part of your marketing, organic social media included, should and can be tested and measured and you can definitively determine the ROI and anyone that tells you otherwise is making it up. Alright, so next let's think about, it's a perfect world. We've planned all of our stuff, but somebody moves the cheese. Something comes up. The unexpected comes up. Now what?

Tricia:

Yeah, you know, like you said, based out of Southwest Florida, you're going to have natural disasters. You know, just at the most recent year, election years, there's gonna be outside circumstances that you have to adjust with.

Samantha:

Yeah, and being aware of those and kind of trying to plan ahead and also think about where your brand fits or doesn't and what may or may not be appropriate to share based on your particular target audience. So you know, maybe commenting, you mentioned election year on politics may not play well. Maybe that creates division instead of unity. So maybe you should stay away from that. But also keeping in mind, you know, natural disasters can happen anywhere. You know, recently there was flooding, there's been fires, there's been all kinds of terrible, sad things. Making sure that you're aware of that, cognizant of that, thinking about how your brand should or should not engage with that. And then if there's anything that you might need to change in your content plan.

Tricia:

Exactly. I mean, you know, we've had our fair share of hurricanes and of course, just an election year, and, you know, I think it's important that even if your brand or your business might not be directly impacted, the people in your audience are. Right. So they're not gonna be looking on your Facebook page for the newest menu item if you're a restaurant or, you know, the list goes on. They're worried about themselves at that point, rightfully so. So I think the biggest thing is, you know, it's okay to pause content and just let it lie. And then figuring out ways to even just support your community. You know, can you adjust that tone, and can you start an initiative that fundraises or whatever the situation might be. And even taking a shift from organic content, if you're running paid ads, you're wasting money if you're advertising through that, because people aren't looking for that, so you're just throwing your dollars away.

Samantha:

Yes, your content plan should include paid and organic and be nimble. I think we've emphasized that quite a bit. I mean, another great example of that is when TikTok went down. And then people were scrambling because if they had all of their emphasis on that one particular channel and all of a sudden it's gone, well then what do they do? So making sure that your content plan also includes diversity in terms of the channels that you're using. Yeah, absolutely. Well, this has been a really great conversation, Tricia. I am so grateful. Everything from talking about why a content calendar is so important, how to build one that's strong, strategic, but also flexible, and then making sure that we are prepared to pivot if things happen and surprises come about.

Tricia:

Absolutely. Yeah, the key is just being flexible, and listening to your audience for sure.

Samantha:

Thank you so much. Thank you for listening, for tuning in, for watching. If you have questions about content calendars, suggestions, tools that you use, we'd love to hear about it. Make sure you comment and tune in to the next episode of 1000 Ways to Market Your Business.