KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
- If you want to be seen as an expert in your industry and want people to come to you for knowledge, producing consistent content is the best way to prove it to them.
- Think about how your content will add value or provide your audience with a solution. When you add value without them paying first, they see you in a brighter light! If your audience doesn’t see you providing
- consistent content, they won’t stick around and wait to see it.
- When starting a blog, it is best to use longtail keywords instead of one-word keywords. This helps to narrow down your niche and improve your SEO.
- If you are more inclined to speak, a podcast might be best for you. Think about what style of podcast you want to create, how often you want to create them and of course, the initial set-up cost.
- Video is another great way to create content for your business. But, you must make sure you are comfortable on camera and are able to speak well.
- Live video, although a bit scary, is one of the quickest and easiest ways to create engaging content. There isn’t a set-up cost or much preparation required. Plus, it is a great way to engage your audience.
THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…
It doesn’t really matter which platform you choose for your content. What is important is that you get content out there consistently and find ways to constantly deliver value to your audience. Share your message and do it often!
HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS
- Consistent content adds value – 03:09
- Consistent content makes you an expert – 05:00
- Consistent content attracts your audience – 07:01
- Ways to create consistent content – 09:13
- Start a blog – 09:29
- Start a podcast – 12:27
- Try using video – 14:36
- Consider live video – 20:22
LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODE
- Episode 19: How to Create Your Own Podcast From Start to Finish
- Episode 1: How to Use and Leverage Live Video for Your Business
Transcript below
Hello and welcome to Episode 22 of the Social Media Marketing Made Simple Podcast. Wow, that is always such a mouthful. And I feel like I say it all the time at the beginning. So I apologise. And wherever you are in the world, I hope you are having a wonderful day. So here in the UK we are coming into a holiday time for the children, which means that we've got eight weeks of now trying to juggle being a mum and also being a business owner, which for parents out there, you'll know that this is pretty difficult. Obviously I am lucky that I chose to work from home. I used to have an office and I didn't use it. So, I decided I didn't need an office anymore. So I am able to work from home, which means that I am able to have my daughter here with me and kind of look after her while I'm kind of working. But the holidays are always challenging, which is like I said, if you're a parent, I'm sure you can appreciate.
I don't know about you, but I'm always constantly reviewing in my business, what I'm doing, whether I'm doing the right thing. As in not having my own business, as in the right content, am I putting out the right lead magnets? Am I giving people what they want? And I'm always reviewing the content that I'm putting out there, and always thinking, should I change it up, do something different? I love doing the podcast and I'm so happy to do this. But I've been debating whether I should start a YouTube channel or do more purposeful video. And it's really tricky because I think especially in social media, or the kind of world where you're having to produce content, there are always people doing things that you're not doing.
So, I look at colleagues and friends and competitors and see what they're doing and think, “Oh, should I be doing that too? Maybe I should have a YouTube channel. I'm not working hard enough on Insta stories. I'm not working hard enough on Facebook Lives.” But at the end of the day, there are so many things in which you could do. Sometimes I have to say, “Teresa, you can't do everything.” And I could literally spend my entire time working on content and giving away free content, which I would find most enjoyable. However, I would never get any work done and earn no money. So not ideal.
But that's what's inspired me for today's podcast episode. I want to talk about the importance of creating consistent content. And then I'm going to take you through why it's important, what the benefits of it are. And then we're going to look at some actual ideas of what types of content you could do. So whether it be a podcast, a blog, a YouTube channel, whatever.
Let's kick off by looking at why we want to be creating consistent content. Well, I guess the first thing I should say is it differs. Depends what industry you're in. It depends what type of business you are.
Consistent content adds value
But if you want to be seen as an expert in your industry, if you want people to come to you because you know what you're talking about, then producing consistent content is a great way to prove that to them.
The first thing it does is it adds value. And this is a big buzz word. Always has been To be fair, but I seem to be saying a lot or thinking about it a lot. How can you add value? How can you move away from trying to sell and pitch to people and give them content and value and give them a service or provide them with a service that is helping me? And ultimately at some point during that exchange, there will be an exchange of money for service. But basically, your clients have a problem and your job is to solve that problem. And clients are always going to have problems, and they'll always be willing to pay someone who knows what they're talking about in order to get this problems solved.
If you can add value to them without them even buying anything, then they're going to have you in a much better light. And when they do look for someone to come to, they're going to think of you and you're going spring to mind. It also gives you a reason to communicate to your list, to your audience. Whether this be on your email list, or whether it be on social media, it gives you something to say. Again, that added value thing to say, you're sending an email out as I do to my list. If you're not on it, head over to teresaheathwareing.com and make sure you get signed up. But I will email when there's a podcast. If I've done a blog. If I've seen a good article that I think is useful, and I rarely actually email saying please buy my services. I tend to just go on the let me add value, let me show you that I know what I'm talking about.
Consistent content makes you an expert
Obviously the other thing it's going to do, is it's going to make you an expert. Now, a little while back they used to be a kind of belief that if you told people all your stuff, if you basically gave away your tips and tricks and tools and strategies around what makes you brilliant at what you do, that your competitors will come along and steal it all, or your customers will just take all that information and go, “Thanks very much.” And do it themselves. Well I have to say, my attitude when it comes to this is okay. No problem. Because the opposite, if I don't tell anybody anything, then how do my potential customers and clients know that I'm any good? And if someone wants to troll through every single podcast I've done, if they want to troll through every single blog I've ever written both on the THW site, which is the agency side and the Teresa site, then good luck to them.
And absolutely fine. Not a problem whatsoever. You carry on. And if you want to do that, and you want to learn what I know and you can get it from those posts, then, great. Please go ahead. I don't mind in the slightest, because I know that there are lots of people out there that either A, won't have the time to do that and therefore they will want to come to someone who can do it for them. Or they might have the time to do it, but actually their expertise and he takes them so far and again, they need to come and find someone. And if they do, do it themselves, then fair play. Brilliant. That's absolutely great. That is not what I mind in the slightest.
And in terms of competitors, I'm not too concerned about them either to be honest. If they want to take my stuff, then at least I was first. At least they're copying me and I'm not copying them. So again, I'm not bothered. I would much rather put content out there then run the risk of not putting anything out there and not communicating at all.
Consistent content attracts your audience
And of course, putting out consistent content means that you can start to build your email list as well. You can attract your audience, especially if you are doing something like using Facebook ads in order to promote a blog or a podcast or whatever content you're putting out there. So, you can really help attract your audience to you when you're putting out consistent content.
Also, you'll notice the word I keep using here is consistent, and it's so important that it is consistent. I was watching a talk from Pat Flynn recently and he has a podcast called the Smart Passive Income podcast. And he is on episode 320 something. So, it's huge. He's been going for ages. And he has a very loyal and dedicated following. And one day out of every single week that he put the podcast out, he was late. He was late by a day I think. He literally had people emailing him saying, it's Wednesday and there's no podcasts. And that's where I want to get to.
But what I'm trying to prove here, not only would I love people to say, “Hey, where's your podcast?” If I happen to miss a week, which I'm not going to. I'm close to the wire sometimes. But I haven't missed one yet [inaudible 00:08:13]. Anyway, the consistency elements is so important. Imagine if you find a nice coffee shop, and you turned up to this coffee shop, and you thought, “Oh, this is lovely. I'm going to come here again.” And then you went there again the following week at the same time, and it was shut. And then you went there again the following week, and it was open. And then you went again the following week and it was shut. You would be so confused as to whether that coffee shop was going to be open or not. That you would think to yourself, “I'm not going to bother.”
And it's the same with the content. If people don't realise you're turning up every day or turning up every week or every month and providing them with this consistent content, then they're not going to look for it. They're not going to stick around and wait to see it.
Okay. Hopefully I've convinced to you that consistent content is really important for your business. And especially if you're trying to build yourself as an expert or your business as the go to place.
Ways to create consistent content
So in this next part of the podcast, I just want to talk you through a few of the ways in which you can put consistent content out there and give you a couple of ideas of what you might need to think about if you're going to use that particular route in order to get your message out there.
Start a blog
One of the first ways in which you can start to put content out there and it's probably one of the most popular and easier, I'm not sure I'd agree with that because I don't like writing, but is to start a blog. Now the one thing you need to know about blogs is that you need to be good at writing. You also need to consider that there are 414,000,000 yeah, million blogs out there. You are in a fairly noisy environment. But the more that you can be specific, the more that you can find your niche, then obviously that can help you stand out on your blog. And if you are trying to serve your immediate audience and reach a slightly bigger audience, then blogs are a great way to do that. And I wouldn't worry about there being loads of them.
So like I said, obviously, if you're going to write a blog, the first thing you need to know is that you're good at writing. Or you can bring someone in who can write the blog for you. You brief them. You give them all the details. You give them the facts your tone of voice. What sort of things you would say, and then you get them to write it. Obviously, the one thing that blogs are awesome for is keywords and your SEO on your website. SEO is Search Engine Optimization, which basically means when Google ranks websites, if it's really good on your site, you will be ranked higher. And one of the things that are particularly helpful in getting ranked is keywords and content. So if you're putting a regular blog guy with good keywords in i.e., the words that people would search for you or look for you on, then you might help your actual website rank better.
Now, a couple of tips with the keywords. Obviously, they need to be words that people are going to search for. And when you choose those keywords for the particular blog, try and choose more long tail keywords. So, two or three words together, and therefore it will be more likely that you might come up. For instance, if I put the keywords social media in my blogs, I wouldn't rank anywhere, because it's so competitive. So, if I was to look at something like social media management or Facebook analytics or Twitter insights or whatever it might be, by adding that other word, I help narrow it down just a little bit more. Make sure that keyword is in the title of your blog and make sure your first paragraph has that keyword in again.
What you can also do which will help out, is you can link to other blogs. You can link to other parts on your site and that will also help your SEO. Likes that blogs are great. If you're happy to write or if you've got somebody who can write them for you. They're fairly low cost. Fairly easy into the market. There's not a lot of setup that you have to do other than have somewhere on your site to put them or you could even use like a blogging site like Tumblr or something like that.
Start a podcast
The next method of putting content out there, I would obviously be very remiss not to mention a podcast. Now, as I just mentioned, blogs there are 440,000,000 roughly. I'm sure they're starting new ones every single day. However, the last reported amount of podcasts was 550,000. So, obviously there is a considerably less amount of people producing podcasts than there are blogs. If you really want to stand out, then maybe a podcast is for you. Now obviously the setup costs in setting up the podcast can be a little bit more and it takes a little bit more effort and a bit more money. If you go back to Episode 19, I'll put a link in the show notes, then you will find out how I set up my podcast and what I do every week to produce it. So it does take a bit of work. But for me, I would much rather speak than right. I am much happier talking into a microphone than I am sitting looking at a blank piece of paper thinking, “What am I going to write about?”
Also, if you're going to do a podcast, you can have a think about what type of podcast or style are you going to do. So for instance, all my podcasts at the moment of just me talking. They are me giving you the tools and tips and tricks, really practical stuff about how to use social media and marketing for your business. However, you might want to do an interview style and as I've alluded to you already, I have some amazing interviews coming up. I'm so excited and I am going to move to mixing up the interviews with podcasts on my own. The main reason I haven't done an interview to date, is because I wanted to get better. I wanted to make sure that I was comfortable with what I was doing before I brought someone good onto the podcast, and I'd run the risk of messing up, is the truth.
But like I said, so you can either do a podcast that is a kind of tips and tricks thing, you can do a lifestyle thing, you can do an interview. I know that John Lee Dumas did a podcast every single day, which must be exhausting. I don't know how he managed it. But obviously, have a look into the different types of ways to podcast as well.
Try using video
The next way you could look at putting content out there is through video. So I've split this up into kind of standard pre-recorded video and then the next one I'll talk about is live video. If you're going to consider doing a video, then the first thing I'm going to say is that you really need to be okay on camera. Not only are you okay to do video. Do you like being on camera? But do you come across well? And I know this might sound a bit mean or harsh and I really don't mean to. But if you don't come across well on camera, then you're not going to be very nice to watch. It's not going to be very easy to watch and therefore you're not going to get the engagement you want.
Again, just popping back to Pat Flynn. As I was talking about him earlier. He started working on his YouTube channel really hard over the last sort of six, 12 months. But Pat is really natural on camera. He comes across really well. He's obviously done a lot of work at training himself and making himself come across well. And he does a brilliant job with it. So like I said, one of my first considerations is even if you think I want to do video, record some video and ask your most honest friends and critics, “Am I okay? Do I come across all right? Would you engage with me? Would you stop and watch?” Because like I said, I've seen some videos out there where, yeah, the idea of having the video was a great idea, but boy, the person in front of the camera was not great. So obviously, like I said, you've got to be confident to be able to do that.
The other thing you need to do if you're going to start doing videos is you do need to have some equipment. Don't get me wrong, you could happily pick up your iPhone or Android or whatever you've got, the cameras on the phones are amazing. And you could just start recording on your phone and upload them to YouTube or Facebook or wherever it might be. However, if you want to take this seriously, then I'm not saying go out and buy a 5,000 pound camera tomorrow. I'm just saying, you might want to invest in some equipment. Myself, I do record some short videos. They tend to be for adverts that go on Facebook. I would like to think about doing some more video for me, but I don't have the equipment right now. I do have a fairly good camera that was sort of 500 pounds that apparently, so my stepchildren tell me, all the YouTubers use. I wouldn't know these things, obviously, not being a teenager. But you do need a camera. I've got some lights. I've got microphones. So I have got various different things that will help me produce a better quality video.
But like I said, it's not that I'm saying you've got to get all the care. Bring in a big video production company, but you might want to think about the quality that you're putting out there, if that's what you're going to focus on.
The other thing you're going to have to think about, is the time it takes to produce the video and then the post production. Again, this could be kind of as long or as short as you want. Are you literally just going to put a beginning and end on it? Are you going to edit it so that you take out all the ums and ahs and outtakes and that sort of thing, or are you going to let it be really raw a natural. Obviously, it's just something to bear in mind that if you wanted to put out a weekly YouTube show, I'd love to. It'd be awesome. However, I don't think I've got the time to actually record because recording things on video take way longer than the actual result. So the other day I spent something like almost two hours setting up and recording what ultimately was less than 60 seconds.
In terms of timelines, it does take some time to do the recording. Then if you've got to do some post production editing, are you going to be able to really do that and produce it every single week? So just something to bear in mind. And very similar to the podcast, think about the type of style you wanted to do. You want it to be fly on the wall? Do you want it to be lifestyle? Do you want to vlog? Literally put yourself on camera as you are with no editing. Do you want to do a kind of chat show? Are you going to be filmed around and about doing things or in the studio? So, have a look around at different people. See the styles you like, and then obviously think about how that might affect what you're going to do.
Obviously video is a great way to put content out there because it's so easily consumed. It just comes up in your feed on Facebook or Twitter or whatever, and it starts auto playing. So immediately gets my attention and then people can click on it and watch it with relative ease. They haven't got to go to say iTunes and get the podcast. They haven't got a read along blog post, which again, I've said before that I listen to everything on Audible or podcast. I rarely read physical things anymore. So, it's just something to consider that actually if that content's easier to consume, then maybe more people will see it because of that reason.
And then think about where you're going to put that. Are you going to put it on YouTube? Are you going to try and build your YouTube? Are you going to use Facebook? Are you going to use Twitter? I think if you were going to use YouTube then what I would suggest is you do a shorter snippet version that you then upload directly onto the other social media platforms and then direct them to YouTube to watch the bigger longer version. Because you want a native video on the social media platforms. And by native all I mean, is the video needs to be physically uploaded to the site so that it can auto play. YouTube doesn't auto play in Facebook at the moment. So if someone is scrolling through their feed, they're not going to see that video start playing and it won't grab their attention as much. Whereas if you use the short snippet video, which you upload and then kind of do a click here to watch the rest, then you're kind of getting the best of both worlds.
Consider live video
And then finally, last, but definitely not least, live video. Now I know that when I talk about live video, people recoil in fear and really don't like doing it. And I agree. I always think to myself every week, “Oh, I'm definitely going to do a live video this week.” And then I make every excuse under the sun. My head's not right, my makeup looks dreadful. I can't get silence in the house or whatever it might be. So, I get it. I totally do. However, live video is one of the quickest and easiest ways to put content out there. There is a very low, almost nothing setup cost. It's something that you can push out really easily and that all the platforms love. So they're actually going to help you promote your content more than they would if it was something like a blog or a podcast.
So as I said, little to no setup. You literally can just do it on your phone. And you're going to go into the platform where you have the most followers or the biggest audience and you might want to do multiple platforms. I know I've literally once done a live on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram straight after each other. So I actually put individual lives on each of those platforms within a few hours of each other. However, if you don't want to do that, then you might want to pick a certain platform and really focus on that and hone in on that. Again, as with video, you've got to be really comfortable, A, being on screen but live video is different, because there is no stopping, there is no messing up, there is no editing. You've got to be comfortable to be as natural and as authentic as possible that you can just effectively talk to yourself, which actually is exactly the same for the podcast, but you're talking to a world where there might not be anybody listening at that point.
And you've got to think about if someone comes on the replay, how is that going to come across to them? I have a whole episode of my you should do live video. Except, it's actually episode number one. So although I want to link up in the show notes, I am a little nervous about sending you back to my very first episode. I haven't gone back and listened to it. So I don't know how bad it is. So, if you do listen, I apologise now.
Anyway, a couple of tips that I can give you here are tell people you're going to be on. So if you know you're going to be consistent and you're going to do every Tuesday at two o'clock or every Wednesday at 10, then make sure you're telling them that your live show is going to be on at that time. But if it's not going to be as consistent, i.e., the same day and time every week, then make sure you're telling them beforehand tomorrow at 10, I'm going to be on live.
Once you've done the live video, think about how you can then repurpose that content in order to make the most of it. Now, obviously, you're going to have the replay, which is sat on the platform that you used, but why not download the video afterwards and upload it to YouTube or use it for clips to put into Twitter to send people back to the live video if you did it in Facebook, let's say. So again, there's lots of different ideas of how to make the most of that live video when you've done it.
I guess the message I'm really trying to get across is it doesn't really matter which platform you pick. You've got to pick something that you're happy and comfortable with and that you can do consistently ongoing. The important bit is just getting content out there. It's just showing people what you know, why you're good at what you do, and why you are so awesome that they should come and take your service, your product or whatever it is from you rather than a competitor.
So I really hope that you found today's episode useful. And I would love to see what content you're producing. I hear people say these things on podcasts and think, “You don't really want to know.” I genuinely do. I am so fascinated in what I do. I love my job. I love helping people, and I love to see what they're producing. So please do tag me in a social media post, find me on Instagram or Facebook and let me know what content you're producing. Let me know if I can come and see a live. If you've got a podcast, if you're putting out a blog, then I would be so happy to not only have a look at it, but also give it a share on my social media. So I would love to see what content you're producing.
Thank you so much for joining me today. I really hope you've enjoyed it. And if you ever have any thoughts about things you would like me to talk about or questions that you have, then I would love it if you would find me on social media and let me know what those questions are because I would happily address it on one of the podcasts.
