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A while back I set out on a mission to implement a content strategy. To me, it is simple - "start doing exactly what you're advising your clients to do."

Time after time I'd hear myself tell our clients -

  1. "you need to research what types of content your target audience is connecting with,
  2. create your brand's version of that content,
  3. publish it on a consistent basis, being daily, weekly or monthly - whatever you can push yourself, your team or your creative agency to crank out
  4. guidelines are that it should be educational, personal or entertaining (preferably two of those three) each time you put something out there
  5. a great way to do it is to converse with others on social media, understand what topics they're interested in, then use the context of that discussion to create more content

So, in a recent LinkedIn discussion with several people I know and respect, we started talking about video. My question revolved around getting someone's opinion on my own raw (very low-fi) video content I've been pumping out on my blog, along with just about every social media channel you can think of - YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Medium.com and Anchor.fm just to name "a few." Now, of course, Anchor.fm is audio-only, but I've been taking the audio from the video and repurposing it.

Essentially, this is another thing I advise clients - 6. Do something one time, then repurpose it for every other platform so that it makes sense natively. For example, record an audio podcast but video it, then transcribe it for your blog, take screenshots of the video with a great quote from the podcast as an overlay for Instagram, etc.

Once this becomes like brushing your teeth (part of your daily routine and super efficient to roll out consistently) - much like a good habit, basically, you're able to put it out at scale, beef up your library and increase your chances of not only being found organically, but also stumbling upon great snippets that will connect with audiences via "boosted posts" or low cost social media ads.

In seeking out advice from my network, a response came back "it depends on your content strategy."

Fair enough, so I figured I'd document exactly what my content strategy is, here. Details are above, but it's this simple:

  1. Take a question that I've been asked more than twice in a single week (answering questions from clients or co-workers or giving my take on industry news/trends) or mixing up this educational content with taking an original thought from an interaction I had or telling a life story on weekends
  2. Create an answer to the question via a really raw video
  3. Sometimes edit the video / sometimes not
  4. Always post it to YouTube.
  5. Use the YouTube embed and a version of the transcription of the video to make a blog post on my website.
  6. Repurpose the same blog for Facebook, Medium.com and LinkedIn.com (with the video embed and everything in each platform).
  7. Take a photo from the video and make it an Instagram post. In the body of the Instagram post, take a snippet of the blog and use relevant hashtags
  8. Repeat 7 but for Twitter
  9. If the video was for a podcast, then it all goes on Anchor.fm, which sends it to iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, etc. for the Paul Hickey Podcast.
  10. If the video wasn't for a podcast, read the audio of the blog and make it one.
  11. Oh, I almost forgot the part about posting the blog link that answers the user's question BACK in the discussion thread...

So, in my mind, this content strategy always either provides value by answering a question, or gives me an opportunity to be human in front of my audience and show a little of my personality, which hopefully makes me unique enough to want to do business with.

This can be repurposed as the recipe for success for any brand, no matter how big or small. I wanted to start executing it, in order to practice what I preach.

How am I doing?

Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Paul Hickey has created and grown businesses via digital strategy and internet marketing for more than 10 years. His sweet spot is using analytics to design and build websites and grow the audience and revenue of businesses via SEO/Blogging, Google Adwords, Bing Ads, Facebook and Instagram Ads, Social Media Content Marketing and Email Marketing. The part that he’s most passionate about is quantifying next marketing actions based on real data.

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