In this week’s post about content marketing, I want to talk about one of the biggest challenges business owners have when it comes to producing content to brand or market their business. And the challenge is coming up with content and publishing on time. What happens if you’re busy and you have to publish your content late? Should you publish or should you wait until the following week or, the next publishing date? Let’s talk a little bit about that.
https://youtu.be/fPER5wHjsWg
This happened to me
This past week has been incredibly busy. Although that may sound like a great thing, it could also be a sign that I’m not staying on top of things and being as organized as I need to be. I’m guessing that’s something every entrepreneur, or small business owner, or even large business owner, can relate to.
My publishing date for this website is typically every Thursday; actually, it is every Thursday, not typically every Thursday. And last week I was struggling with finding time to create content and publish it. But instead of just waiting until the next week, I decided to pull out my iPhone, set it up and make the video that I wanted to make.
Why publishing your content is important… Even if it’s a little late
The greatest opportunity we have with content marketing is the ability to connect with an audience and to grow that audience. The obvious end goal of doing so is to build our businesses, but we also need to be committed to an audience that is also committing time to us. So they might be expecting you to publish on a certain day, and if you don’t, and you start doing that regularly, you’re going to lose the confidence of your audience; and ultimately, you’re going to lose the audience altogether.
So even if you publish one day late, or maybe even two days late, it’s still important to get that content out there because you never know who is looking at it at any given time.
Tips for preparing content when you have little time
- First, the most important thing is to use some sort of editorial or content calendar. This will let you quickly scan any ideas that you can use to quickly produce something and get it out there. I use Trello because it works on my phone and on my computer. Plus, I like the more visual interface, but anything that lets you curate ideas and determine when to publish, and if you’ve published, is just fine.
- Second, use the tools you have at your disposal to create your content. As an example, because my content is video, the simplest tool that I have is my iPhone. I simply connected one of the Edutige microphones, a tripod, and some basic lighting, and I was ready to make my video. If your content is mainly text based, then I highly recommend using Evernote and the voice to text function on your computer or smart phone. In fact, everything you are reading in this post was created using Evernote and my iPhone by speaking into the phone. Simply brilliant, if I don’t say so myself.
- And third, keep a list of commonly used tags, keywords or anything else that is common in all of your content. For example, I have a list of tags, such as content marketing expert, video content marketing consultant, etc., that I use on my YouTube channel and here on my website. Having those ready saves a few precious moments and really comes in handy.
But what if you still can’t get your content ready on time?
This is not entirely surprising because we are all so busy. But if this describes you, then maybe it’s time to outsource your content creation, or at least get someone like myself to help you stay on top of your content, and help you produce some of it. That might sound like I’m trying to sell you my services, but the reality is we can’t do everything ourselves and technology has made it so easy to collaborate with people that can help us.
In conclusion, content marketing needs a consistent effort and you definitely should publish on time, and I’ve provided a few tips that will hopefully help you with your content marketing efforts. But, of course, you can also get in touch with me if you’d like some help.