GaryVee published his GaryVee Content Strategy to help you grow your brand’s social media content in 2019.
And while I truly appreciate him sharing his advice and putting together a super applicable step-by-step process in an 86-page slide deck, I can’t forget the question one of my friends recently asked me on Instagram: “How do you keep your sanity with content creation and distribution when consistency is the key to success?”
Here’s the truth: Not many people have the budgets and resources that GaryVee has to implement his content strategy week after week. If you haven’t seen the slide deck — GaryVee’s team took 1 of his keynote speeches and turned it into over 30 pieces of content, which was distributed on all major social networks and resulted in over 35 million views.
Want to know how to create content magic on a small budget or without a team? Read on…
The Micro Content — Long-form Content Loop
GaryVee is practicing the “reverse pyramid” model of content distribution on a daily basis, which has helped him further grow his brand recognition. By distributing lots of micro content he continuously drives awareness back to his long-form content. But this strategy wouldn’t be possible in 2019 (or any year really) without a solid team that is strategizing, producing, re-formatting, and distributing content on all platforms that GaryVee is active on.
And let’s not forget, your job is not done once the content is shared — most likely GaryVee’s community managers then take over and reply to comments and questions received on every platform. Because community engagement is the other 50% it takes to build a brand online — in particular a brand associated with a social good movement that thrives on passionate supporters and like-minded changemakers.
The GaryVee Content Strategy: For Smaller Budgets, Non-Profits Or Solopreneurs
Screenshot: GaryVee’s Content Model Slide Deck
So how do we make GaryVee’s “reverse pyramid” content strategy work when we run a small non-profit? Or what if I’m a busy social business executive who wants to build a personal brand? How do I create and publish 30+ pieces of content on a regular basis without losing my sanity?
Whether your challenges are due to budget, team, or time – you can take the basic “reverse pyramid” concept that is working for GaryVee and adapt it to your particular circumstances. Don’t try to achieve the same volume and frequency of content with just one person if you have to run a separate business or organization.
You Control The Publishing Frequency
Yes, you want to publish something consistently but if you don’t have the resources or bandwidth to create and publish content every day like GaryVee — find a frequency that works for you and your schedule. Maybe it’s once a week, maybe every other week, maybe you can only publish a piece of long-form content once a month.
It doesn’t do us any good to compare our situation with another business or person that is set up very differently and can commit to a publishing frequency that we simply can’t stick to.
Once you set to a schedule that works for you, it’s important to do this next step — especially if you don’t have a team that can support you.
Create A Simple Content Calendar
I’m pretty sure GaryVee doesn’t plan his speaking schedule and content calendar by himself. His team most likely sits down in editorial meetings regularly planning out his speeches, his video content and everything else he does that will help produce what he calls “pillar content”.
You will avoid a lot of stress if you sit down regularly (once a month or once a quarter) to plan your content for the next month or quarter. It can be as simple as putting content ideas down into a printed calendar. (I personally prefer the Leuchtturm1917 weekly planner to plan out my week and months.)
You can also use free tools like Google sheets or Trello to create your own simple editorial calendar. I found my clients like the idea of themes (weekly, monthly or otherwise) to organize content around and then come up with ideas for articles, videos, or podcasts that fit into a particular theme.
Batch Produce Your Content
As a solopreneur, a non-profit team leader or a busy exectuive building a personal brand you won’t be able to produce the same volume of content with one human brain as GaryVee does with a whole team. So my best advice for you is to pre-produce your content in batches.
Set aside a particular time (weekly, every 2 weeks, or once a month) where you can focus on creating the content you want to publish in the next couple of weeks or month. Recording a couple of podcast episodes or videos in one sitting will be more efficient as you have to set up your equipment only once.
Creating several pieces of mico content like images, edited videos, or quotes/soundbites you want to share on social media will also be more effcient if you put a recurring time on your calendar to do the task.
It might even make sense for you to schedule your weekly or monthly Live on the same weekday and time so that you and your audience know when to expect to see you go live on a particular social media platform.
Limit Your Time On Social Media
To stay focused on sharing your content and responding to comments you receive, I suggest you set a timer so that you avoid being sucked into the endless social media content loop and save precious time for what will bring you true momentum as you’re building your brand — creating content.
To curb your own social media consumption, you can take advantage of apps that are designed to set and limit your time spent on social media daily. Mobile phone manufacturers even include tools to keep social media use to a healthy limit: Apple’s iPhone X internal “screen time” setting and Android’s digital wellbeing product on the Pixel 3 are just two examples of the new digital health trend.
You Don’t Have To Do It Alone
Even if you can’t afford a GaryVee size content team, there might be ways for you to get some support through a virtual assistant or social media manager who could be hired part-time. My services at Communications Rebel include content planning and content production support to lighten your load and help you focus on what you can do best: deliver your message to the world and promote social good.
