Wrapping up a content planning session always makes me so stinkin’ happy… it feels so dang good to have everything done and dusted for another month! I’m always curious about how long things take for other people, so here’s the nitty gritty on the time that I’m spending right now.

Here’s where we’re at:

• Blog post 1x per week
• Newsletter 1x per week (to entire list)
• Newsletter 1x per week (just for clients / toolbox subscribers)
• Instagram grid 3x per week (repurposed to Pinterest, but not included in the 4 hours here)

Step 1: Clarity

The one thing that’ll make content planning go SO much quicker for you is clarity — both on your social media, and in your business.

Every person that runs across your social media throughout the course of a month is going to be in one of three phases in the customer journey — a new face that’s just stumbled across your brand, someone who’s already in your audience and has raised their hand to hear more from you (aka a follower), or someone who’s ready to buy from you. You’re always going to have people in every phase of this journey, but keep ONE phase in mind as you’re creating your content. 

Attract, nurture, invite, delight.

You also need to know exactly what you’d like to promote or sell. There’s no point in being on social media as a business owner if it’s not going to end with dollars in your jeans!

Step 2: Headlines

Once you have that, grab a sheet of paper and jot down every headline you can think of. Some are going to suck, some are going to be awesome, and some can be grouped into a single post.

Step 3: Break it down

Choose your juiciest headlines for your blog and dig in! I open up a Google doc, get alllll of the words out of my system, and then organize it into something that YOU can pick up on the other side!

(If you’re not a blogger, your biggest piece of content should be whatever you’re best at — YouTube for video, podcast for audio, you get the gist.)

From there, I break out a chunk and provide a fresh angle on it for my email subscribers. Super quick & easy! I don’t do a rough draft for these… they’re scheduled and I don’t have to think about it again for four weeks.

The easiest part is Instagram! Count out how many posts per week you’d like to create — if you want to show up three times per week, that’s only 12 posts per month. Not bad right?!

Break down the 12 into what you’d like to cover — 3-4 promotional posts, 3-4 value posts, 3-4 engagement boosters is a super easy breakdown that’ll cover the entire customer journey. After that, jot down any formatting you need to do (carousels? Infographics? Quotes? gifs?)

The last step is to match up the juicy content you’ve already created and paste it into your social media posts! (Not gonna lie, I cheat and use the toolbox for some of the promotional stuff… it’s just easier to have a script!)

Don’t know what to talk about? We gotchu. The Toolbox includes DAILY story prompts that are more than just fluff like what you had in your coffee or what your toddler is up to today (newsflash: nobody cares). Sign up here!