Steal Our Weekly Social Media Content Workflow

Courtney Elmer  0:11  

Hey there, welcome back to the AntiFragile Entrepreneurship™ podcast. I’m your host Courtney Elmer. It's Episode 83 which is about social media content and streamlining your workflow. And it is our summer series of systems. I have always wanted to be a game show announcer. Just kidding, that was fun. We have decided to do something fun for this summer, which is quick tips geared towards helping you clean up the back end of your business a little bit so you can buy back some minutes in your schedule, buy back some hours, and get refocused and spend more time in your zone of genius. We started this series back in Episode 77. And so far, we have talked about how to fix an overbooked calendar, and how to save hours in your inbox every week. 

Courtney Elmer  0:50  

Yes, ours is how to build and nurture your email list on autopilot, along with some of our favorite free time-saving tools and apps. Now, this week, I'm doing something that I have never done before on the show, which is giving away our weekly social media content workflow. Why? Well, that's because outside of our programs, our best content goes to you, our loyal listeners, and we are happy to share what's worked for us and hope that it will work for you too. There are a few directions that I wanted to take in this episode. But for the sake of keeping it short and aligned with our quick tip series, here's what I really want you to know. 

The average person spends over two and a half hours on social media every single day. And a recent study showed that teenagers spend nine hours a day. I don't even know how that's possible when you're in school, and you've got homework and you've got extracurricular activities. But that is what the research shows my friend--nine hours. Most online business owners are spreading themselves too thin on social platforms out of fear of being overlooked. 

Courtney Elmer  2:03  

So they try to be everywhere at once, which has the exact opposite effect of what they want impacting the social media content workflow. It actually dilutes their message and causes them to be overlooked. It's no wonder that they feel their social media content efforts are a waste of time. I don't blame them. Most online business owners don't know what to share on social media. So they share everything they know. 

Here's what I'm doing in the morning for my routine. Here's what I eat for lunch. Here's what I do in my business. Oh, now I'm working out this is what my kids are doing and what, what do you actually do? You know, in the morning, you're an influencer sharing some coffee stuff. And then in the afternoon, you're like, here's what I'm doing. And now this is what I'm reading. And it's like a mess. 

Courtney Elmer  2:49  

This is a mistake--because there is no true social media content workflow. If you want to make waves on social media, get ultra-specific, share one thing. And one thing only you want to become known for--one thing. The other thing you need to know is that social media content will not grow your business directly. And there is no such thing as an overnight success on social media. Gone are the days where you could post something and it goes viral. And then all of a sudden you have 40,000 followers, it just doesn't happen like that. And hear me when I say social media content will not grow your business directly. 

Courtney Elmer  3:24  

There was no direct correlation to the amount of time you spend on your social media content workflow, and the amount of business growth. Now, I don't say all this to discourage you. What I'm saying is that unless you know how to utilize social channels as an asset for your business, you're wasting your time there. And unless you're making more sales on those channels than you do through other means, such as launches, or discovery calls or your product website, then I really want you to consider how worth it is social media content for your business. Really, if it's not making up the bulk of your sales, what's a better use of your time trying to force social media content to work for you, or focusing on other aspects of your business that are working. And that does make you money.

Courtney Elmer  4:12  

People think social media content is essential for business because that's what the marketers sell you want. Of course, they're marketers, they want you to buy their stuff, and you're buying it really should have been until today. Hopefully, because I'm here to tell you differently. Social media content is meant to enhance your business by giving you a platform to build relationships, not make sales. If you're not making sales on social media, it's because you're not using the platform to build relationships. Many people go about this totally backward. They're trying to grow their platform to make sales but they missed the part where the sales come from the relationships. 

Courtney Elmer  4:55  

Okay, so now that you know this, I'm going to give you our weekly social media content workflow. This is the A system that we use every day to stay visible on those channels to educate and entertain our audience to build relationships without taking up a ton of time unnecessarily because for us, we don't make the bulk of our sales from social media. 

What we make on social media are relationships that lead to sales down the road. We've had so many people find us on Instagram, then later a couple of months, through 2, 3, 4 months later sign up for a workshop. And then after that sign up for one of our programs. But it doesn't happen overnight. Social media content is a long game process. You, as the visionary leader, need to be optimizing your sales systems behind the scenes, so that you are making money so that you're not wasting your time on social apps trying to build relationships, which takes a while hoping that those will one day turn into sales. 

Courtney Elmer  5:54  

So this social media content workflow is built for two platforms max, on purpose. Why, because to be on any more than that dilutes your message. Now I have an account on Twitter. I have an account on LinkedIn. But I don't do anything there regularly. Our two main areas of focus are Facebook and Instagram. Because that's where the bulk of our people are. Most of the online business owners that we work with, are also active on Facebook and Instagram. So I want you to choose your two top platforms. No more than that. One platform would be even better. Our primary one is Instagram. And that's the one we primarily focus on. I'm not saying Instagram is right for you, you have to know your audience. But one platform is even better. But again, this system is designed for two platforms max, no more than that, please, because then you're just shooting yourself in the foot. 

Courtney Elmer  6:52  

So here's how it works in the morning. Set a timer for 15 minutes. We check Instagram messages, comments, we post a story for the day, and post content. Then we go to Facebook, check groups, check messages, check notifications, this is my personal workflow. Then in the evening, do the same thing. Late afternoon 3:30, 4 o'clock before I'm about to sign off for the day. set my timer for 15 minutes. Check Instagram, check my DMs, respond to any comments, post a story. And then on Facebook, check the group's reply to messages, clear out notifications. 

Now I use this daily workflow of checking in conjunction with batching and scheduling social media content. When you do that, when you batch in schedule, and then you use this system twice a day, 15 minutes a day to just stay in the know, you can save up to two hours a day on social media. My goal is to get you to spend no more than 30 minutes a day on social media content, there's no need for more. Now batching. And scheduling is separate from this workflow. Obviously, that takes a little more time to create social media content than it does to maintain a daily presence on social media.

Courtney Elmer  8:14  

But the bonus for today's episode is my batching social media content workflow. So here you go. So the first thing you're going to do is you're going to choose one primary type of content. And one specific topic. So this is one specific thing that you want to be known for, for us systems. I'm going to talk about this workflow in the context of Instagram. So if you go to Instagram, you will see bio profile highlights. Any latest social media content is all geared towards business systems. That is our topic. And then the primary type of content that we post are reels. Why? Because I like them. I love reels, they're fun to create, it takes me no time at all to plan them out, batch them, skit, record them, and then schedule them out and post them. 

Courtney Elmer  9:03  

Very, very simple. But that's what you're going to do: choose one primary type of social media content and one topic. So then step two, you're going to sit down once a week, and you're going to map that out, you're going to plan out your content, I use our project management software ClickUp. For this, I have a board on there for Igy rails to create. That's literally what the board is called. And there, I have a running list of ideas. And then I have another separate section where I put the date, and then the reel that I'm going to create. So then that's my batching list. So then in Step three, you're going to actually create that content. And so what I do is I sit down once a week. I typically do this on a Saturday because the boys are out of the house and I can have a little space and quiet time to batch them out. 

Courtney Elmer  9:49  

I've been able to batch out two weeks' worth of social media content in 30 minutes doing it this way before but focus on one week. It doesn't take that long when you have a workflow. So I just simply follow my plan for the week. I do five reels at a time for a week because I post Monday through Friday. I personally take the weekends off, so I don't post anything then so I don't create content then. And I sit there to record it, there you go, I've got my content for the week. You can also outsource this process, if you don't physically have to be there creating a video or a reel, maybe you're doing posts or quote images or whatever it is that your audience likes, or whatever the content is that you want to create. 

Courtney Elmer  10:27  

You can outsource that social media creation to somebody else if your face doesn't literally have to be there in the video. And then the fourth piece of this is to just schedule it out, you can outsource that to us for scheduling software, we like Facebook Creator Studio later is another good option later calm and schedule out as much as you can, you can also outsource the scheduling. So that's my batching and scheduling workflow super simple. Choose your social media content and topic, map and plan it out once a week. Sit down for 30 minutes to an hour to create it, or outsource and schedule it or outsource that. So I've actually gotten it down to where I'm only doing this batching process once a month, which is amazing.

Courtney Elmer  11:15  

I do the same for the podcast, and any other content that I create, that you see on social apps outside of that I created at the moment. Because sometimes I feel inspired. And when I have the bulk of the content done and batched and scheduled, it gives me room to create the kind of inspired content when the moment arises, because I'm not scrambling anymore to create it every day on the fly. Now, there's a lot more detail than I could give you here. So if you would like to learn more, or if you want to have a chance to talk with me specifically about your company, and how we can help you streamline not only your social media efforts, but all of your back end business systems, including your visibility system, your sales systems, your deliverability systems and all of your operations. 

Courtney Elmer  12:06  

Then keep an eye out for when apps open up next to our Visionary Leader Incubator™. This is our six-month mastermind program. We cover all of this in there and so much more. Now, next week, we're going to dive into the pros and cons of hiring locally versus virtually. We're going to talk about some systems when it comes to team building and hiring. And this was a specific question that someone asked me recently that I thought, Gosh, what a great question. Should I hire locally? Or should I hire virtually what's better for me? What's better for just getting started when I'm hiring? This is one we have a lot of experience in and it's something I am happy to answer here on the shows that you can benefit from it too, especially if you're ready to take that next step and start outsourcing and growing your team. So that's coming up next week right here on the AntiFragile Entrepreneurship™ podcast. Until then, go live your EffortLESS Life®.