A new year, a new chance to refresh your content planning process.
So, how can you get your content off to a stellar start in 2024? Let’s take a look:
Choose your goals
What do you want your content to help you achieve in 2024?
Is it more sales? Increasing your thought leadership? Showing prospects/customers how to use your product/service? Something else?
Whatever you choose, having clear goals in mind keeps your content focused and makes it easier to generate ideas.
Pick a frequency you can stick to
While posting weekly – or even daily – can seem like a great idea at the start of the year, can you stick to it for the next 12 months?
It’s far better to be realistic with yourself and post great content less often than to churn out half-ass content that you wrote while you had the flu.
Don’t write when you’ve got the flu. Go back to sleep. I beg you.
Think back to how your content has gone the last couple of years. Did you stick to posting weekly? Great! Keep it up.
If not, what could you do differently?
Could you outsource your content creation so that you can publish more?
If that’s not practical for whatever reason, could you outsource some of it? Like every other post, or a particular part of it, such as editing or graphic design?
And if that’s not an option, it may be time to change your content frequency.
There’s no shame in publishing once a fortnight, or even once a month. Your blog will still look active, and your audience will know when to expect new content from you, meaning they’ll be more likely to keep coming back.
Which is likely to get you better results.
Generate ideas in bulk
Idea generation is a bit like an old tap. It can be a little bit stuck at first, so you might need to work on it, but once you’ve found a way to turn it on, it can be hard to get it to stop.
So if you feel like you’re stuck for ideas, don’t worry! You’re just a little rusty.
I’ve got a whole post on idea generation if you need some help, but here’s the short version:
- Find somewhere distraction free
- Set 5-minute timer (or less)
- Write down as many ideas as you can in those five minutes
And write down every idea. Because no idea is a bad idea when you’re generating ideas.
Bad ideas can block your creative tap, meaning that the good ones can’t come through until you’ve let the bad ones go.
It took me three different plots to come up with the final plot for my next novel, Hollywood Romance. If I hadn’t explored those three plots I wouldn’t have gotten the book to where it is now. (Writing the last book in a series is hard.)
Cover peripheral ideas too
Stuck for ideas during your idea generation? Cover things in the periphery of your specialism as well.
For example, in my fiction I often cover mental health, so it’s something I talk about as part of my author brand too. It’s also a topic I write about for clients so I occasionally post about it on LinkedIn.
I write about HR, and mental health is a huge part of it.
There’s a big push for diversity and inclusion in HR, too, and I offer a unique perspective as I have several chronic illnesses – conditions many businesses don’t consider when they claim to be ‘diverse and inclusive’. (That’s a rant for another day.)
I also write B2B content, but novel writing has many similarities.
So I share many of those things with my audience because it shows my knowledge and sets me apart from my competitors.
Covering peripheral ideas will help prevent you from getting stuck, stop those ideas from creating blockages, and show you really do know your industry inside out.
Create accountability
This is the scary one, really. Telling other people what your plans are makes them real. Which means if you don’t achieve them, you let down more than just yourself.
It really hurts when you let your readers, clients, and customers down. Nobody wants that, right?
So tell them when they should expect to hear from you!
And if that’s intermittently for a few weeks, while you figure things out, that’s totally fine. At least you’re being upfront and honest with them – and yourself. They’ll understand and reward your openness with loyalty, kindness, and patience.
(And if they don’t, they’re not your ideal customer. They’re a ????)
Don’t rely on AI for everything
AI can be a handy tool. But it isn’t there to do things for you.
It likes to hallucinate, meaning the facts it comes up with need to be checked by a person.
Its writing style is very generic – and tends to either be super formal or super over enthusiastic. You can train it to your writing style, but someone’s still got to fact check and edit that content.
Commands need to be written in a certain way to get what you want from it.
And, while it can conduct analyses, it’s not great for deep dives and more complicated briefs.
Content written by AI also takes longer to edit, because of the things listed above.
If you want content with personality, facts from original sources, or deep dives, you’ll get far better results by hiring a person.
Oh, and if you’re still not convinced, Hotjar tested human-written vs AI-written content. And the human won. By a very large margin.
And then there’s the complex copyright issues AI companies face from authors, comedians, artists, and other creators.
Aaaaand anything created by AI can’t be copyrighted. So that content you created for your site isn’t actually yours. Might as well put the extra time and effort in so that it’s unique to you. You’ll get better results all round.
(For the record, I’m not against AI. But I feel it’s more of an assistant than a replacement, and I’m uncomfortable publishing anything it’s created. Many, many readers are against it as well, so if I were to use it on my book covers or in my novel writing I’d lose the loyal fanbase I’ve spent years nurturing.)
Really, really stuck?
If you’re really, really stuck, there’s only one thing for it: start creating!
I know, it sounds counterproductive. You don’t know what you want to say, so how can you possibly write anything?
Generally, there are two reasons we can’t create:
- Stress
- Overthinking
Stress can come from everything from a poor night’s sleep, to the dog’s allergies, to your boss being ????
So if you think that’s the cause, it’s important to take steps to address those issues.
If it’s overthinking that’s your issue, I’ve got you covered. (I might do a longer post on this, in fact. If you’re interested let me know.)
The best thing you can do for overthinking is disconnect.
A bit like with idea generation above, you want to be away from as many stimuli as possible. This includes coworkers, loud noises, children, pets, the radio…you get the idea.
It should be you and your brain. Maybe nature, if you’ve got a park nearby. (Nature helps our brains relax.)
Then, either write down, or dictate, your thoughts on a particular topic from your idea generation list.
If you haven’t done a list yet, just start rambling. It’s ok. The point here isn’t to create something publishable. It’s to dislodge the fatberg that’s blocking your creative pipes.
So give yourself to space to babble. Ramble. Talk shit.
This is about you and having fun with the creative process and reminding yourself how much you know about your industry and how much you love it. Those things will come across in what you say when you don’t filter yourself. And they’ll only come across when you let go.
Elsa was right.
(I’m sorry I had to.)
When you feel you’ve come to a natural end, stop writing/recording, and go somewhere else.
Don’t look at what you’ve written/recorded for at least a few hours, or even better, a day or two.
This will give you some emotional distance, allowing you to judge your ramblings more easily.
You can then filter through what you’ve come up with, highlighting the passages or ideas you like. Or, if you talked about a specific topic, editing it into something that makes sense to other people.
This could be a good use for AI – getting it to filter through your ramblings for the key points or transcribing your dictation in real-time or after you’ve recorded something.
Ask for help
People are surprisingly willing to offer help if you just ask. The hardest part is actually asking.
Your team is filled with knowledge that you can share, though. Whether that’s on unique internal ways of working or unusual perspectives on what’s happening in your industry.
So go ask them!
You can also ask your audience what they want to know.
Maybe you mentioned something in another piece of content but didn’t go into loads of detail (like when I mentioned how to deal with being stuck, above), and they’d love to see you write about that.
Or you’ve got a really great feature/outcome from your product/service that you don’t brag about often enough.
Whatever it is, you’re surrounded by people with great ideas and who are happy to share them with you. All you have to do is ask for them.
Outsource
If you want to post more but you just don’t have the time, you have two options:
- Don’t create as much
- Outsource
Which path you choose will be up to you, but I highly recommend the second one. (All right I’m a little biased.)
Outsourcing allows you to maintain content frequency while giving you more time and headspace for other tasks like talking to customers.
You can outsource the whole content creation process, including idea generation, or give ideas to a content marketer and have them follow the brief to turn it into something for your audience to enjoy.
There are lots of different paths to take when you outsource. You need to find the right process – and the right content writer – for you.
(And if you’re not even sure where to start, you can get help with your strategy and planning, too. That’s also something I can help you with 😉 )
Want to discuss how I can help you with your content marketing? See what content writing packages I have available.