You own or manage a small business that depends on internet lead generation. You know content is king, and quality content increases your rank authority in search – therefore, more lead potential. So, you began a company blog last year and wrote three posts. Then you just didn’t have time to continue writing. You don’t know how to create content when you don’t have time. Is there a way out of this catch 22?
How to Create Content When You Don’t Have Time
Re-purpose, Rethink, and Repeat
A friend of mine who markets to a younger demographic for a B2C recently shared some frustration. She was hired to lead the way with social media marketing. However, the staff resisted her call for a blog. What was she supposed to share to bring visitors to their site? The answer was right in front of her. The site has more than 50 articles sharing advice, tips, community service campaigns, product information, and green initiatives. Although it would be beneficial to host a company blog, she can start by sharing what she has. There’s enough information available to share for quite some time. Take a hard look at what you already have. What can you share?
Where Do You Find Existing Material to Reuse?
I’m going to offer a few suggestions, but the first step is your thought process. Every piece of marketing material you create about your business should be shared online, preferably hosted on your website. Don’t waste your offline marketing efforts by not sharing them online.
Meetings and Presentations
Meetings and presentations lend themselves to being re-purposed. Reformat your meeting outline for a post – or easier – do a video of the presentation, post some of it on YouTube, and share it on your blog.
Emails
Many emails can be used as the backbone of a blog post. For example, if a customer asks a product question, frame your answer as an FAQ with the customer’s question and your answer, concluding with a call to action to contact you. Emails answering how-to, customer service initiatives, customers thanking you (with their permission to use it), company policy, and company culture activities all have the potential to be blog posts.
Images
Post images on your blog and write about the photo. Images can be products, services, equipment, or employees. With permission, it can also be customers and the work you’ve completed for them.
Video
It doesn’t have to be super slick, professionally done, or expensive. Start a YouTube channel and shoot a short video from your phone. Re-purpose the video in a blog or vlog by writing a little about the video or transcribing it.
Guest Posts
Open the doors to others writing for you. Set up a guest post guideline. Beware of Blackhat bloggers who’d use your blog strictly to promote their products or worse. There are trustworthy people who would appreciate the opportunity to write for you.
Here’s the most important take away from this post. You have time to create content because you’re already creating it. Whether it’s a meeting, email, or photo – take a few minutes to reformat it and reuse it on your website. Nearly every piece of information you generate about your organization can be re-purposed, and it doesn’t have to take a lot of time.
How Can I Help You?
Let me know if I can offer any help or advice. If this post struck a nerve, you might want to check out my book, How to Stay Ahead of Your Business Blog Forever. The book is full of action plans for you to create a blogging/writing system that works for you.
If you enjoyed this post, you may also like, How to Defeat Writer’s Block.
