Stop Creating Accidental Content

1. Stop Creating Accidental Content How You Can Become an Intentional Content Rockstar
2. @jessostroff #socialfresh Content marketing is real. But what happened to great content?
3. Source: Disney’s The Lion King
4. “Everything the light touches is content.” -Ann Handley, MarketingProfs @jessostroff #socialfresh
5. 51% of marketers cite lack of time/bandwidth to create content as their biggest challenge. -LinkedIn Technology Marketing Community @jessostroff #socialfresh
6. @jessostroff #socialfresh What if you could create twice the content in half the time?
7. Goals Before Tactics Audience Action Messaging @jessostroff #socialfresh
8. PLANNING IS SEXY @jessostroff #socialfresh
9. Content Brief Goals Timeline Players Promotion Metrics @jessostroff #socialfresh
10. @jessostroff #socialfresh
11. DOING > THINKING ABOUT DOING @jessostroff #socialfresh
12. “The talking about the thing isn’t the thing. The doing of the thing is the thing.” -Amy Poehler, Actress @jessostroff #socialfresh
13. @jessostroff #socialfresh
14. MORE is not BETTER @jessostroff #socialfresh
15. Do the Damn Thing UFD Edit MVP Polish Atomize @jessostroff #socialfresh
16. “Power doesn’t come from content. Power comes from content that MOVES.” -Mark Schaefer, Keynote Speaker @jessostroff #socialfresh
17. Atomization Pull-quote graphics Live streams Slideshares Podcasts/sound bites Retargeting ads Blog posts Targeted email blasts Sponsored social media posts Video teasers @jessostroff #socialfresh
18. @jessostroff #socialfresh Delegation FTW
19. “Content marketing is a commitment, not a campaign.” -Jon Buscall, Moondog Marketing @jessostroff #socialfresh
20. @jessostroff #socialfresh Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
21. Goals first (tactics second) Planning is sexy Create efficiently Atomize everything Celebrate small wins @jessostroff #socialfresh Keep In Mind…
22. -Bono, Musician @jessostroff #socialfresh “As a rock star, I have two instincts: I want to have fun, and I want to change the world. I have a chance to do both.”
23. Stop creating accidental content. Start creating intentional content. @jessostroff #socialfresh
24. @jessostroff #socialfresh bit.ly/dpmfresh
25. Jess Ostroff dontpanicmgmt.com @jessostroff jess@dontpanicmgmt.com

Hinweis der Redaktion

Hi everyone! My name is Jess Ostroff and I have vowed to stop creating accidental content. I hope that after today, you’ll join me in doing the same.

Think low when there’s emphasis.
Increase the casual vibe.
More stories.
Change up pitch, especially when you’re going through lists.
Shifting to right leg and left leg, don’t be shifting. If you’re going to move, move.
Content marketers are often strategists, they’re not project managers. Need to bring project management to content. It can be learned through practice and from repeating this process.
What do I mean by this? Well, there’s no question that content marketing is real. You’re here today because you’re not the ones who need convincing on that front. Especially after our speakers went through some amazing stories and examples. If someone wrote one of those Buzzfeed articles telling you content marketing was dead you’d probably punch them in the face.

That’s the kind of marketers we are, right?

So how did we get here? When did this whole content marketing thing become so overwhelming? Well, it all started at the beginning, on the day content marketers arrived on this planet…
What if you could create twice the amount of content in half the amount of time? What if you could effectively DOUBLE your ROI without a single extra lead?

Let’s make this overwhelming content galaxy more manageable for you. Let’s talk about the best way to get it all done, taking the nebulous idea of content marketing and distilling it down into a simple, repeatable process that will make make all your neurotic spreadsheet-loving dreams come true.
Who are all I my Type A rock stars out there can I get a YEAHHHH!

Let’s stop creating accidental content and start creating content on purpose.
Cue Lion King music… Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba (actual ridiculous singing)
Everything the light touches is content. The minute we realized that everything went to shit.
Email. Social. Webpages. Blog posts. Articles. Ebooks. Whitepapers. Videos. Slidedecks. Podcasts.
Content content content everywhere is content!
Content is you and you are content.
And frankly, it’s way too much to handle sometimes.

Here’s the other problem. Meat Loaf said it first:

We’re not just content marketers anymore. We’re not just thinking about what our audience wants and doesn’t want, when to offer a deal, or where to pull them into the funnel.

We are chameleons. We’re planning, we’re ideating, we’re strategizing, we’re testing every new platform, every new app, we’re thinking outside the box, we are precariously treading water as our bosses and clients ask us, “So, what’s the ROI of our content?”

[EXAGGERATED EYE ROLL]

I can barely keep this GD blog publishing schedule on track and you’re asking me about return on investment?? I’ll give you a return on investment… [shakes fist]
51% of marketers say they don’t have enough time or bandwidth to create content. That’s nuts, given that a giant part of a content marketer’s job is, presumably, creating content.

Part of the reason for this is that we’re chameleons, we’re strategizing and ideating, and then we’re writing and editing, creating social media graphics, and reviewing google analytics. We’re the ideator and the creator and the data analyst. And that’s too much for one person to handle!

But what if I could help you find a process that you could repeat over and over, that could not only help you manage these projects more efficiently, but could help you cut down on your content creation time? Content marketers are usually great at marketing, but they’re not always so good at taking their ideas and making them happen. No offense to anyone here.
What if you could create twice the amount of content in half the amount of time? What if you could effectively DOUBLE your ROI without a single extra lead?

Let’s make this overwhelming content galaxy more manageable for you. Let’s talk about the best way to get it all done, taking the nebulous idea of content marketing and distilling it down into a simple, repeatable process that will make make all your neurotic spreadsheet-loving dreams come true.
Who are all I my Type A rock stars out there can I get a YEAHHHH!

Let’s stop creating accidental content and start creating content on purpose.
Now, we can’t talk about content without talking about goals, so I want to make sure that no matter which plan you go with you’re always starting with your goals before your tactics. Consider:

Audience: Who is this for?
Action: What do I want them to do as a result of consuming your content?
Messaging: What story will I tell to convince them to do the thing I want them to do?

If you can’t answer these questions right now, you may need to spend a lot of time on this part. Spend as much time as you need, because you’re going to need this information forever.

Now to the fun part…
Planning!! My favorite! Planning can be sexy, I promise. Want to know why? Because an amazing plan NOW means less headache LATER. It means fewer miscommunications among your team, fewer missed deadlines, and more awesome projects and happy teams. Who doesn’t want that?
I see clients every day who start to create content without having a strategy. Saying that you want to create more content and you want more leads is not a strategy. Part of the reason why more than half the content out there isn’t so great is because our dear content marketers forget to take the crucial step to PLAN what they’re going to do. So, here’s what you need to create a successful content brief. You will develop this during the planning stage of your content which will be your bible every time you sit down to produce a piece of content.

It will include everything you determined in your strategic goals exercise: who is your audience, what do they want, what is the messaging strategy and the medium? Which, by the way, is dependent on your audience and where THEY are hanging out online, not on what YOU want to do today. Repeat after me: I do solemnly swear [REPEAT] to create for my audience [REPEAT], not for myself [REPEAT]. Thank you.

Next is Timeline: What’s reasonable here? When do you want to launch? Work backwards from there, given the resources that you have. Which brings me to my next point of choosing your players.
Players: This includes human resources and software resources. I’m talking about copywriters, producers, video editors, graphic designers, project management tools, communication tools, creation and design tools, editing tools, and of course promotion tools, social media, paid advertising. List out everything you need to reach your goals, but nothing more.
Promotion: Half the battle of content marketing is getting the content out there. Don’t overlook your promotion strategy here. Put it in the brief.
And finally, Metrics: Let’s keep these front and center for everyone involved to see. When people have a goal they’re striving to reach, they’ll reach it 90% of the time. I made that stat up. But you get the point.
Here’s an example of a realistic timeline for a slide deck creation, counting backward from launch:
Print it out.
Have this front and center for everyone to see.
We will talk about the creation process next.
Make this 8 images so they pop up like bullets would

Week 0: Goal-setting meeting, including audience ID
Week 1: Content brief draft completed
Week 2: Content brief finalized, presented to content team
Weeks 3 and 4: Content first draft created
Week 5: Content revisions
Week 6: Edits and revisions implemented
Week 7: Teaser promotions, testing, tactical set up
Week 8: LAUNCH, rocket launch promotions
But we’re not just talking about big content here, this can also apply to a blog post. Here’s an example of what that might look like. You’ll notice it’s a lot more condensed than that slide deck timeline. In less than 8 hours, potentially less than 3 hours, you can have a full blog post created and launched successfully. Who doesn’t have 3 hours once a week?

Hour 0: Goal-setting meeting, including audience ID (you may not even need to do this every time)
Hour 1: Content brief draft completed (again, may not need to do this every time)
Hour 2: Content brief finalized, presented to content team, approved to begin
Hour 2.5 - 4: Content first draft created
Hour 5: Content revisions
Hour 6: Edits and revisions implemented
Hour 7: LAUNCH, promotions
Consider the MINIMUM amount of resources you need to make this. Car analogy (you want a Mercedes, you need the self-driving capacity, but all you really need is a Honda. This is the Honda of content planning.)

Here are your people:
Strategist
Copywriter
Graphic designer
Editor
Project manager
Data junkie

Here are your tools:
Scrivener / Word
CoSchedule
Google Spreadsheets
Samepage
Canva
Powerpoint
Slideshare
Buffer
Pre-launch, launch, 30-day, 60-day, 90-day promotion ideas
Plan to revisit the content after you see how your promotion efforts did so you can tweak it to keep it relevant in the long term.
ROI is relative, put in an example of what a reasonable ROI increase could be.

Audience, people! Look at them. Just look at them.

Print your Sherry Shoemaker or Ian IT professional avatars out and pin it to your wall as you’re planning.

Put a post-it of your desired percentage of leads increased on your computer screen.

Do whatever you have to do to REMEMBER WHY YOU’RE DOING THIS IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Here’s an example of what a completed content brief could look like
(audience, goals, sections, message, medium, metrics)
Next…
"Do the thing. Because remember, the talking about the thing isn’t the thing. The doing of the thing is the thing."
By creating faster, you can measure faster, tweak faster, and put BETTER content into the world without breaking the bank.

Here’s a fun one:

We believed anything that was worth doing was worth overdoing.

We did too, Stephen Tyler, we did too. And for rock and roll stars, this was the case. I’m talking drugs, women, booze. We know how that ended for a lot our favorites. Rest in peace.

But we’re CONTENT rockstars and we know better. We know what happens when content gets over done. It looks something like this:
Our friend and past Social Fresh speaker Mark Schaefer calls it content shock, and he wrote the book about that which you can check out later if you haven’t already but the point is…
More is not better. Please STOP creating content for content’s sake.

I run a service-based business. The more work we get, the more money we make. It’s simple match. And it probably seems like I’m shooting myself in the foot when I say this… but actually spending the resources on the planning process before clients even get to the doing process set us up for positive results.

The reality is that a little bit of consistent, intentional content performs better than a lot of willy-nilly, throw it against the wall and see what sticks, content.
UFD: Write an ugly first draft.
Edit: Get another set of eyes.
MVP: Determine my minimum viable product.
Polish: Don’t forget to edit.
Atomize: Consider what other content can be created from this.

Importance of the ugly first draft (and editors)
Editors: 52% of bloggers do not use an editor (Orbit) WHAAAAAT
Minimum viable product: Done is better than perfect.
EDIT GOD DAMNIT
Make many smaller pieces of content from one big piece of content.

You want to make this the most efficient part of everything you do so that you can become a content rockstar machine. Why? John Buscall said it best:
How do you create content that MOVES?
Next, Atomize! What does this mean? I know there is a LOT here. And there’s tons more. The idea is that you can make your content work harder for you by coming up with lots of little pieces of content to make out of your one big one. Use Jay Baer’s list of 49 ways to atomize as a resource. And I’ll give you a real-world, real-time example:

Right now, I’m on stage talking to you. Duh. But behind-the-scenes, my team is sharing social media graphics of some of the quotes I’m using, which we prepared in advance, we have a blog post scheduled to run that hits on the major points of this speech, and we are also using video platforms like Snapchat and Facebook live to share what’s going on here at Social Fresh with the world. (Hi everyone!) And after this, you’ll be able to find my slides on Slideshare for download. We have also made worksheets that you can email me for if you like.

That’s just a small example, but you can see how we have taken one cornerstone piece of content, this presentation, and turned it into 6 smaller pieces of content that will be shared across platforms.
You may be thinking: Awesome! I can do all of this myself! I really AM a rockstar!

But don’t forget about what your role is. Are you the content marketing strategist? Then you absolutely should NOT be loading up email content into Mailchimp, or writing tweets, or producing podcasts. That’s what your content team is for, as I mentioned in our earlier resources example. Just because you CAN doesn’t mean you SHOULD. And delegation is going to be a huge part of your efficient content process going forward.
While the ideas may come from here, there, and everywhere, and that strategies, platforms, and messaging may chance, you’re going to have to repeat the creation process over and over and over and over again. Make it the best that it can be.
Just because you CAN doesn’t mean you SHOULD. And delegation is going to be a huge part of your efficient content process going forward.
I’d like to take Ann Handley’s quote one step closer and say that content is not just everything the light touches, it’s likely everything YOU.

Think about it. Don’t forget it. Because what you do MATTERS.

So let’s recap:

Audience. Smart goals. Relative metrics.

You get it: Failure to plan = planning to fail.

The repeatable, efficient creation process is going to be what makes your content marketing a commitment, rather than a campaign.

Spend just as much time and resources promoting as you do on creating.

Incremental, consistent success trumps viral hits.
And remember… as a content rockstar, you CAN have fun. You CAN change the world. You just need to be intentional about how you do it.
You can use this process every time you create a piece of content so that you can take the guesswork out of what do to and when to do it, and focus on creating something awesome, every time. So that you can become the content rockstar I know you are!

I hope you’ll join me in my vow to stop creating accidental content and start creating intentional content.
You can use this process every time you create a piece of content so that you can take the guesswork out of what do to and when to do it, and focus on creating something awesome, every time. So that you can become the content rockstar I know you are!

I hope you’ll join me in my vow to stop creating accidental content and start creating intentional content.
Thank you!

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