Ruthie Sterrett (00:02.698)
Welcome back to another episode of the consistency corner. I'm Ruthie, founder, marketing strategist at the consistency corner where we talk about and our goal is to help you reduce the mental load of marketing so that your growth doesn't require more hustle, more noise or more energy because you already have a lot on your plate. And this month we've been going behind the scenes in first a little bit around my own signature.
or signature process and an offer and a launch. If you go back to the beginning of the month and listen to those episodes. But then we've been talking last week and this week a little bit more about behind the scenes of how we help clients plan content. And so today we are gonna be talking about how much content is actually enough and if we are asking social media in particular to do too much. So before we start planning content,
We got this whole process that we go through to choose our channels. So go back and listen to last week's episode if you haven't yet, because you want to make sure to understand that foundation. But today we're going to dive into that content calendar. So here's the reality. Social media feels really loud. It feels really overwhelming. We open our phones. There is like seven billion messages. There is
walls of text in LinkedIn posts there because that's the whole other thing and we'll get into that actually in a couple weeks we're gonna talk about LinkedIn. But there's like all this long form content, there's all these videos, there's people talking to you, there's captions to read, carousels that are 20 slides, like there's just so much content. So you feel behind and you feel like well I have to have more, I have to do more, I have to do more, I have to do more. Maybe you do.
I'm gonna be honest, there are some people who they do need to do more content because they're not doing enough, but sometimes you don't. You just need to give your content a clear job description. So you're not going to just decide your content volume based upon what your competitors are posting, what the latest Instagram guru says you should be doing, or what feels impressive. Some of the things we are gonna base our volume decisions are,
Ruthie Sterrett (02:19.402)
Industry baselines. What is normal in your industry? I'm not meaning one particular competitor, but what's kind of the average? Your business goals. If you have a really big business goals in terms of growth, one post a week is probably not going to cut it. So you might need more. So let's determine that. Are we in a coasting season? Are we in a stay steady season or are we in a growth season? We're looking at
What stage of the funnel are you using this channel for? So if social media in particular, you're asking it to do top of funnel, middle of funnel and bottom of funnel jobs, you need more than one post a week because you're asking it to do three different things. You're also going to look at the differences in platforms and the actual algorithms and what's working and what's trending. And I know I said you don't have to listen to the gurus.
But you do want to make sure you're understanding what's typical for that platform. I'm going to give you an example about TikTok. I had a potential client that I was talking to about taking on TikTok content creation for them. And they said, I want to do nine posts a month. I don't really know how they landed on that number. Whatever. That's number they came to me and said. And I said, nope, not if you're doing TikTok, because TikTok is the volume game. So you have to be posting a lot more.
And if you're just coming to us and asking for a certain number of posts and like move on, we're not probably not the agency for you because we're going to dig into the strategy first. We're not just going to sell you a package of posts. So that I didn't move forward with that client, but I thought that was an interesting example of like understanding the platform differences and what standard in the platform in order to help it actually do its job and what you want it to do.
We also have to make decisions based upon our capacity and our reality to create content. If we only have so much bandwidth, whether it's our own team, you personally, a contractor that you're paying, so you've only got so much budget, we can't be pumping out content everywhere all the time. We have to probably pick a primary and then find that balance between intensity that is gonna be enough to move the needle and the capacity
Ruthie Sterrett (04:44.588)
the consistency that we can maintain. So once we've thought through those things, we can commit to a volume that we can consistently produce and publish, and then it's time to map it all out. So when I do a content calendar for a client, we've already committed to a volume of content. We know how much we're gonna do, and I'm gonna take you through this process as if we're just doing one channel.
So I'm gonna give, I mean, you use Instagram as your example here, but we can apply this to LinkedIn, we can apply it to TikTok, Facebook, threads, we can apply it to email, we can apply it to blogs, but we're gonna do it just based on Instagram for simplicity's sake. So we're gonna walk through these seven layers that I use to make decisions to create our content calendar, right? So layer number one is what are our content pillars? And listen, there's,
a thousand ways you could define content pillars. want Google content pillars and you're going to be overwhelmed with information. But my definition of content pillars is like what are the big buckets of things that we are talking about? And this is really important. Those buckets should be pulling together your brand identity, what your audience needs,
and your business goals. So how many content pillars should you have? It could be three, it could be four, it could be five, it could be two, it could be eight. It depends on your brand. It depends on, again, your audience needs, your business goals. But it's like a bucket that topics, themes, ideas can fit into. So it's pretty broad. And the reason that I define content pillars is because sometimes it is important to say, like, what do we not talk about?
I really like to talk, so I could talk about anything. But I'm not going to get on social media and talk about everything. I'm not going to create content about everything because that doesn't make sense for my business goals and my audience needs and my brand identity. So having those pillars helps us kind of stay in that lane. Layer number two, this is where we talk about the funnel framework. So we've determined our volume of posts, right? Let's say it's 20 for the month.
Ruthie Sterrett (07:05.888)
What percentage of those posts are we asking to do a top of funnel job? Meaning get more eyes on our content, maximize impressions. What percentage of those posts are we asking to do a middle of funnel job? Entertain, educate, create authority, provide value.
Side note, middle of funnel can often also do a top of funnel job or a bottom of funnel job. You typically can't do all three with one piece of content, but that's just something to kind of keep in the back of your mind. And then what percentage of the content are we asking to do bottom of funnel? Meaning are we asking for a sale? We're asking you to click something, we're asking you to buy something, we're asking you to sign up for something.
It might be an email opt-in, not just a sale, but that would still be what I would consider a conversion piece of content because we're asking you to do something. So what percentage of our total content are we asking to do each of those layers of the funnel? And it's going to be different at different times of the year based upon different business goals and where you are. So that's why we mapped out in that last episode, we talked about your campaign calendar and looking at an entire 12 months.
Because yes, typically you want to be doing all three of those things in any given month, but you're not gonna do them all equally in any given month. So layer number three is our messaging framework. And this is something that I choose for a client because it helps us be strategic and systematic in our content creation and it actually really helps with batching. So there's three different messaging frameworks that I kind of choose from and these are built by different
creators and educators that I follow and it can get confusing when you follow multiple people who teach multiple things because you try to start like combining their methods and usually that doesn't work and you get overly confused. So because there are multiple frameworks that I have learned and like and appreciate and think can work, but I don't think they work for everybody. We choose one.
Ruthie Sterrett (09:15.776)
So as an example, one of those messaging frameworks that we might choose is like the four E's. So educate, entertain, empathize, and now I can't off the top of my head think of the fourth E. So I'm literally over here pulling up my notes because I don't memorize all this stuff. I have it written down. I have a SOP that tells me all of this stuff. What is our?
fourth E.
Ruthie Sterrett (10:00.322)
Okay, so the 4E framework, this is one example of a messaging framework and that is educational, entertaining, engaging, or empathetic. So I'm gonna make sure that as I plan out your content, we are rotating between those things. We're balancing your content between those things because a lot of us, like we're trying to be like Goldilocks and get it just right, but we tend to like overdo it in one space.
area or the other. so mapping it out and having it on our content calendar helps us kind of keep it really balanced and make sure that we're hitting those different buckets. So along with the messaging framework, another filter that we look at or layer that I look at is buyer types. And this is where we are creating content that speaks to different types of buyers. And the reason this is important is you often tend to as a creator,
create content for people who buy and make decisions and think like you. But there are different people who think differently. And so we want to make sure we're creating content that serves those different types of decision makers. So the four buyer types are humanistic. They love connection content, empathy, storytelling, behind the scenes, vulnerability. While a competitive buyer type, that doesn't really vibe with them. They want proof, data.
case studies, testimonials, metrics. And then we have methodical buyers who really want to understand the details. They want to know the how, the frameworks, the step-by-steps, the deep dives. They are looking for education and process breakdowns. And then we have spontaneous buyers who want entertainment and quick hits and fun and dopamine. And they love a good reel with trending audio or a meme or some related humor.
And I'm not saying you have to create content for all four buyer types, but it is important to understand that there are different types and different types of content connects and speaks to them. And typically, like I said, most people lean way too heavy into whatever one they are. So it's helpful to look at this and make sure that we're planning or mapping out our content calendar to speak to more than one. And then layer five is our format.
Ruthie Sterrett (12:23.414)
mix. So in the example of Instagram, format is like how many reels, how many carousels, like what percentage, because maybe we are in an expansion season and we know we want to reach as many eyes as possible, so we're going to lean into heavier reels. We're going to do, you know, 75 % reels versus 25 % carousels or static posts. And these percentages or these decisions that we make in terms of the format mix
This is going to be based on your historical performance, what's working in your industry, what types of content you like to create or your team is good at creating. But it just gives us a baseline so that when we go to plan, we kind of have a recipe to fill into. then layer number six is our visual mix. And this is very specific to Instagram. But when you look at the grid, do you want to see very image heavy or do you like
text heavy? Do we want a balance of both? If we are going image heavy, what types of images are we looking for? Are we looking for professional brand branded photos? Are we looking for aesthetic lifestyle photos? Are we looking for casual behind the scenes, real life, real moments photos? Like what's the visual vibe that we want our grid to deliver? And then
If it's text heavy, are we using big bold font? Are we using more subtle soft font? Is it text heavy as in like it's lots of words and you've got to really zone in and you're not even seeing the text if you're looking at the grid view. Again, these answers are gonna be different for every single brand and every single business, but it's important to think through them so that as we create content,
We're staying on brand. We're aligning with those goals and we're being consistent. And then finally, the seventh layer is repurposing and reposting. And we're actually gonna do a whole episode on that here in a couple of weeks. So come back because like I said, that's a whole other episode and I'm not gonna keep you here because I know you guys have stuff to do. You're busy, right? But those are our seven layers that we kind of map out and think through when we create a content calendar.
Ruthie Sterrett (14:47.242)
Once we know all of those things and we have some guidelines and again, like a recipe, we can fill in things like ideas and hooks and trends, but we're being really strategic about it. We're not just throwing spaghetti at the wall. And sometimes when we map out those different layers, we realize that the volume that we have committed to is not enough to hit our goals.
Or sometimes we realize like we are trying to do way more than we actually have the capacity to do. And so we've got to figure out how to pull back. And as we get into our repurposing and reposting conversation that will answer some of those questions. But I'm going to leave you with this. On April 16th, we're hosting our next marketing strategy lab where we will be discussing all of this in much more detail and really helping you prioritize what platforms
you should be showing up on because it is easy to say I should be everywhere. And it's even easier to commit to being everywhere and then falling off the wagon because you have way too much on your plate and it's not possible for you to be everywhere. Even with a team, even with support. I've told this story before on the podcast, but when I was a marketing director for an eight figure brand, which is now since become a nine figure brand,
We were not on TikTok. And this was like early 2020s when TikTok was newer. And it was like, you gotta be on TikTok. You gotta be on TikTok. You gotta be on TikTok. And we had a small team. I think at the time I had a team of three. And I was like, we don't have the bandwidth to be on TikTok consistently. We don't. We need to get consistent and good at Instagram, which is our primary channel. And then we can layer in.
another platform, which the another platform wasn't even TikTok. It was Pinterest and it was LinkedIn and this was an e-commerce brand. So we looked at different things and had different business goals and that's a whole nother masterclass or case study. But my point is I knew that even with a full time team of marketers, we did not have the bandwidth to be consistent being everywhere. And so we had to choose and we had to make sure that we were asking the platforms.
Ruthie Sterrett (17:07.65)
and the pieces of content to do their job, but by first defining what their jobs were in helping us achieve our business goals. So thank you for listening. Come back next week. We're gonna talk a little bit more about platform selection. We're actually gonna dig into LinkedIn next week and talk about personal profile versus business page. And join us in the Strategy Lab on April 16th. The link is in the show notes to sign up.
If you're listening to this after April 16th, there will be a replay and you can get the replay and it's a workshop to help you again, walk through some of these questions with some guidance and determine your primary platform and what makes sense for your business, your audience and your goals. So thanks so much for being here, my friend. I am always cheering you on. I'm in your corner and I can't wait to see what content you create next.
