The Content Brew: What to Post as a Small Business Owner

Every small business owner I know has hit the blank posting box and closed the app without hitting publish. 

This episode walks through a simple way to know exactly what to post, pulled straight from conversations you're already having with your customers. 

No blank screen required. 

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The Content Brew Episode 1: What to post as a small business owner

You open the app, and that cursor is just sitting there in that little box blinking at you. You told yourself this morning, today's the day that you were gonna post something, and now it's four forty-seven in the afternoon, and you've typed and deleted the same sentence four times. Dramatic? I don't think so.

That's Tuesday. That is basically every Tuesday. And what I want you to hear before we go any further is that you are not out of ideas. You are just out of time to go dig for them because you are very busy running the small business that the ideas are about. Those are two completely different issues, and only one of them needs a whole new thought process.

So why does this seriously matter beyond just feeling behind? Look, every day that you don't post isn't just a missed post. It's a day that somebody scrolled right past you and landed on the business that did show up. And it's absolutely not because they're better than you, but because they were just there consistently, annoyingly, reliably there.

And it's also not because you don't care. If anything, it's the opposite. You care enough that nothing feels good enough to post, so nothing gets posted at all. And perfect and blank end up looking identical from the outside By the time this episode is over, you'll have a very simple way to know exactly what to post every single time without the staring contest that you have with your phone, and also without needing a single new idea that you don't already have.

This is Gina Koran from GinAdmin, and this is The Content Brew. It's for small business owners who need help with content, but just do not have a spare hour lying around to figure it out. And today, we're answering the question that I hear more than almost any other, which is, what in the name of the coffee gods am I even supposed to post about?

And we're gonna talk about five different ways to find something worth posting, so that by the end you'll have more material than you actually know what to do with. So let's get into it. But before we do, let's talk about why the advice of "Just be authentic" and "Just post more" never really helps. Those aren't instructions, they're vibes.

Nobody has ever sat down feeling more capable because somebody told them to be more authentic. What actually helps is something concrete enough to do today. So here's five of them, and five because there's actually a source of ideas sitting right in your inbox right now that almost nobody thinks to use, and we're gonna talk about that So your content already exists, it's just not written down anywhere yet.

The Meaty Middle

Point 1: The content already exists. It's just not written down anywhere yet. And look, I'll go first. I have a note on my phone that's called Post Ideas that is, no joke, 11 months old with about 40 half thoughts in it. Things like the calendar thing and talk about the DM lady. And I seriously have no idea what half of those mean anymore, but I do know that every single one of them started as a real conversation, a real moment, something that actually happened, and that's the trick.

I want you to think about the last conversation that you had with a customer or a client. Somewhere in there was a question, a decision, or a moment where you explained something that you don't have to think twice about anymore, but that they maybe had never heard before in their business life, and that's content.

It's not something that you have to invent out of thin air. Something that already happened this week. It's sitting right there in the open, and it's just waiting for you So think about the last time a customer or client asked you why you do something a certain way. You probably answered without even thinking about it, and that answer came out so easily because you've explained it a hundred times before.

And that answer, the one that just came out of you without effort, is a better post than anything that you would sit down and try to invent from scratch. You already know it, you just haven't written it down. And none of this is a marketing idea. It's just Tuesday, and that's exactly why it works. People do not tend to trust a small business that only ever sounds like it's selling.

People trust the version of you that shows up mid-conversation explaining something you know and quite honestly could talk about in your sleep. You don't have to be clever. You just need to pay attention to these conversations. 

Point 2: Use the one question rule. So think about the question that you answer more than any other question.

It's the one that shows up in your email, in your DMs, standing at your counter, on every single discovery call. Whatever that question is, that's your next piece of content, and not because it's some genius new idea, but because if that one person said it out loud or emailed you or sent you a DM, then I promise you that probably ten more people are wondering the exact same thing, and they just never worked up the nerve to ask And you've probably answered your version of that question so many times that you could recite it half asleep, and that's exactly why it works as a post.

It's not new to you. It's brand new to everyone scrolling past who's never asked you or anyone else directly, and you could answer that same question a dozen different ways over the next year based on the person who's asking you the question's situation, and it will never feel old to the person hearing it for the first time.

It only feels repetitive to you because you're the one who's heard it, and you're the one who's answered the question 100 times. And if you're sitting there right now and a question already popped into your head before I even finished that sentence, then that's the one. Write it down before you forget it, and then go back and add it to that running note that we were talking about 

Point 3: Give yourself three buckets, so you stop starting from a blank page like it owes you an apology. Now I want you to give yourself three buckets so that you can stop starting from a blank page every single week.

So the first bucket is going to be something that you know, a tip, a mistake to skip, a step in how you do things. That's bucket one. Bucket two is something that's happening right now, a behind the scenes in your business, a project that's midway through, or maybe your small business is going in a different direction and starting a new season.

Something that's happening. That's the second bucket. And then bucket three is something that someone asked you straight out of the one question rule that we just talked about. So what does that look like on a random Tuesday? Bucket one might be the one setting on your equipment that nobody adjusts and should.

Bucket two might just be a photo of the mess that your workspace is in right now because behind the scenes content doesn't have to be polished, just has to be true. And bucket three is whatever somebody asked you this week that you answered without having to think about it. And when you sit down to write content, you stop asking yourself the impossible question of, what do I even say?

And instead you ask, which bucket am I pulling from today? That's it. That one small change can take most of that pressure off of creating your content 

Point 4: Write it down the second it happens. Not later, not tonight, not "when I get a minute." Now, we all know that ideas tend to show up at the worst, most inconvenient times: when you're driving in your car, when you're in the middle of a conversation with someone, or right after you solve a problem for someone and you think, "Huh, that was actually a really good tip."

And that idea feels completely obvious in the moment, but if you wait, it's very likely going to be gone by the time you sit down to create your content. So that's why I recommend keeping a running note in your phone. It doesn't have to make sense to anyone but you. It just has to exist so that you're not starting from absolutely nothing again and again and again.

And I am totally not exaggerating about the 11-month-old note in my phone. Half of what turns into an actual post for me started as three words typed at a red light. You don't need an elaborate system for this. You just need a place to dump it, and then you need a habit of actually opening that place once a week when you sit down to work through your buckets.

Because the idea that you have right now, mid-conversation, mid-drive, mid-whatever, feels obvious enough that you're sure that you'll remember it, but you probably won't, and it isn't because your memory is bad Although if you're me, your memory is probably bad. But because you'll have four more ideas just as obvious by the time you finish that conversation or by the time you get to where you're driving, and they're gonna crowd this one out

Point 5: Your reviews and testimonials are already written for you. So next I want you to go look at your last 10 reviews or the last few thank you texts that a client sent you because people tell you exactly what mattered to them, usually in their own words, completely unprompted. Proof that your business works? Yep. But it's also a map of what you can talk about next.

If you have three different reviews that all mention how fast you respond, then that's content about how you handle communication. If a client's thank you note mentions a specific detail you completely forgot that you even did for them, then that's content about the thing you do that you don't have to think about because it's just normal and everyday to you.

Someone had to tell you that it mattered, and that's the whole point. The things that feel too ordinary to post are usually exactly what people are trying to describe when they say thank you, when they send you those messages. And you don't have to screenshot the review and call it a day, although you can do that.

But you can turn the theme of it into its own post, in your own words of course, and let the review be the reason that you knew to talk about it in the first place. But either way, this is the one source of ideas that's already been proofread by somebody who isn't you, which is more than I can say for anything sitting in that 11-month-old note

Then I do want to stress to you that repeating yourself works better than you think. Say the same thing twice, say it five times. Most people didn't see it the first time, and the algorithm barely showed it to anyone that first time either. And repeating yourself does not mean that you've run out of things to say.

It means you're finally getting your message in front of the people who actually need to hear it or read it. I mean, think about how many times you'd have to hear a jingle before you could recite it back. Almost nobody who can repeat it heard it just once, and your small business isn't any different.

Whatever that first answer was from point one, that's not a one-and-done post. You could turn it into a quick video this month, a written post next month, and a behind-the-scenes photo the month after that, and it would still be brand-new information to someone who's never seen it. 

Now, there are a few ways that this could go wrong One of those is waiting for a big idea instead of using a small true one.

And a small true answer to a real question outperforms a great big polished idea almost every single time because people are going to trust specific and true over impressive. Also, comparing your list to somebody else's highlight reel. Someone else's 20 idea content calendar does not mean that you're behind.

It probably means that they've been doing it longer, or they have a lot of help, or half of it is recycled from six months ago, and you can't tell from the outside because it's the first time that you've seen it And then waiting until you feel inspired. Now, I'm gonna tell you, inspiration is not a good content plan.

That bucket system exists specifically so that you don't need to feel anything in particular to know what to post today. Oh, and one more. Treating every idea like it has to be a finished thought before it counts. It does not. Half of what's in my 11-month-old note is a fragment. It's not even a full sentence, and the fragment is typically enough to remind me of the whole thing later.

And then you're not writing the post when you jot it down. You're just leaving yourself a trail. So how does this actually fit into a normal week? Look, you're not blocking an hour to sit and brainstorm. You're just keeping the note open, adding to it when something happens, and then once a week, sorting what's, whatever's piled up in your three buckets, and then picking one to post.

And some weeks it'll take you 10 minutes, some weeks it'll take you 40 minutes. But it shouldn't take the 45 minutes of staring at a blank screen that you're used to because you're not creating from nothing anymore. You're sorting through all those ideas that you have

So I want you to know that I am not making any of this up because it sounds nice. That 11-month-old note is still sitting open on my phone right now. I use every one of these ideas myself, and the one-question rule is the reason half of what I post exists at all. And if it works for me while I'm running my own small business, I think that it might work for you running yours.

So none of these five require you to be more creative, more disciplined, more online. They just require a system, and systems are actually the kind of thing that are hard sometimes to build for yourself while you're also the one who has to use it every single day. So if you've tried all five of these and you're still sitting there frozen, staring at a blank screen, it's definitely not about the ideas anymore.

You're already running the actual business, and digging through it for content on top of everything else is a lot to carry by yourself, and some weeks there just isn't a spare hour to sit down, open the note, and sort it into buckets, even when you know exactly how the system works. And that is the exact thing that we can map out together in a coffee chat.

It's 15 minutes, zero pressure, just an actual conversation about where your content is already hiding in your business, what you're already doing that's working, what maybe is falling through the cracks, and whether having someone help you find it and even make sense for where your business is at right now.

So the next time you open that app, remember, you're not out of ideas, you're just out of time to dig for them, and now you know exactly where to look instead. So a quick recap. Pay attention to conversations you're already having. Find the one question you answer more than any other. Sort everything into your three buckets: something you know, something happening, something someone asked you.

And write it down the second that it happens because you won't remember it as well as you think you will. And finally, go read your own reviews because your customers are telling you what mattered. And possibly most important of all, say all of it more than once, because repeating yourself is not the same as running out of things to say Go pour yourself another cup because I'm pretty sure that that first one probably went cold while you were listening to me, and hang on to the three buckets thing.

It's going to save you more Tuesdays than you can possibly imagine. 

Now go grab your coffee...You've got this.