6 TIPS FOR CREATING CONTENT CONSISTENTLY ON A BUDGET

Honestly I’ve gone from one post every week to one a month, maybe it’s the new year but I only want to share relevant content to my audience, it’s quality over quantity or maybe i’ve found the perfect excuse for my lazy ass lool! Okay lets get into today’s blog post:

One problem most brands, creatives and businesses face is consistently creating content that engages their audience on social media. I can tell you creating content can take up resources i.e: Money & time but the truth is being successful is possible no matter what your budget is. What I mean is you don’t need a high budget to create content. Probably wondering how? Here are a few tips i’ve learnt as a Content Developer & Social Media Manager for SMEs in/outside Nigeria.

Relevant Post: Build a content strategy to increase business sales for your brand with this E-book

6 TIPS FOR CREATING CONTENT CONSISTENTLY ON A BUDGET

1. Know who you are creating for
2. Create a Content Strategy for the month & year
3. Track the results of content created
4. Create a content budget for the year
5. Collaboration is key
6. Use your smartphone

Know who you’re creating for

The ultimate way to reduce miscellaneous spending on creating content is knowing your target audience, what they like, the type of content they’d respond to, their age range, what platform to focus on and create for. When you know your target audience you can also determine your competitors who are also engaging the same audience, go through their pages, see what content is working great for them, find a way to make it work better for your brand, tweak it and make it YOURS!

Also you have the ability to source for new ideas from your team members or hire a fresh mind to join the team.

Create a Content Strategy

You’ve figured out your audience now its time to do some research, write out the content ideas, types your brand would like to try out in the first quarter of the year. It advisable to give it some time to know if a type of content is working or not.

For example: As a Content Marketer for a brand you decided to introduce the use of GIFs in the brands content layout but in the first month the content isn't doing as well as you thought. 

It might either be because:

• The social media page might still be adjusting to the new content, try using new hashtags and working with the best times to post
• Give it more than a month and see where it goes

My point here is with planing out a content strategy you try something new, analyze the results and try something new again till you find what makes your brand standout. Sometimes it takes 3 months, a year or 3 years ti figure out what sticks but the key is to keep growing, trying and remain consistent in your messaging.

Track the results of content created

If you do not track it how do you know if it works? The secret to effectively tracking your content is setting a SMART goal, figuring out your KPI and Creating a Social Media/Content Report weekly or monthly.

Relevant Post: Get a free downloadable template for “social media analytical reporting” in the Content Marketing & Strategy E-book

Like I said earlier this would help you know what to tweak or do going forward or what new content ideas to adopt.

Create a Content Budget for the Year

This would help you know what main content and minor content your brand would be able to comfortably produce and release through out the year. You are able to tell what content would be created in-house and which you’d need to outsource to a creative agency. You are able to Plan ahead, stay consistent, research ways for alternative ways to create shareable content, and also when to repurpose content that was created earlier in the year or previous year.

The goal is for you to create a realistic budget and stick to it, this would help you brainstorm ways to cut down costs like collaborating with relevant Influencers that fit your brands target market offer he/she a percentage of sales; this way you cut down on ‘model fee’ and a bit of ‘marketing fee’.

Collaboration is Key

Most times brands think the only way to go grow and standout is solo but why not collaborate with other brands who share your values?

For example: Hair brand "Trayciees Pieces" collaborated with Lingerie brand "Sshhh Lingerie" for their Valentine’s Day Collection featuring their muse Influencer @dabotalawson. 

This is good example of a B2B (brand to brand) collaboration, why collaborate?

• You get to share the cost with the other brand i.e cost of creating the content for promotion
• Create more awareness for your brand through the other brand’s audience
• Get to build a new relationship
• Get to reach more potential customers who fall in your target audience

Use Your Smartphone

Chances are, you already have the best device needed to create content “your smartphone” Current-generation smartphones have high-quality cameras that will meet all your picture, video needs. The only thing limiting you is yourself. You can literally download different apps to help you create content, all you need is the willingness to learn how to use the apps needed. If you can’t then hire a savvy iPhone content creator who can create videos, take flat lays, create short form videos, product pictures etc and pay for the services which would never be as high as paying for a high-end production of content.

To make it easy if your store isn’t aesthetically pleasing, create a spot for pictures, buy props etc. This would save you the cost of constantly hiring a professional photographer or videographer to create every content.

So one question, Do you think you can ‘Create Content Consistently on a Budget”?

https://videopress.com/v/7Jd0rOEF?preloadContent=metadata

Relevant Post: Content Marketing and Strategy E-book for Brands

Did you learn something new from this post? Would you be trying any of these tips above? Do let me know by leaving a comment below

|Thanks for reading|

Till next time