Social media consistency is honestly the bane of most business owners existences. It’s an incredible free marketing tool, but it often makes us feel like we are on this hamster wheel of content creation that takes us away from more important (and more enjoyable) tasks within our businesses. So what’s the key to staying consistent without feeling burnt out? That’s what we will be talking about today!

Social Media Platforms

First, let me define what I mean when I say social media. Social media is any platform where you are putting out something and hoping to get feedback from your audience. There are many platforms that fall under this category:

• Instagram
• Facebook
• TikTok
• Pinterest
• LinkedIn
• Twitter/X
• Threads
• YouTube
• SnapChat

Social media is an incredible, free marketing tool that absolutely should be utilized. But let me warn you: social media should not be your ONLY form of marketing, but often so many of us rely on it as such. Think about if Meta went down for a week (or forever)…if all of your marketing eggs are only in the social media basket…that would mean that the lifeblood of your business would be cut off. There are clear issues with this method of marketing, so please consider other avenues outside of social media as well (just food for thought).

Okay–back to consistency on socials! Marketing your business on all of those platforms listed above just sounds exhausting. Somewhere along the way, the piece of advice, “Pick one platform and do it really well” started to circulate. That is not bad advice! But I want to add a caveat to it:

Pick the platform where your ideal clients will most likely be…not just the easiest one to create for.

Think about your ideal client: How old are they? What are there interests? What type of content are the most likely to consume? Do they like passive consumption of content or do they want to interact with the content? Are you D2C or B2B? All of these things should be considered when you’re choosing your one social media platform to do and do well.

• Common advice: “Pick one platform and do it really well.”
  • Caveat – Pick the platform where your ideal clients will most likely be.
    • What does “do it really well” mean? Because algorithms, as we all know, are ever-changing…
      • So maybe “do it really well” actually means “just be consistent” — don’t post every day or multiple times a day for a two months then set it down and not post for another whole month

Consistency Strategies

So let’s explore some ways to be consistent on social media.

First, let’s talk about creating goals around having a routine with social media. Routine, by definition, is a sequence of actions regularly followed…which means it is CONSISTENT.

Some strategies to stay consistent are by creating a goal surrounding the amount of posts you’d like to make per week or per month. By doing this, it’s easier to feel like social media, which often feels like a nagging thing that never is fully done, can be checked off of your to do list.

Your routines don’t just have to be weekly or monthly though. I find that I am more motivated to sit down and plan social media if I know each post, for the most part, is part of a bigger strategy.

Champagne Campaign by Ashlyn Carter

One of the routine I like to keep is one that I learned from Ashlyn Carter of Ashlyn Writes. She coined this phrase called “champagne campaign.” I am vastly paraphrasing, so if you want the nitty gritty details, I encourage you to look up her YouTube channel where she drops weekly knowledge that is always packed full of golden nuggets. I will link to her blog about champagne campaigns in the show notes. But a champagne campaign is one hard sales period per quarter. So consider it like one “launch” every three months. This could be any type of launch, one for a new website, one for a new service offering OR an existing service offering, a new course, literally anything you want to sell.

But you take that heavy sales period and work back from there to prime your audience with content that is associated with that topic. How many weeks prior to that champagne campaign do you want to start priming your audience? I typically aim for 4-6. Each of those weeks, I am creating a “hero” piece of content, which is a highly valuable, very actionable piece of content. From that hero piece, I make 3-5 smaller pieces of content for social media.

Hero, Hub, & Hygiene Content

My hero content in the past has been housed on my blog; however, with the start of the podcast, I am anticipating my hero content being migrated to the podcast and then streaming down to my blog, and finally to socials.

So now, stepping back and looking at the quarter, I have a heavy sales period one week, plus six weeks worth of hero content, which gives me 6 podcast episodes, 6 blog posts, and anywhere from 18-30 pieces of social media content. That, already, feels like a huge weight off of my shoulders and I haven’t even begun planning the topics yet. But having the strategy in place is so helpful to guide the content creation part of the process, which is what we will dive into next.

Content creation is probably the bane of most entrepreneurs existence. Because most of the time, social media planning goes like this:

8am I’ve gotta post to social today…opens app…scrolls for 10 minutes…ugh, I don’t know what to post, I’ll do this later today when I have more time to think about it.

Lunch time…revisit social, have another scroll, feel like half the day’s gone already anyway, so you’ll catch the evening crowd and post then…

6pm…making dinner, still have a looming post hanging over your head and you’re like, well the day is pretty much over, so I’ll just post tomorrow…

Then the next day starts all over again, which ultimately leads to a month of no posting.

We don’t want that. This is exactly what we are trying to avoid. So even with the strategy and guidance that using the Champagne Campaign method provides, there are still times that you will need filler content. When you need filler content, that is when a concept like having “content buckets” comes in really handy!

Content Buckets

How I explain content buckets to my clients is imagine one of those mind maps you used to have to do in elementary school. One of those that like, you start with the big idea, and then you have subtopics surrounding that idea, kinda like a flow chart. That’s what I want your content buckets to look like.

First, let’s come up with 4-5 main topics that are relevant to your ideal client and your brand. From those 4-5 main topics, you will come up with 4-5 subtopics for each one. This will give you a framework to pull from when you sit down to actually plan the “hub” and the “hygiene” content for your brand. The hub content can be a series or common, recurring content that you put out. I’ll touch more on that in a second. Hygiene content is the “upkeep” content. It’s probably not going to capture the attention of a cold lead, but it’s going to nurture the warm leads to become actual clients.

This type of content is necessary whenever a champagne campaign is NOT occurring, because remember champagne campaigns last anywhere from 6-8 weeks and there are 12 weeks in a quarter. Our goal is obviously NOT to go silent those remaining 4-6 weeks in that quarter. 

Content buckets also help so that creating social media content doesn’t always feel so salesy all the time. Especially because for those of my clients who really want a personal brand, I always have a content bucket that represents their personal life, so they can sprinkle that content throughout.

Let’s touch back on the hub content, shall we? I mentioned that you can create a “series” of some type in your social media. I love this method of content creation because it makes it easier to plan and execute social media posts, but it also establishes a familiarity with your audience. What I mean by that is, if/when you find a series that resonates with your ideal client, your brand can then become known for that series. Let me give you an example…

If you are a wedding vendor, you could have a “series” of posts called “Wedding Tip Wednesdays,” where you post a tip about wedding planning every Wednesday. You could use this not only for social media marketing, but also as a means to network with other local vendors. Ask other vendors to give input for these posts, which will expose you to their audience as well.

One of my clients has a luxury hair bow company. One series she could do is come up with an LTK post that styles the bows with outfits that she also has affiliate codes for. If she made this a weekly series, it would serve as easy content creation for her, it would be helpful to her ideal client who’s trying to curate outfits around her accessories, and it allows for a secondary/more passive stream of income! Win, win, win.

Now that you have a series or two in mind that you’d like to execute, make a few cohesive, on-brand Canva graphics that you can use consistently. Some of the ways I use Canva graphics on my social media is when I showcase a client testimonial or when I do a series about elements of a brand. This helps not only keep the frequency with which you’re posting consistent, it also keeps your feed (in the case of Instagram) consistent as well.

Brand Voice & Messaging

At this point, we have the strategy and plan in place, right, but we still have to execute. One thing I highly encourage you to do is create a brand voice/messaging document. This brand voice/messaging document is going to have a list of repeated words, phrases, stories, and themes that you want to represent your brand.

This might seem really silly, but consistency truly is key when we are trying to convert those warm leads into paying clients. We want them to be familiar with you and trust you, especially if you’re selling a high-ticket offer or highly personal service.

An example in my own business is that one of the words I repeat over and over and over again is consistent/consistency. To me, it feels like one of those words I have said so many times that I can’t quite comprehend its meaning anymore. You need a few of those types of words in your business!

A story that I tell over and over again is my background in teaching, how like many of the entrepreneurs I work with, never went to school to be formally taught how to run a business. This is a common piece of my identity that I have with my clients that we can bond around, which makes them like, know, and trust me a little bit more.

So sit down, and come up with at least 2-3 words, 2-3 phrases, and 2-3 stories that you can tell and re-tell that your ideal client will identify with.

Batch Creating

From there, I then want you to determine a routine, because remember routines are inherently consistent, with which you will create all this content we have talked about. Batch creation will be your best friend so that it isn’t 6pm every evening and you’re standing over the stove stirring pasta sauce opening your phone thinking, “Damn, I haven’t posted to social today.” 

Instead, create a routine that works for you where you sit down and create a specific timeframe worth of content. I have tried so many different timeframes…1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month. After testing all of these, I have found that my sweet spot is two weeks. I can sit down and create two weeks worth of content without getting sidetracked or bored. Plus, although, we have so much planned out in terms of the champagne campaign and the content leading up to that, sometimes life happens and plans change. There is nothing more frustrating than having a month’s worth of content planned for all to be thrown out the window. All that to say, two weeks is my sweet spot and I encourage you to find yours.

Recap

First, find where your ideal client is hanging out on social. 

Next, brainstorm which four champagne campaigns (again, shout out to Ashlyn Carter for this concept) you want to execute this year.

Then create your content bucket flow chart. 

From those content buckets, determine a series that could work for your brand.

Then bring together your brand voice/messaging guide with all the repeated words, phrases, and stories of your brand.

Finally, create a sustainable routine in terms of batch creating content.

Just like with many things in business, the set up of this strategy takes a little bit of time and leg work, but when it is set up it honestly makes staying consistent so much easier. Also, if/when you are ready to hand off social media and/or digital marketing, it allows for a much more seamless transition from you to the person you are outsourcing it to.

As always, I hope this was helpful as you build your brand and your business.