By Tanya Hall CEO, Greenleaf Book Group @tanyahall
Though most entrepreneurs understand the value of a strong online presence, blogging and social media can be a pain to upkeep when you're also trying to run a business. Even when you set aside the time to focus on your online brand, it can be a struggle to come up with ideas, create content, and find the time to post that content once it's created.
The good news is that, if you have a book, you've already done the hard work and have a full year's worth of content at your fingertips. Here's how to divide and conquer your book to make it work for your online spaces.
Step 1 - Start With Blog Posts
Assume your book has 12 chapters. Consider each of those chapters a monthly theme. From each chapter, dissect the information into 4 key points. Turn each point into a blog post by recycling content from the book, changing or adding 10-20% to make it readable as a stand-alone piece of content, and including a fresh example or connection to a current event.
Step 2 - Draft Social Media Posts
After you've parsed your book into 52 blog posts, it's time to think about promoting each blog post to your community in order to drive them to your website to engage further with your brand. Draft one LinkedIn update, one Facebook update, and 3-5 tweets that pull out a fact, quote, or key point from each blog post. Plan to sprinkle those social shares in throughout the week.
Bonus: Are you encouraging people to sign up for your newsletter when they visit your website? Be sure to keep those subscribers engaged! You can easily create 12 monthly newsletters that highlight each month's theme and corresponding blog content. When it's time to send, just update with current news and upcoming events to make the content timely.
Step 3 - Schedule In Advance
Once you have you have your individual pieces of content, schedule all 52 blog posts, 52 LinkedIn updates, 52 Facebook Updates, 156-260 tweets, and 12 newsletters. This is the tedious part, but it's worth it to automate your content calendar. Platforms like Hootsuite can help you keep track.
Congratulations! In just a few days, you've created and scheduled a full year's worth of blog,
social media, and newsletter content. Now all you have to do throughout the year is engage, and that only takes 15 minutes a day. Respond to comments on your blog and social channels, share current events and news stories, and interact with others. Try to tie your daily engagement back to your monthly theme (which you pulled directly from your book, repurposed into 4 valuable blog posts, and further developed into a week's worth of social promotion) to maintain consistency and give your content purpose.
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