Tired of feeling like your social media efforts are a waste of time?
Don’t give up just yet. In this post, I'll show you how to craft a social media content strategy for your service-based business that generates leads, not just likes.
You need to know your content pillars, how to come up with topics, which topics to focus and when, what tools to use, how to go about creating your content and one other crucial element I’ll reveal towards the end of this video.
If you do this right, you’ll…
- Create content that directly speaks to your ideal clients and their needs
- Start establishing your credibility and personal brand
- And attract scores of leads
It’s what this personal trainer used to attract 19 sales-ready leads in one month after contacting me.
Once you know what your audience wants, you’ll be able to create content they'll actually love.
So if you're ready to start creating content that gets results, then keep reading.
Listen, Content Pillars Give You An Unfair Advantage on Social Media
But first, what exactly are Content Pillars?
Well, imagine that you’re running a restaurant. You wouldn't just start cooking food without first having a menu, right?
You need to decide what foods you want to serve based on the type of restaurant you have.
Content pillars are just like your menu. They help you decide what topics to focus on
And just like you would have an appetizer, main course, dessert and drinks menu, you’d have 3-5 themes you want to stick to in your content
For example, if you're a Personal Trainer, your content pillars may be:
- Fitness workouts
- Diet & nutrition
- Fitness apparel
Now, why do Content Pillars even matter?
- For one, it makes it super easy to come up with content ideas when you know what your boundaries are
- Your content topics don't feel random anymore because they fit into predefined themes
- And if your topics aren’t random, it’s easier for your audience to get what you’re about
But here’s where people go wrong with content pillars: They choose pillars that have no business value.
Their content pillars don’t align with the distinct ways they provide value to their clients.
And so they end up attracting the wrong leads or worse, no leads at all!
Now you may be wondering...
How do I choose my content pillars?
Let me use myself as an example…
For Professional Service-based business owners tired of posting on social media with no real results I make it easy for them to create a Content Marketing Strategy that attracts leads and clients more predictably.
Here are ways in which I provide value:
- I research the ideal audience
- I come up with their marketing messages
- I build their funnel for converting strangers into leads
- I create a content creation and distribution plan
- And I show them how to track their performance
Therefore my content pillars are:
- Audience Targeting
- Funnel Building
- Marketing Messaging
- Content Planning, Creation and Promotion
- Analytics
Your turn now. List the top 3-5 ways in which you deliver value to your clients. Summarize them into themes. And these will be your content pillars.
Choose Your Content Topics
"I often hear business owners say, "I put so much effort into my posts, but it feels like no one cares."
You're so excited about an idea, you think it'll blow people away. You whip up a post, hit publish, and..
Nothing much except for a couple likes, one from your cousin, the other’s yours.
I remember a time I’d just finished a group marketing challenge and I had so many revelations.
I thought to myself, “This is gold! if I share this on instagram, I would impress a lot of people.”
So I made a carousel about it but it flopped.
And It was all my fault.
The problem? I wasn’t focused on my audience at all.
I bet you make the same mistake. You post about topics that matter to you, not you audience…Content that's vague, too technical, or disconnected won't attract the right leads.
To find topics that hit the mark, try these strategies:
- Clients Interviews-Ask your best clients about their fears, frustrations, needs, and motivations before they came to you. Record their exact words, don't paraphrase. Each response is a topic you should post on.
- Competitor Research- Check out popular YouTube videos in your niche and read through the comments. This will help you identify the questions and concerns people are raising.
- Market Research- Use a tool like AnswerSocrates.com or QuestionDB to find questions people are asking about your area of expertise.
If you want to know what else goes into a content strategy, hit the link in my description to sign up for your free copy of my content strategy checklist.
Set Marketing Goals
This is what I wish I knew when I started creating content...
I thought that the more educational my posts were, the more people would be interested in hiring me. So, I focused on posting tips and how-to's.
Eventually, I realized that this strategy wasn't working. I was attracting a lot of people who were just looking for free information, but not seriously considering hiring me.
That's when I discovered the concept of seasons. There are different stages in your social media marketing journey, and each stage requires a different type of content focus.
Here's how I recommend you go about it:
Divide a 7- week period into 3 distinct periods where you’ll focus either on growing an engaged audience, or generating qualified leads
For each period, focus on one marketing goal:
- Audience Growth: How many people do you want to engage?
- Email Subscribers: How many email subscribers do you want to get from social media?
- Qualified Leads: How many sales-ready leads do you want?
Once you have your marketing goals set, focus more on content that is specifically designed to achieve those goals.
This will help you generate more leads..
Create a Content Publishing Calendar
Your content calendar documents exactly what you’ll post, when and saves you from last-minute creation.
And in case you’re wondering, this is how you create a FREE Content Calendar in Google.
I've seen a lot of social media content calendars out there, but if you're a solopreneur, you might find that creating a simple and free publishing calendar in Google works just fine.
Check out this video on how to do it:
Gather Your Tools
Imagine you're an artist, ready to paint your social media masterpiece. But instead of a vast palette with an array of colors and brushes, you're stuck with just one brush and one color.
That's essentially what it's like trying to create engaging social media content without a content creation toolkit.
With a toolkit in hand, you’ll save yourself from one-dimensional content and you can experiment with different formats to cater to the varied preferences of your potential leads.
Here are my 5 Must-Have Content Creation Tools:
- Canva: Create literally anything, from graphics to super cool 3D visuals. Organize designs in folders, utilize their wide collection of graphics, stock footage, and audio, and quickly apply brand colors and fonts to ensure consistency.
- Google Bard: Edit scripts for videos and carousels so they’re clear and concise. Choose from 3 response options so you can remix the final script to your liking.
- Microphone: Bad audio can make or break your video. Invest in a good microphone to enhance the quality of your content. I use…
- Capcut: Automatically add captions to keep viewers engaged, add multiple angles to create interest, and use effects like zoom-ins to reset attention and encourage people to watch your video to the end.
- My Exclusive Content Script Collection: This is a collection of 40 tried-and-true content scripts that’s only available to my 1:1 clients and me. We use it to create engagement-building posts, lead-generating posts, and selling posts. Because it consists of prompts and examples, it makes writing content fast and easy.
Establish your Strategy for Content Creation
Here’s the real reason why people get content creation burnout...
You're one person trying to manage it all!
There are so many "gurus" out there telling you to post every day. “Practice makes perfect,” they say.
But that's not always realistic. And even if you could do it, without a guide, you’d just end up practicing the wrong things which leads to no leads, demotivation, and ultimately, burnout.
So here's the real reason you stop posting: you don't have a strategy for content creation.
The best content creation strategy is a repurposing strategy.
This means taking one seed topic and creating multiple pieces of content from it.
For example, if you want to talk about productivity, you could create a:
- Mistake post: "Productivity mistakes to avoid"
- How-to post: "How to be more productive in 15 minutes or less."
- Story post: "How I boosted my productivity by 20% in 30 days."
It also means repurposing the content itself. One video can become a carousel, quote post, infographic, meme, or Q&A post.
Promote Your Content
Here's my secret to generating leads fast: Paid ads.
Before you dismiss this, hear me out.
I used to think that paid ads were out of reach, but after 9 years of running Facebook then Meta ads, I've learned how to get leads quickly without breaking the bank.
Here's the secret:
Turn your most engaging social media posts into paid ads and re-target those who interacted with an enticing introductory offer specifically designed to identify your most promising sales-ready leads.
But here's the thing. if your social media content strategy isn't backed by a good marketing strategy, then paid ads won't be as effective.
That's why I'm invite you to check out my Content Co-Pilot Plus Program. Here's where I work one-on-one with you over 7 weeks to build a content marketing strategy that attracts leads and clients more predictably.
Conclusion
Congratulations! You made it to the end (or you scrolled all the way down here first :)).
Either way, here are the key takeaways from this post:
- Learn how to find your content pillars
- Discover how to choose topics that resonate with your ideal clients
- Find out the importance of setting marketing goals
- See how to create a free content creation calendar in 2 minutes
- Discover my 5 must-have tools for content creation
- Learn the simple strategy to create more content fast
- Learn the secret to getting better qualified leads faster
I’m a content marketing specialist and owner of C.D BLACKMAN SOCIAL REBELLION MARKETING, where I make it easy for professional service-based business owners to create content marketing strategies that attract leads and clients more predictably.