I had to change my content creation strategy because I pretty much didn’t have one + my new strategy

I work full time as a nurse, I have a special needs son, I’m a wife, and I raise a small flock (of chickens and ducks). Oh — and I’m trying to start my own business. Sometimes when I say it out loud, I have to laugh at myself. Most days, I wake up early (530 ish), clean the house, drop my son off at school, work a few hours, pick him up from pre-k (he has half days), work until the end of the day (430p), throw my son in the car and cart him to various therapy and/or doctor appointments, try to take a walk with my husband, eat dinner, and that brings me to about 7pm.

And I’m exhausted.

Let’s be honest, there are usually a couple of mental breakdowns somewhere between all of those activities.

When is there time to work on my business? I don’t know — LOL. Some days, my brain physically hurts from the ideas that I cannot implement — because I truly feel I have a purpose and I am super creative. I just don’t have the time.

When I do have the time, I feel SO disorganized and scattered that I just get overwhelmed and accomplish NOTHING. I feel like there is SO much more to fill in about my story, and my day, but the point of this post is to share my strategy for creating content.

Just having a content creation plan in place helps to decrease that creative brain pain.

I will admit, this is a version of Dan Koe’s strategy that I modified to work for me. Well, I HOPE it works for me. I just started it today. I find that so many people start a new process or implement something and only share it when it is successful. I thought it would be beneficial to share as I go, so I can work through the adjustments with you, my audience!

With a busy schedule, you MUST have a content creation strategy, or at least that’s what the gurus say. I’ve tried paper calendars, brain dumping lists, digital calendars, digital lists, project planning programs, etc, etc, etc. It goes on and on and on.

I’m deeply invested in Dan Koe’s content at the moment. A few weeks ago it was the Hermozis and before them was Gary V. Listen, they are all great — but right now it’s Dan. Maybe it’s the name (LOL).

Dan Koe suggests tweeting a topic, writing a blog post about it, and then creating additional content from there. Gary V also uses a similar method. Think about your Twitter account as a brain-dumping list. The great thing about this brain-dumping list is that you can obtain data and gauge interest in a specific topic.

Let’s use a real topic I will be creating content around to outline the entire plan. I want you to be able to copy and paste it, so here it is:

1. Twitter: Create a tweet about your topic. Example: “I quit my Master’s degree and you can too”.

2. Use Medium.com, your own website, or other blogging sites: Write a blog about your topic. This ultimately will function as the script for your YouTube video and you can pull pieces for the copy of your short-form content.

3. Use Youtube for long-form content and create a video discussing your topic. If applicable, invite a guest to discuss your topic. Your long form doesn’t have to be 60 minutes long. It just means it’s longer than what can fit on Tiktok or Reels. Shoot for 5 minutes+. This step can also be repurposed as a podcast. There are programs that pull the audio from any video to create a podcast, then you can distribute it to multiple podcast platforms with one click!

4. Use IG reels, FB reels, and TikTok to create your short-form content. Pull short-form content from the long-form content.

5. Create a visual post about your topic using a program like canva. Your visual post should be a little longer than your original Tweet. Example: “I quit my Master’s and you can too. We are in the digital age, and learning doesn’t need to come exclusively from the classroom”.

Here are a few things to consider and some tips. Sometimes you don’t need to follow the steps in order. For example, today I tweeted about a topic, then created short-form content about it. I am now writing the blog post and will create the long-form content afterward. The strategy isn’t black and white, but it does provide enough structure to create a habit. Remember to create content for the specific platform. THIS IS KEY. Although I feel slightly disappointed with my sporadic posting so far, the random posting on random platforms allowed me to look at data and see what performed well on each platform — because I can guarantee you it’s different!

So my biggest tip is THIS: Even if you don’t have a plan, JUST START POSTING. JUST DO IT — as Nike says. Nothing negative will come from you posting content. If someone doesn’t like your content and makes a negative comment, you get engagement and perhaps you learn from it, if it’s a valid point. Suppose you get positive engagement, great!

I have so many blanks to fill in — but I want to make this fairly concise. Please get in touch with me on socials (@momsmartinfo) and let me know what you want to hear more about — for example, my process for making and editing one short-form video, writing the caption, creating the hashtags, and distributing it across multiple platforms in less than 5 minutes!

Here’s a very rough sketch of my plan! Now get out there and POST!