How to Spend Less Time Creating Content

Do you feel like you are constantly chasing after creating content for social media or your online business?

Not after today! I came up with a few ways that could help you spend less time creating content.

Let’s get right into it: 

Batch Up Content Creation

Batching up content creation is one of the best ways that will save you time. It may not seem like it, but think about it instead of having a block of time daily for content creation. 

You can set aside a specific day that you only focus on content creation. That way, you will be done and over with, and you won’t have to consistently create daily content like you used to do before. 

Batching content will allow you to have better focus and get into a creative flow, which will make producing multiple pieces of content way easier and less time consuming. 

How to Implement Batching in Your Content Creation Process

1. Start by writing down all the types of content you usually create, for example blog posts, social media posts, YouTube videos, podcasts…etc. You will get to know the tasks that need to be done.

2. It’s time to schedule time blocks for each task. Choose specific days or half days for each one of your content creation. 

Let me give you an example: 

• Mondays: Write blog posts for the month.
• Tuesdays: Record all video content.
• Wednesdays: Design social media graphics.
• Thursdays: Edit and finalize content.
• Fridays: Plan and schedule content for the next month.

And just like that, you will be able to finish your content creation for the whole month in a week!

3. Organization is key. Before you start your batching up process, gather all necessary recourses that would make it easier on you. 

If we keep with the example I gave above you could prepare and organization your batching up session like this: 

• Blog posts, outline your topics and gather all research materials. 
• Video content, script your content and set up your recording space.
• Social media graphics and such, collect brand assets or set up templates and decide on the visual themes.

4. You could also use tools to help you in spending less time batching up content creation. Project management tools are best for keeping you organized and hitting the checkmark whenever you finish a task. 

Something like Clickup, Notion, or Asana would do the job. Project management tools will help you in keeping track of your taks, deadlines, progress and ensuring you stay on top of your content schedule. 

No one wants to see that red overdue date when you log into your Clickup for example :p 

Repurpose Your Long Form Content:

I am a firm believer that you have tons of content already. You only need to know how to repurpose your content the right way, and you will be able to come up with several new pieces of old content being made.

What I mean by long form content is like a blog posts for example or podcasts, youtube videos, webinars, live trainings…etc. These long form content can be broken down into smaller pieces of content to fit each platform.

Giving you the example of having a blog post, it can be turned into several social media posts, reels, stories, and infographics. 

Repurposing content will help you spend less time in creating content for your online business. Along with maximizing the value of your long form content and bringing them back to life. 

Keep an eye on my upcoming blog post series on content repurposing and how to do it effectively.

How to Repurpose Your Long Form Content Across Different Platforms

Outsource Your Content Creation 

No one can deny that outsourcing is a game changing thing anyone could do for their business. If you have the budget, you could hire a Virtual Assistant that could help you with your content creation process.

Outsourcing is super effective, and you will be able to reduce your workload (especially if you don’t like doing the content creation thingies). You could check this blog post where I go into details on how you can hire a long-term virtual assistant. 

Another thing you could do is offer apprenticeships. If you are unsure of having a long term VA, then consider trying it out for a few months then decide if you would like to continue with them. 

I always recommend Acaduim for both business owners and aspiring VAs. Acadium is a platform where they link you with a virtual assistant for 3 months, 10 hours a week. That is how I got my first client as a VA.

How to Successfully Outsource Your Content Creation to a VA

Identify Your Content Creation Needs:

Ask yourself, what specific types of content or tasks do you need help with? This could be your blog posts, social media content, videos, infographics, email newsletters, or all of them. 

You could use the list you created earlier in content batching to determine the tasks you need help with.

Find the Right Virtual Assistant to Work With:

There are a lot of freelance websites or VA agencies out there like Upwork, Freelancer, Online Jobs PH, Outsourcing Angels…etc. 

You could also consider Facebook groups. One of my favorites is virtual assistant savvies, but there are a lot of them out there as well.

Reach out to your professional network for recommendations! Many VAs get recommended by the clients they work with. 

As I mentioned this blog post can be beneficial if you want to find the right virtual assistant to work with. 

Set Clear Guidelines:

To ensure that your virtual assistant work aligns with your brand’s voice and standards, you could consider providing them with detailed guidelines. 

For example tone of voice, style preferences, branding guidelines, and examples of previous content you created. The more specific you get, the better your Virtual Assistant will understand your expectations.

Build Long-term Relationships with Your VA:

Cultivating long-term relationships with your virtual assistant does not only improves the quality of content over time as they become more familiar with your brand but also provides reliability and continuity in your content creation process.

Use AI to Your Advantage 

It’s time for letting AI shine through and help you out with content. Using AI tools will help you drastically in cutting down and spending less time creating content. 

I won’t deny that I myself still don’t use a lot of AI tools to my advantage but here are some AI tools that I have worked with in the past, and would recommend you give them a try:

ChatGPT and Jasper: 

I mean who doesn’t know what ChatGPT can do nowadays? If you don’t then you have been living under a rock. You can use ChatGPT or Jasper in your idea generations, script outlines based on the keywords you provide to them. 

They can draft out content for you and then all you have to do is make it sound more like you. You can also use them in many different ways, for example ChatGPT is great for coming up with something for you or writing a sentence in a better way and structure. 

WriteSonic:

Writesonic is super great for writing marketing copies, for example ad copy, email campaigns, product descriptions, social media titles and descriptions. 

It can also be used for writing blog posts, but honestly I wouldn’t go for that. Maybe as an outline, yes sure but not the whole blog post as they typically tend to gather words and sentences from here and there without making any sense.

Vidyo.ai:

Vidyo.ai is one of my favorite tools I use for video editing, mainly for content repurposing. They simplify a lot of aspects of video production especially when you want to repurpose a long form video into reels or shorts video. 

They take your long-form content and automatically slices it into multiple pieces, resizes them, inserts them into templates, and adds captions. All that’s left for you to do is review the final output and make any necessary tweaks. 

Descript:

Descript is not my all time favorite, but it’s a good software that combines powerful editing capabilities with a user-friendly interface. It’s made to make editing videos like editing a text document. Mainly for podcasters!

Let Go of a Social Media Platform for Good

Having a presence on multiple social media platforms can be such an overwhelm and time-consuming. With so many platforms available out there, it’s crucial to start deciding which one should go, you can evaluate which ones are driving you the most engagement and results for your online business. 

Let’s consider the example of some successful bloggers. Many of them, particularly those with a well-defined business model and substantial traffic, focus on a single platform! most of bloggers often  focus more on Pinterest while letting go of the rest of the social media. They use this approach is very commonly in the early stages of their online business, maybe the first 2 years. 

Create a content calendar:

Do you want to have an efficient content creation process? Having a content calendar is one of the best ways to keep you more organized and straight to the point. You will be able to plan and schedule your content in advance, making sure you stay on track and avoid all last minute rushes.

Having a content calendar will give you an overview of your content creation plans, wichi will allow you understand the alignment between your content with marketing campaigns, different launches, and any other seasonal events like speaking for example.

Some content calendars tools that I’m familiar with are ClickUp, Asana, and Trello. You can decide on anyone and most of them start with a free account.

Create a Stock Photos and Videos Folder

As much as this seems absurd, but trust me it’s one of the ways my clients spend less time creating their content! Try to create a library of stock photos and videos in your google folder. It will save you a significant amount of time.

I highly recommend creating your own photos and videos through a single, well-organized shooting session. You will be able to produce a large batch of high-quality content that can be used for months, ensuring consistency and saving time with content creation in the long run.