Creating Content On A Budget

Creating Content on a budget

MELINDA HARCOURT

November 30, 2019

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Creating content on a budget is one of the most important skills that a business owner can learn. Why? Because content is king and it isn’t going to lose that crown any time soon. But the pressure to constantly create fresh content can make the process seem time-consuming and costly. What I want to talk about today is taking the stress out of creating content and saving you more than a few dollars along the way.

We all create content every day, maybe without even knowing it; that Instagram caption that you just posted? Content. The Snapchat photo that you sent yesterday? Content. Which leads us to our first important lesson…

 

Not all content is created equal!

That’s right. Some content is brilliant. And some content is…terrible. You only have to flick through a social media feed to understand this. However, when you are creating content for your brand, you only want to promote the posts that are going to represent your brand in the right way. Understanding this can save you a tonne of time and effort, which equates to money saved on creating poor or mid-level content.

 

Content: It’s all about quality, not quantity

I’m a firm believer that it’s better to put out nothing than something that damages your brand. To do this, think of why you are releasing this content? Who is it for? What reaction do you want?

I know that it can seem as if you’re missing out if you’re not posting every second of the day but I urge you to let go of this idea. Don’t get anxiety about posting all the time. Nowadays, people see through the fakers, especially on Instagram and the platform itself seems to be rewarding genuine and interesting content rather than the same old stuff churned out just for the sake of it.

Jai Long

Free The Bird Photography

Believe in your own content

If I’m only creating one piece of content then it has to be the best content that I can make. This doesn’t mean that I have to buy the most expensive gear or spend thousands of dollars in ads promoting it but it does mean that I have to think about the impact that I want it to make. How can I make it interesting, entertaining and informative enough for the listener to share, like, comment or listen to the next episode? Because if I can’t, what’s the point?!

If you don’t care about your content then your audience won’t either.

 

How to stretch out your content

If you want to create content on a budget then you need to learn how to stretch out your content. This can involve repurposing existing content, getting multiple pieces of content out of one session of work or even sharing your content on different audience platforms.

For example, here’s an IGTV video that I made about How To Shoot Large Format Film.

One piece of content, right? NO! Not only am I going to release the video, I’m going to create a blog post around it, share it on social media, use it in my Instagram tiles and share it on my newsletter. I can do this because I planned ahead of time and put a lot of effort into deciding the best way to create a piece of content that can be used not once but multiple times in several different formats.

I’m going to do the same for a podcast that I recorded on the same day – not only am I going to create the same auxiliary content around it (blogs, social, Insta tiles, newsletters) but I’m also going to create another piece of content for my guest to share with his audience, giving me the opportunity to put my brand in front of his followers who may then also become my followers.

So out of just one day of work, I’ve created dozens of content opportunities, enough that could keep a brand going for a week, a month or maybe more. It didn’t require any extra financial investment – all it took was forward-planning and initiative.

 

Create content with a little help from your friends

If you have a group of friends who work in similar industries (designers, copywriters, photographers, etc.), why not pool your resources? Have a brainstorming session and don’t be afraid to create content for them – it always comes back around, as they will be incentivised to create content for you as well as allow you the opportunity to link to your brand via the content that you made for their audience.

Creating Content on a budget

You have more time than you think

Sometimes you might feel as if you don’t have enough time or resources to create content – I understand this sentiment but if you think about it, you probably have everything you need to create quality content in your pocket (your smartphone) and an upcoming bus ride/plane flight/evening alone that’s the perfect opportunity to get to work.

Creating content on a budget can be easy these days, given all the awesome tools at our disposal. If you have a smartphone then you essentially have a great camera, an editing suite (apps) and direct access to platforms on which to post your content. We sometimes get so caught up in thinking that we need to produce the raddest content possible and forget that it’s the content that’s honest, useful and created with a specific audience in mind that will make the biggest impact time and time again.

 

Let’s put this particular piece of content (the blog post that you just read and the podcast that you listened to) to the test and see if it’s inspiring enough for you to leave an awesome review, subscribe to my channel, share it with a your friends and tune in to the next episode, which is all about how to avoid burnout and recovering your creativity.

See you soon, guys!

Meet the Author

Obsessively wordsmithing and hyping the living daylights out of anything and anyone, Mel is our in-house word nerd and coach.

You’ll also find her regularly dropping hot website/ biz tips inside the Business Map and yelling at people for downplaying their wins (“big” or “small”, every win is still a win).

COPYWRITING COACH

Mel

she/her

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