If you are serious about creating a personal brand that attracts clients to you need to establish yourself as an industry expert. However, if you are like most people, the thought of coming up with creative content ideas as to what to write about and how to schedule it all can be overwhelming to say the least.
Below, I've created a sample plan that you can easily recreate for yourself to keep your content consistent and constant. But first, you'll need to get clear on what you should write about.
What do I write about?
Before you start writing you need to establish your content theme. Basically, your content theme should be about what you do and relevant to your niche market. For example, if you were a talent manager that represents Miami-Based hip hop artists, you would write about things that matter to them (what to look for in an artist manager, what to include in a press kit, who to include on your team, etc.).
The number one mistake I see first-timers make is publishing material that is not relevant to their audience. Sure, you want to show depth to who you are, so it is acceptable to publish some stuff that is off-topic that speaks to your personality. However, especially when you are starting off, you want to maintain a higher ratio of content that is specific to your content them.
Three Steps to Publishing Personal Brand Content
From the start of my early career in public relations and marketing, Ive always found an editorial calendar to be my best friend and Ive adapted it for planning out my branded content. There is no correct way in creating one, you may like to start off with the smaller projects and expand from there. Personally, I like to start big by scheduling out annual tasks so I can refurbish the content throughout the year as I narrow down to my daily to-do list.
Step 1: Brainstorm.
I would start by researching and identifying topics that matter to my target audience. I would search Google and listen to social media chatter for industry trends and related experts. I may also create a market survey for my target audience to find out what is important to them and keeps them up at night.
Step 2: Schedule Content.
The next step is to take out your calendar and set deadlines for your content related to your marketing events and content ideas you brainstormed. You will repeat this step for as many items you came up with during your brainstorming session.
Here is a breakdown of what my timeline may look like for one idea:
- Annual Content. Lets say I decided to create an annual Creative Entrepreneur Branding Virtual Conference. I would invite experts in various industries related to the branding to speak on their respective subjects via webinars or video.
- Schedule Quarterly Content. I would create four SlideShare presentations recapping what was discussed during the conference.
- Schedule Monthly Content. Then, I would follow up with some of the participants and interview them on their successes since attending the conference and create a monthly case study to highlight a Creative Entrepreneur of the Month.
- Schedule Content. I would then create a minimum of one blog post each week that speaks to the topics that matter to Creative entrepreneurs, including tutorials, top 10 lists, and industry trends.
- Schedule Content. I would post daily status updates that express the key messages of my content themes and quick tips for personal branding for
Step 3: Implement.
The final step is to live by your deadline. Each day, carry out the tasks you've scheduled for yourself. If you are feeling overwhelmed, consider hiring a copywriter to help you write your content and an assistant or college intern to carry out the actual publishing and updating on your blog and social media sites.
Keep the conversation flowing what have you included in your personal brand editorial calendar?