3 Myths Busted About Consistent Content Creation

Business Tips and ToolsMarketing TipsVisibility

Dec 22

Creating content consistently can be stressful! We get it and chances are you’re buying into these three industry myths around consistency. Let’s set the record straight around consistent content so you can feel confident in showing up for your comm…

Consistency is one of my love languages and is one of the fundamentals of a successful business no matter how you create content or where you post that content when promoting your business.

And it’s not just about social media and promotion, but also consistency in your habits.

So today I wanted to bust three myths around consistency to really give you the power back in planning out your day, in planning out your content and feeling good about how you're showing up and building your community.

But, we’ve got to start at the core of it all and that’s the Importance of Consistency in Business.

Consistency in Business

I really believe in the power of consistency to grow your community and ultimately grow your business.

From a community standpoint, consistency is so important because it builds trust. So it's not really about you just pushing out a bunch of content.

It's about you being there.

It's about your brand being there and showing up for your community, delivering value to your community, and ultimately building that trust.

When you're consistently showing up and they're following you on that platform, or they're subscribing to your email list, they know who you are. They really start to get a sense of who you are as a person, who you are as a brand, what you stand for, and ultimately your expertise, which is huge.

This is where the relationship with your brand starts to form and brand affinity can start to happen.

Another element of consistency is the role it plays in messaging. Consistent messaging also builds trust with your audience because you're showing up and you're delivering value and you’re doing it in a way that builds authority.

Your goal is to become an expert in a specific niche, so you’re consistently creating content and resources around that area. And that makes you the expert. It elevates you, it elevates your brand.

But, if your messaging is all over the place and not consistent, then your audience is going to have a hard time understanding what it is you do and how you can support them.

I've been saying the same thing since 2016, my core concepts haven't changed.

Recently, we found my very first YouTube video. I’m not going to lie, it's kind of embarrassing, but what it did was reaffirm the concept of consistent messaging and the impact it can have on a business. I've been saying the same thing about branding, about storytelling, about emotional branding since the beginning.

And that is one of the reasons that I have now been able to get featured on podcasts and in articles and more as an expert on this topic.

You might not know exactly what you're talking about out of the gate, and that's fine. You're going to have to experiment.

But when you really realize what it is you want to own and why people come to you and what differentiates you from others, consistently honoring that and creating messaging and content around that can help you grow your business substantially.

Then there's the other element, and that’s consistency in business overall - this looks like workflows and systems that save you so much time and energy.

I have very clear workflows in my business and I teach these content workflows inside of my programs, including The Consistency Guide.

Every single week, we are repeating the same content strategy over and over and over again. And as I've added team members, it's been really beautiful in being able to outsource different projects in a seamless way.

And while, the teamwork is amazon, the reason I do this is so that I can have consistency on my end so that every week I'm super clear on the fundamental things that I need to do in order to get content out there, to be able to grow my community, to build trust, to make sales.

And then it frees up so much time for me to be creative and focus on creating new things or showing up for my audience, or if you're in any of my coaching programs, you know I'm really active inside of those communities.

These systems give you the time to create, explore and grow your business without constantly feeling bogged down, trying to come up with content ideas and creating new content.

Myth #1: Consistency is Posting Daily

Myth number one about consistency is that you have to post daily.

I had to start with this because I’ve got some beef with this topic. Consistently showing up online does not mean posting every single day.

I did this, we've all done this. Some of you are maybe posting twice a day. If that works for you, go for it. But if it’s a belief that you have, thinking it’s the standard and if you’re not posting daily you aren’t consistent, well that’s just not true.

We need to stop this one please because showing up and posting daily is just more emphasis on growing through social media, which is one of the things that I don't teach.

I teach other avenues like Pinterest, SEO, Google, the things that you guys have heard me talk about all year as a way to grow your community.

And using Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, even maybe Twitter, as ways to just continue to show up for the existing community.

Using these platforms allows you to step back from the hustle of posting daily.

So rather than looking at consistency as posting daily content, start to think about how many times you want to show up each week and honor that.

And I think this is where people get really hung up and where they struggle is, maybe it's really fun and exciting and you do it for two weeks. And you're like, “Yes, yes, yes.”

And then suddenly a week happens and you're like, “Oh my gosh, I can't post this week” or “I'm not feeling inspired.” And then you're like, “Aw, crap. My whole entire consistency plan is out the window.”

It doesn't have to be like that.

Start thinking about more sustainable consistency, not something that you just feel like, “Oh, I have to do this. I have to post every single day.”

That's one of the reasons that I encourage people to really look at platforms that expand their reach and that allow content to live longer, like blogging.

You don't need to blog every single day. You can blog once a week and optimize that blog. Same thing with Pinterest, where the content ultimately lives longer.

People ask me all the time, "Michelle, you're getting all this traffic from Pinterest." I'm getting anywhere between 13,000-20,000 views a month on my blog, about 90% are from Pinterest. People are like, "How many times a week do you blog?"

Once a week, but I'm consistent with my once a week - and that’s what consistency is really about.

Think about what works for you and what is sustainable, because I’m going to bet that posting daily is not sustainable for most of you.

Myth #2: Consistency is Hard or Difficult

The second myth is that consistency is hard or difficult to keep up with.

We shy away from this conversation around consistency because having to consistently create content every single day or weekly feels like it is overly complicated and hard to stay up to date with.

Sometimes they say that you don't plan because you're afraid to fail, right? Many people don’t shoot for consistency because we just don't think that it's attainable for us.

But I promise you that it is.

I promise when you have your systems in place, it 100% is possible for you.

I've worked with enough entrepreneurs, with enough personality types and different backgrounds to say that this method works, and really simplifies your marketing overall.

This method is the art of repurposing.

The idea is that you have a core piece of content and you're repurposing that content through additional means.

You're not creating a bunch of new topics and new things every single day of the week.

Here's an example: I do a Mondays With Michelle video on the three myths of consistency.

This video will then be transcribed.

That transcription will go on my blog.

That blog might have a different title just depending on SEO, but probably not (if you haven’t caught on it’s this blog).

And then that blog gets pushed out to Pinterest where our content lives longer and drives most of the traffic to our website.

The same core piece of content. I didn't come up with something new.

Then, we take that transcript and create three to four social media posts, every single week.

I have a graphic designer that I work with that I absolutely love. And she takes the transcript and creates the graphics. Those graphics then get pushed out over the next week. Sometimes we'll even save some of them and use them down the line.

So again, same video, the same piece of content, a bunch of graphics. And if you don't work with a designer, you just create some templates in Canva and just start to really practice your flow.

In the beginning, it might feel a little shaky.

It might feel a little like you're piecing it together; it always does. You're figuring out what works best for you, but I promise you, when you get into that rhythm, your entire mind will be blown and it just makes your life so much easier.

You can build your repurposing workflow and more with The Consistency Guide.

In addition, it’s very important you understand why you’re showing up with your content and that comes back to understanding and feeling grounded in your purpose.

So many entrepreneurs just create content to create content.

It becomes a dumping ground to put stuff out there.

And yes, of course, in that first year or so, you're experimenting with things. You're wanting to see what people resonate with. Absolutely, there's always experimentation that comes with marketing your business.

But if you don't have a clear purpose, which is both the end goal, the action you want people to take, the product or the service or the offer that you want them to purchase, as well as the overall purpose and mission behind your business, then it’s really hard to show up.

It's really hard to just create consistent content, especially when you're working extra hard in the beginning to grow your audience.

But when you have that purpose, very, very clearly defined in the back of your mind of “What is the overall purpose for my business? What am I working towards? And what is the purpose? What am I ultimately leading people to?”

It makes content creation and consistency so much more effective.

So if you haven't already identified your mission of your business, you definitely want to do that.

And if you don't already have a signature product or service or an offer, that you're leading people to, think about that because that's really going to help you decide what type of content to create.

One of the core pillars of my branding process is your Signature Offer. If you’re just starting out, or don’t feel clear on this end goal, be sure to watch my free class on The Build a Better Brand Method: brandmerry.com/brandmasterclass

Myth #3: Consistency is Hard or Difficult

The third myth is that it has to be new content.

I think you can already pick up on what I'm putting down when it comes to repurposing and therefore you do not need to create new content every single day in your business.

I mean how exhausting.

But, when you’re only focused on building your community with Facebook or Instagram, it can feel like you need to create new stuff all the time and that’s because content on those platforms doesn’t live as long as these evergreen options.

I'm sorry, but if I'm taking all this time and energy to create this video and then it’s gone in 24 hours. No thank you!

It’s one of the reasons I created Brandmerry Academy, because I see too many entrepreneurs struggling to build their audience without spending all their time on social media.

This is why people have trouble with consistency.

This is why people have trouble with content creation because they're like, “Well, shoot, I got to create something new tomorrow because that one's all gone.”

But if you really change your thinking from new content daily to extending the life of your content, you're reusing the same thing over and over again.

And I promise you, your audience does not get tired of it.

Your audience will thank you for posting it again because they probably missed it.

So when you're thinking of creating your content calendar for the year, even just for the month, I want you to break it down to one core topic every week.

What would your life be like if you had one weekly piece of content that you then pushed out and repurposed and manipulated in different ways, and shifted the messaging so that it actually lasted longer?

What would happen?

Would that completely change your life? Because it did mine.

I stopped focusing on creating new stuff every single day for Instagram and really went to this repurposing web. It’s one of the things I teach inside of both The Consistency Guide and Brandmerry Academy.

So it's less about creating a quantity of content and more about the quality of content.

Now that doesn't mean that you post one thing and you're like, fingers crossed, hope it works.

It's about then having these repurposing strategies in place so then you can make sure your content is being seen by your ideal customer.

Remember, people like to consume content in different ways.

They want to be able to read something, watch something, listen to something, consume it very quickly. And the more that we can really show up on multiple platforms and think about ways that you can show up for your audience and be there for them and they can consume your content in the way that's best for them. Again, building trust.

CONCLUSION

Let’s recap the three myths, shall we?

Number one is posting daily, you don't need to do it. Just be more strategic with your content and the high-quality content that you're putting out there. Consistency doesn't mean daily. It means figuring out how you're going to share your message and consistently sticking to that, honoring yourself, honoring your commitment to your audience.

Number two is that it has to be hard or difficult. It doesn't have to be that way. Repurposing is going to be your best friend. If you guys want my top tips, plus build out your own repurposing web, then get your hands on The Consistency Guide.

And also understanding the purpose, what's the purpose behind the content that you're creating?

And then finally, remove the idea that it has to be brand new content all of the time.

Look at ways to extend the life of your content. Look at ways to repurpose your content, not just in one week, but maybe even recycling content that does well.

These are all ways to consistently show up that don't require you to just create, create, create, write, write, write, write post, post, post, post, graphic, graphic, graphic every single day.

I also wanted to share with you that one of the things that I created this year because I saw a need. So many women were coming to me to say consistency was their main pain point in business, so I created The Consistency Guide.

This 40-page workbook breaks down my entire process into an 8-part framework to help you master consistency in your business. Learn more at brandmerry.com/consistent.