Recently, one of my LinkedIn connections posted about how he was feeling drained by the energy it takes to engage in digital conversations online. He said he’s not quitting the platform, but he has definitely soured on his goal of posting every day.
I can relate. I’ve been there. I no longer insist on posting every day either because my strategy doesn’t require me to post every day. Some days, I comment and engage with others, but skip posting my own content.
As the conversation unfolded in the comment section on my connection’s LinkedIn post, it became clear that what makes engaging online draining for him is that his objectives are cloudy. He was enjoying the conversations he was having, but without a purpose beyond general enjoyment, there was no scaffolding — no method to the madness.
This drained feeling is one consequence of not nailing your content. In this article, I want to explore four other consequences and what it takes to avoid them.
Does this sound familiar?
The story my connection shared is a story as old as social media itself. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t been in this boat at one time or another. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how it goes:
You are DIYing your content marketing with no strategy, no plan, and no consistency. Or you have consistency because you’ve outsourced social media posting to your virtual assistant. But you still have to project manage your content marketing and you still don’t have a strategy or plan that’s working.
Either way, this takes up a ton of time and much of it ends up being wasted effort because without a plan, a strategy, and consistency, you’re posting to crickets.
If this sounds familiar to you, you’ve probably had this nagging thought in the back of your head for a while now because you’re smart enough to know when something in your business is not worth your time.
But what you might not have realized (or stopped to really consider) is that on top of the wasted effort, this approach to content marketing is ultimately costing you even more.
You aren’t just swimming against the current and getting nowhere, you’re swimming with weights on and losing ground.
I’m grateful to my LinkedIn connection for sharing his experience because it’s common and it’s one that we don’t often talk about. It can be scary to admit what we’re doing is creating negative consequences. But unless we can summon the strength to be vulnerable and face them honestly, we can’t put them in the rear view.
What Happens When You Don’t Nail Your Content Marketing
So, we’ve established that having our energy drained and feeling on the verge of burnout is one consequence of not nailing your content marketing. Now, let’s consider four other consequences.
But before we dig in here, I want to offer one more point of clarification: when I say “nail your content marketing,” I’m talking about strategy + implementation. I’m not talking (directly) about the quality of the content you create, although this can play a role as well.
Here are four other consequences of not nailing your content marketing:
1. No strategy = confusion about your brand
In many cases not having a content marketing strategy leads to confusion about your brand. It’s both confusing for you (and your team) and for any potential clients who might come across your content.
Without a strategy, you won’t have a consistent brand. Period. Now, consistency doesn’t mean that you should only ever be posting promotional content about your products or services. Consistency means you have a brand voice, which allows anyone who comes into contact with your content to know immediately that it’s yours.
Of course, if you’re facing this consequence, it also pays to consider which came first: the lack of content marketing strategy or the confusion about your brand? In other words, you may need to do some brand strategy work before working on a content marketing strategy.
2. No plan = staring at that smug, blinking cursor
It’s okay, we all do it. I spend far too many Monday mornings sipping ginger tea, while asking myself, “what am I going to post today?”
But having a content creation plan really helps me avoid this consequence. I have a broad content theme for each month (which directs my blog articles, Medium articles, and social media posts) and a formula I follow for posting each day of the week on LinkedIn. And I create the same thing for my content marketing clients.
When you have a plan, it becomes easier to batch create content. In most cases, I can create my LinkedIn posts for the whole week in less than an hour. And if those posts aren’t coming easily (I’m often batching content on Friday afternoons, so sometimes, writer’s block is a factor), you can switch to brainstorming only.
Whatever it takes to kick that smug, blinking cursor to the curb on Monday mornings!
3. No consistency = no love from the algo
LinkedIn is the social media platform I’ve spent the most time studying over the past year. And I’ve learned a lot about what works. I can unequivocally say that consistency works because the algorithm rewards consistency.
You may have heard me make cheeky remarks about the LinkedIn algorithm and I stand by those cheeky remarks, but I’m also learning to respect the algorithm. While I’m not interested in “gaming” or “hacking” the platform, I am interested in making sure new and old connections see my brilliant content. Like it or not, the algorithm decides what content gets seen.
If you aren’t a consistent LinkedIn user (consistency = engaging for 20 to 30 minutes Monday-Friday), the algorithm sees you as a flaky friend. And we all know what happens to flaky friends — they don’t get invited to stuff. Inconsistency with content marketing leads quickly to a brand awareness crisis.
4. Not nailing your content marketing = content creation taking up too much mental bandwidth
This final consequence is what my LinkedIn connection experienced. In his case, posting every day on LinkedIn or even trying to keep up several digital conversations every day was taking up too much mental bandwidth.
In his case, he lost sight of why he was having these conversations. They were enjoyable, but they weren’t getting him closer to any of his goals. So, he naturally asked himself “what’s the point?”
But what’s even more critical to ask is “where could I otherwise be directing this mental energy?” Do a quick calculation for yourself right now. Think about all the time you’ve spent not nailing your content marketing during this first half of 2021.
How much time do you spend each week writing content? 3-5 hours? More? That’s 78-130 hours you could have put toward growing your business.
At the Pocket PhD, we’re on a mission to help clients nail their content marketing. I’m tired of dealing with the consequences of doing stuff that’s not worth my time and I want to help you stop doing stuff that’s not worth your time.
If you’re not nailing your content marketing, our new offering could be just what you’re looking for. Here’s how it works:
- After a kickoff meeting to map out your content strategy and get your editorial calendar created, you’ll meet with the team once a month for a 30-minute content strategy meeting.
- We review your themes, we talk through 2 blog posts on those themes. And our team writes fantastic blog articles for you each month.
- We also send you 3 LinkedIn posts per week optimized for LinkedIn and designed to pique the interest of your target audience.
- We also deliver email newsletter content to go with the blog articles and touch on the big picture themes 2x per month.
With our content marketing strategy and implementation service, your content marketing is done for the month and all it cost you was 30 minutes and $2,500. Doesn’t that sound great? No more DIYing. No more project management. Just great content delivered consistently, by the plan, and according to a custom strategy.
If you’re tired of the old story and not nailing your content marketing, let’s talk! We’d love to take your content marketing off of your plate.
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