How Your Content Strategy Can Serve Your Business Processes + Daily Routine Planning for Optimal Growth & Productivity

(Watch the video version of this blog here!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWgf0Yh4mbE&t=518s)

Welcome back to The Latest!

This week, we have some very 'January' themed topics, and that's by no mistake! It's nearly impossible to not feel inspired to make changes in our home life, our inner world (habits, routines) right now and this follows the astrological symbolism to a T, but that's beside the point. We all know I can't help myself when it comes to astrology!

Life in the beginning of winter follows the themes of engaging in the thought patterns, ideals and subject matter that ultimately develop our personal wisdom. Being a little selfish in the way we'd like to see growth for ourselves, and implementing those foundations, is actually supported right now. Just a little seasonal wellness tidbit for you to consider :)

Today we're going to touch on a subject that I've been experiencing first hand in my business which is how setting up a content strategy for your business can actually serve your business processes themselves. There is a beautiful way to integrate everything you WANT to do in your business, and I think what I've found within this subject can really help others who are trying to do a lot of things and want to streamline everything to make sense in a cohesive way. The second part of today's blog will kind of go hand in hand with the first, and it's diving into how I set up my daily routine to serve my growth and productivity. Organization, planning, and all of that jazz is truly engrained in my blood (the people close to me would laugh at that as an understatement), so I think you will DEFINITELY gain something from this part if this is a weak spot for you.

How can your content strategy (or a content strategy in general) serve your business processes? To give a bit of my personal experience with this question, I have been trying to make one big cohesive business process for myself for about 4 years now. Something that incorporates everything I love, everyone I love, personal time, and of course, time allocated to growing my craft. If you ask me, there is A LOT expected of humans in general, and when you're a human who has a passion-driven business, it's really hard to handle everything and make headway unless you're REALLY good at time management & organization. And I'm happy to say folks, I am quite good at it.

What I've found in the past 4 years is that my struggle wasn't so much that I didn't have the time, I just didn't know how to exactly organize my time to serve everything I wanted to do. With many trials and many errors, I'm happy to say that I've cracked the code so to speak on what works best for me, and I think it can help you too.

All businesses want a content strategy, or content plan for the sake of developing their digital presence and engaging and growing their community, but the reality is that MOST leaders don't necessarily have the capacity for this. The reason being is because to have a good content strategy (one that guarantees growth), means that you need to put knowledge & time into it. And say you don't want to, aren't good at it, or don't know anything about marketing? Welp, we are now touching on the very reason Essence Presents Production exists. But to bring it back to the point, implementing a content strategy that works with your business processes is where you can at least begin.

Say you're an artists and you have a goal for 2024 to consistently post on social media for the purpose of growing your business, but you also want to grow your business by painting and creating art. What do you think is the more likely outcome of how this artist will utilize their time based on where they're at? Most likely, they will continue to engage in their art for the very logical reason that they're good at it, they know how to do it, and it is the main offering of their business, and their livelihood in some cases. Where do we go from here? THIS is how this artist's content strategy could serve their business processes: they could film themselves doing just that- their business processes. This means if your a painter, film yourself painting, film yourself fulfilling orders, film yourself creating listings, taking photos of the listings, what products you buy at the art store to make your art, day in the life, you get the point. In 2024, creatives, and business owners are translating their day-to-day life into content pieces to serve their growth on social media. It's not only easy to do, but it's been a long-standing trend that keeps gaining more popularity as people get more creative with it.

Another way your social media content strategy can serve your business (in general) is by allowing it to be the driver for your long-form content pieces, that could turn into extended information, digital downloads, and essentially provide more value that you could charge for. We will use the example of a painter again (since I'm in love and very close with one ;). Say a goal for you as a painter is to expand your craft into creative writing or digital art. Writing and digital art both happen to be forms of content that can be translated into snippets for your digital social media platforms. So during the year as you attempt to fulfill this goal of creative writing, this painter could engage in writing through blog posts or talking head videos that offers the option to subscribe for more content, or invest in a digital download with more content on the subject matter, and so on. For the digital art goal, this painter could create content that shows the start to finish work, and in the caption gives a call to action to sign up for their Patreon where only this community could have access to these works.

I hope these content strategy examples are easily translatable to your business or craft, and can help you brainstorm further ways to allow a content strategy to work FOR your business processes, not take AWAY from it. If you want more on this topic, comment below something your struggling with in your content strategy, and I'll create more on this topic!

---

Now for the second part of the blog! We're talking daily routine planning for optimal growth and productivity. Why am I touching on this subject? Well, because it's arguably the most important part of allowing your business, or your goals, to grow and prosper. Growth happens when we place ourselves in environments that are supportive of making headway and progress. This is why we start with our schedule, because with a well-thought-out supportive framework that has the intention of achieving our goal, we are more likely to follow it. Now I know that not everybody has a schedule that 'works' with starting a business, and I'm here to remind you of the saying that goes something like "if you care for it enough, you will find a way to make it work". This goes for a lot of things, but if you think about the drive you have to make this business work, does it live up to this phrase? Is it something you care enough about to make time for? Decide where you're at with this, if you're ready to take on your idea first before building a daily routine around making it work.

Once you've decided where you're at, and the answer is 'YES, I want to make this work', then let's dive in. My first tip is to become acquainted with the idea of a schedule. Think of this schedule as comparable to how we had 1st period, 2nd period, 3rd, and so on in high school and similarly to how our days were set up in college. There was an organized system at play that allowed us to receive an education, and it all came down to our daily schedules- fitting in time for each class that ultimately led us to receiving a notable education over time. When we follow a certain 'strategy' long enough, we then see the results of following and incorporating a strategy in our lives, and this result is typically always considered productive, accomplishing of a goal, and ultimately lending itself to higher wisdom for our next endeavor.

With all of this said, my second tip would be to think carefully about what your ideal day would look like if you were working on your business/goal full-time. Be sure to incorporate other aspects of your life like relationships, health, etc. This will allow you to be genuinely excited about this schedule and have a connection with it based in pure desire. This practice isn't to remind you that you're not where you want to be, it's actually to acquaint you with the idea that THIS is the routine you are working towards. And if you have something to constantly look towards to remind you of where you're going, your not only more likely to get there quicker, but you can even try to implement some of those things into your routine NOW to get you closer to this higher vision for your life.

I'll use myself as an example. My ideal day looks a little something like this: wake up, enjoy coffee/tea with my love and pup, step outside to enjoy the rising sun, meditate, get ready for the day, etc, etc. If I had a full-time job that dismantled this vision for my ideal day, I would at least incorporate some of these ideals for myself, like enjoying coffee/tea, and meditating. What this will do is it will allow you to make small steps towards this ideal vision for your life. This expands your mindset for what is possible for you even if things feel impossible, and it allows you to understand that time is a concept that can be managed to allow for greater progress.

My third tip is to begin using a calendar tool to block out time for the activities, hobbies, education, and goals you want to achieve. You can do this through a multitude of online tools, but I would say the best one is Google Calendar. If you don't have a google account, I would create one purely just to access the calendar if nothing else. When you do create a Google account, you automatically get an email, calendar, and drive system that gives you access to docs, excel and presentation. These are all tools that can ultimately help you organize more in your business, if starting a business/getting more organized in your business is the goal.

Google Calendar is a system that works with time-blocking 'events', that basically look like squares that extend across parameters of time. I'd start by opening Google Calendar in the weekly view, and clicking and dragging out time blocks that represent your commitments. These are things that are unmovable week to week- like the time you wake up, go to bed, work hours, prior commitments, etc. Once you've mapped out your commitments that aren't flexible, you'll be able to see how much time you actually have left in a given day for incorporating these additional aspirations.

You can start small if that's all your schedule allows for. Simply time-block one hour for your goal in the evenings, and name the time block by the goal, hobby, activity, or business you're working towards. The more time you have to work with, the more specific I would be with naming your time-blocks. Think sensibly about what needs to happen first- for instance, if you are starting a business, use the most of your free time blocks by 'establishing your business plan', and then utilize other time blocks with setting up your digital profiles, as an example.

If you want additional info / helpful tips on time-blocking with Google Calendar, I've created a YouTube video showing how I personally use Google Calendar for optimizing my time! You can find that video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWRYLV8iPzM

Thank ya'll again for being here, reading, or watching the blog :) Until next time!