The 5 Step Content Strategy You Need to Know If You Want to Grow Your Business
The 5 step content strategy you need to know if you want to grow your business
Exhausted trying to decide what to post? Following all the guru’s strategies but not seeing results? Posting for three weeks then ghosting for months? This is about to make your content life a shit tonne easier.
In this episode of The Art of Confident Content, I’m talking you through the The Robin Method™, my 5 step framework designed to help you create confident content that’ll grow your business in a steady, sustainable way.
Developed over a decade of working with business owners across multiple industries, The Robin Method™ is a formula you can rinse and repeat over and over again.
Whether you’ve been winging your content and praying for sales, burning yourself out to keep up with a strategy that isn’t suited to your capacity, or you’ve been stuck in the “I don’t know what to post” loop for longer than you want to admit, The Robin Method™ has got you.
Press play right now to hear:
00:00 Why I love a tangible framework (even when ADHD means I don’t always stick to it)
00:57 7 Easy questions you can turn into social media posts
02:20 What “I don’t know what to post” actually means (it’s a lie, fyi)
05:34 Introducing The Robin Method™ (you’re gonna love this!)
07:20 The step you need to do before you even think about creating content
10:29 Setting your profile up for success before you commit to your strategy
12:30 The fun bit aka the content strategy aka the bit people do first (and wonder why it’s not working)
15:26 This’ll change the way you think about your content forever
16:49 A basic content strategy you can steal today (that’ll help you be consistent)
20:50 The fourth step of the method (which is the bit I struggle most with)
23:03 The final step before you rinse and repeat the entire formula
24:14 TL;DR: a quick little recap of the entire method
25:17 What to do if you want your content strategy created for you
Links mentioned in this episode
Get the full breakdown of The Robin Method™
How to build a 90 day content strategy that actually fits around your life
Done for you content with a twist (the twist being you) that’ll help you build (or rebuild) the consistent posting habit you need to start growing your business and making those steady sales.
Try before you buy vibes with a two-week version of The Robin Intensive. Perfect if you’re not ready to commit to a 90 day strategy or you wanna test out what it’s like to have a content plan to follow.
Get involved
Got a content question you’d like me to answer on the podcast? Is there a topic you want to hear my thoughts on? Or maybe you just want to leave me your feedback? (always welcome!!) Send me a DM on Instagram @robinrose.creative, I’d genuinely love to hear from you. And if you fancy appearing on the podcast, send your message as a voice note and I’ll include it in the episode with a link back to you and your business (unless you prefer anonymity).
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I don't know about you, but I love a tangible step-by-step framework that I can look at, understand, and follow. Although, let's be honest, ADHD means that I don't always follow it for myself, but having that guidance makes it feel easier because there's less decision-making. If I can just look at steps that I need to follow, almost like a checklist, and I can go, "Yep, done that, done that, done that," it just makes me feel more organised whether I follow it or not. So it's like I'm not starting from scratch or asking myself, "What do I do now?" I like having that repeatable process that makes my life easier, and I'm really hoping that you do as well.
In episode one, I told you that confident content starts with clarity and consistency, and in the last episode, I promised you the framework that makes taking action so much easier. So today I'm gonna walk you through The Robin Method™ , which by the end of the episode will, fingers crossed, make your content life easier for you.
When it comes to your content strategy, the most common problem I hear is, "I don't know what to post." But actually, if I was to say to you right now, "Come up with five ideas that you could post," you, you could easily come up with five things in 60 seconds. They wouldn't necessarily be great things. They wouldn't necessarily be the best performing content, but you could easily come up with five ideas, especially if I asked you: how did you start your business? What do you sell? What made you want your own business? What's your biggest challenge that other business owners would instantly relate to? What does the typical day in your life look like? How do you spend your days off? What is your proudest achievement since starting your business?
The answer to any single one of those questions is a valuable piece of content because it's doing one of three things. It's building the know, the like, and the trust factor.
I'm very conscious that I can hear magpies outside, and I am really, really hoping that you can't hear the magpies outside. So if you can, I ... Like, I apologise. It's annoying. We have birds, like, nesting right outside. I love birds, but I'm hoping that they will, like, quieten down in a second. I have got the windows closed. We did soundproof the office so that ... to make the recording better. But yeah, just I'm really, really sorry if you can hear the magpies.
Anyway, so what does "I don't know what to post" actually mean? Because we've just proven that you do know what to post. You're just not posting any of those things. So over the past nine years of working with many clients across many different industries, I have seen it most likely mean one or a combination of these things.
The first one being that you are stuck in perfectionism, and you're worried about posting the right thing. So it's easier to just not post anything at all rather than get it wrong because then when we get something wrong or we perceive ourselves to be getting something wrong, then we beat ourselves up, and we feel guilty, and we blame ourselves, and we shame ourselves, and then we feel like a failure because for some reason, that's just how our brains are wired for a lot of us.
It could also mean that you only get a few likes on your posts, so you feel like your content isn't good enough. Therefore, what is the point in posting anything at all? What is the point in me putting in all this effort in creating content if nobody's gonna like it, nobody's gonna engage with it, nobody's gonna message me about my services? Like, what's the fricking point? I could be doing something so much more fun.
It could also mean that you have no structure to your content so that you end up exhausted just trying to make a decision about what to post on what day. This is something so common that not many people talk about, but it's the decision fatigue that comes with deciding what to post. It is so draining, and if you don't have a structure, or you're somebody that needs a plan, or perhaps you are somebody that does struggle with coming up with what to post.
Like, I'm an ideas machine. I can be walking out, down the street, and I've already got, like, 10 ideas of what I could post that day, and it's the same with when I have conversations with my clients. They come to me, they tell me what their business is about, and during that conversation, I've already got so many little light bulbs going off of loads of different things that they could, they could talk about. I'm an ideas person, right? Shocking at implementing things, great at coming up with the ideas to, for you to implement. So yeah, if you're somebody that doesn't, doesn't have some kind of structure or plan, then deciding what to post can be exhausting, and therefore mean that almost, like, hiding behind that, "I don't know what to post." So yeah, if you have no structure or no plan, then it can feel exhausting trying to come up with ideas.
It could also be that you're overwhelmed by all of the conflicting advice around how or when or what you should be posting, and there is so much of it. You've only got to open up Instagram, and all of a sudden you're met with, like, 10 different experts telling you you need to go viral, and you need to write your captions like this, and it needs to be B-roll with text, and you need to shorten your clips, but then make longer clips, but then yeah. But do all these different things, and that advice is overwhelming. I get it.
And it could also be that you are worried you might be judged by what your content looks like or how your voice sounds, or maybe you hate watching yourself back on video 'cause again, you're concerned about the criticism and the conversations that are going on behind your back, which if that is something you struggle with, then make sure you go back and listen to the previous episode because we talked a lot about what to do if you're, if you are feeling self-conscious es- especially around your family and friends.
So how do we move from perfectionism, feeling like you're not good enough, decision fatigue, and fear of judgment to creating content with confidence, certainty, and the consistency that you need to regularly attract the clients that you want? Well, my friend, that's where The Robin Method™ comes in.
So this is the five-step framework that I have developed over nearly a decade of working with business owners across multiple industries, because content ideas without a strategy behind it is the scenic route to your goals. And although it's nice to go down the longer path, to take in the scenery, to enjoy the views, we want to get there as quickly as possible. There being the sales, the enquiries, the followers, the growth that we desire.
And it might not even be the scenic route that these content ideas take you to. This, these ideas without a structure might take you to a route that you didn't wanna go down at all.
Now, most content advice starts at step three of the method, but that's not how you create a confident content strategy. So before a single post gets planned, you need to know what your content is actually trying to do, who it's trying to reach, and how much you can realistically create without burning the fuck out by Tuesday. If you skip those steps, instead of being excited to implement your plan, excited to create content for your business, you will be ready to tear that plan into tiny little pieces and throw it all over the kitchen. And I may or may not be speaking from experience right now.
So let's have a little look at The Robin Method™ in more detail. Step one is review your goals. So this includes your business goals, three months, six months and 12 months, because we need to have an overall picture. And this is with the understanding that our goals are flexible, our plans are flexible, we're entitled to change our minds. What we want now may not be what we want for ourselves in 12 months. Now may not be what we want for ourselves in 12 months when we sit down to do a six-month review. We are evolving beings. We can change our minds, that's okay. But when you- when it comes to creating your content strategy, you need to review what your current business goals are for the next three months, six months and 12 months.
You also need to review who you want to be speaking to. Who is that person that you want to be having that conversation with? When I sit down to create this podcast, I have in my mind the person that I'm talking to. I'm not talking to a bunch of people. I am talking to one specific person. I am talking to you during this conversation, and my intention behind it is so that I can deliver an episode that will help you and the problems you're facing, and help you specifically feel confident creating content.
The other thing that you need to review is your capacity to actually create the content. There is no point in you putting together a content strategy if you haven't taken into account your actual capacity to be creating, because if you create a plan that is based off you putting out five posts a week, and in reality you only have the mental, physical, energetic capacity to create two posts a week, your plan's already gonna fail. You deserve to put yourself at the front of this content strategy, okay?
And this is something that I don't really see anyone else talking about, but it is the most crucial part of your content strategy. For you to grow your business, to attract enquiries and make sales, you need to be consistent with your marketing. That doesn't mean daily, it doesn't mean every platform, but it means having a consistent posting habit so you're always bringing new people into your world and remaining top of mind for those that are already in your world. But for you to build that consistent posting habit, you have to prioritise your own capacity to create content above anyone else's strategy.
So no matter what anybody else is telling you your strategy should be, ignore that. Focus on building a strategy that will work for you in your everyday life. If you build a content strategy for yourself that requires you to post on Instagram every day, and then something happens in your life, or you suddenly become inundated with clients or customers, you're not gonna be able to keep up with the posting. And when you stop posting, it is so much harder to come back. And not only that, once that busy period dies down and you're looking for more customers or more clients, you're gonna feel like you're starting from scratch again. But consistent content equals consistent results, and your consistent content can only come when you create content strategy based on your capacity.
So step two is optimise. So this is about you optimising your profiles, whether that's a long-form profile, like your blog page, your podcast, your YouTube channel, or your short-form profile, so Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, wherever you are, to make sure that they are doing a job for you the second somebody lands there. A content strategy that drives people to a profile that isn't working for you is a complete waste of your time. The foundations have to be solid before you lay any bricks on top of them.
So when I think about content, I think about every post acting as a brick. So imagine you were building a house. You wouldn't just start laying bricks here, there, and everywhere. You'd make sure the foundations were solid first, and that is where you optimise your profile. You're laying the foundations that when it comes to putting the content on top, you're guiding people to the right place. People know when they land on your profiles who you are, what you do, whether you are the right person for them.
So when you look at your social media profiles or your long-form profiles, is it clear who you are, what you do, and how you can help someone? Or what products you're selling? Will someone who lands on your page instantly know that you are for them? And you wanna be so specific that anyone who isn't your target audience is repelled by your profile. It is okay to repel people. We don't want to invite everyone in because everyone isn't a buyer, and that's all right. It's okay to repel people. What you want to do is build a space where the people in your world are people who they might not buy now, but they're definitely interested in what you have to say, and maybe consider buying from you in the future.
So once you have reviewed your goals and you've optimised your profiles, then comes the build step. So step three, where most people start, step three is you building your content strategy. When you know the job your content needs to be doing for you and what your capacity is to create content, you can then design a content strategy that actually works for you.
But here's the other thing that no one else is talking about, creating a content strategy that works for you now and in the future. This is why you need to know your business goals for the next 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months. So when I was building a content strategy for my client ... Let me just, before I tell you this story, in case you didn't know, I create bespoke content strategies that I, I call them done-for-you content with a twist, the twist being you.
So I create a custom content strategy and content plan for my clients, where they will give me their goals and I will build out, I will do the review stage, I'll give them optimisation suggestions, and then I'll build out the content strategy so that they walk away with a plan that gives them what to post, when to post, how often they're posting, the type of post they're putting out there, the hook for the post, and the call to action for the post, so that when it comes to creating content, all they've got to do is fill in that bit in the middle, record their video, and post it, or create their carousel and post it.
So when I was doing this for one of my clients, Jade, we factored in her future goal of being booked as a funeral celebrant. So at the time, she was qualified as a wedding celebrant, and she was in the middle of her funeral, funeral celebrant training. But I wanted to make sure that by the time she was qualified as a funeral celebrant, people were already aware that this was a service she could offer, so it wasn't brand-new news, and we'd already planted that seed of what she would be doing so that she could start attracting clients in advance. And she did end up booking a funeral before she finished her, um, like, before she finished, before she was officially qualified.
But now, with her marketing, she can talk about being a wedding celebrant and being a funeral celebrant without it being this massive pivot online because we factored that in, uh, partway through the training.
And this is something that you can be doing as well. For me, I've been talking about launching this podcast on my socials for two months, three months because I knew that it was coming up, and I didn't just wanna have that launch week where all of a sudden I'd be like, "Oh my God, by the way, I've just launched a podcast." I was talking about it well in advance. And okay, it was supposed to launch much earlier than it had done, but there was a little bit of a hiccup. So I did talk about it perhaps a little bit sooner, but I still would've had a month of talking about it before the podcast launched. And it's good to already be planting those seeds in your audience's minds so that they know these things.
So if you know that you've got something coming up in six months' time, you can drop in a few posts here and there over the next six months alluding to what's coming up in the future.
When it comes to deciding on what to post for your business, I, as I said, like to see each post as a brick. So if you wanted to build a house, you wouldn't put all your energy into one specific brick. You wouldn't pick up a brick and be like, "You are gonna be the best brick in this house." You wouldn't focus all your attention on laying that one brick perfectly and then waiting for the house to magically turn into what you wanted it to be. Instead, you would strategically lay each brick very carefully and very intentionally so that the house looked beautiful at the end, and every single brick in each of the walls would be doing its job. They would be supporting the bricks around it so that your vision becomes your reality.
And it is exactly the same with content. You are not pouring all of your energy into one specific post, hoping it will go viral, and it will be the one that sells out your business. You are putting an equal amount of effort into every single post, trusting that each one is doing its job for you so your business vision will eventually become your reality.
Now, someone might land on one of your bricks and think it's super special, and that might be the brick that they buy from. Or someone might peruse all of your bricks and then decide to buy from you once they'd consumed enough of your content.
So let's look at a really basic content strategy that you could build for yourself tomorrow. This isn't the best content strategy you'll ever, you'll have ever seen, but this is a content strategy that's super simple that can help you if you really are stuck struggling with what to post, if you've maybe skipped out on your grid for a while and you really wanna come back but you don't know where to start. This is a simple system that you can follow for yourself if you also want to try and DIY it.
So first of all, decide on your business goals and how much you want to post. So for example, your goals might be to increase brand awareness and drive traffic to your website by posting three times a week.
Then choose the days that you want to post on. Typically, when I do content strategies for clients, depending on their audience. If I'm doing three days a week, it'll be Monday, Wednesday, Friday, because I like to leave a gap in between content. But I've also had clients where it makes sense to post on a weekend because their audience who are looking for that specific service would also be scrolling on a weekend.
So you decide the days that you want to post on, and then choose the format of your post. So again, for example, if you were doing three posts a week, you might do one reel, one carousel, and one static post. And then once you've got that down, if the purpose of your content is to build the know, like, trust factor, your content schedule could look a little bit like this.
So you could have one post per week telling people who you are and who your business is. You could have one post per week connecting with your community and prioritising engagement, and then one post per week positioning you or your product or your service as an authority.
So altogether that could look like Monday is a brand awareness reel telling people who I am. Wednesday is a brand awareness carousel to create connection with my audience, and Friday is a static post to build trust and drive people to my website. Again, super, super simple. This isn't obviously targeted individually to your business, but it is a structure that you could follow if you don't know where to start.
And then you have that content strategy that is working to help you achieve your business goals and is also aligned with how much time and energy you actually have to show up. Is a simple strategy like this going to get you overnight results? Probably not. Is it designed for fast growth? No, of course it's not. It is built to help you be consistent with your content because consistent content equals consistent results.
And before we go to step four, I know I've mentioned this in a previous episode, but it is okay if you break the consistency habit. It is okay to take a break from your content. It's okay to miss a day. It is okay if you fall off of the posting horse. You don't need to worry about it. Your business isn't gonna fail just because you didn't show up on Instagram for a few days or a few weeks.
Breaking that posting habit will not ruin your business, especially not when you're intentional with your marketing because you're, you've already set yourself up for success. So even if you're not posting live, you've built up enough of a catalogue of posts that people landing on your feed will still get value, will still know who you are, will still know whether they like you, and will still build that trust with you.
The best thing that you can do when you've skipped a day or if you've taken an unintentional break is to get back on the horse as soon as you are ready. Because the longer you leave it, the harder it feels to show up again. And you also don't have to announce that you're back or apologise for being away because you don't owe anyone an explanation or an apology for being a human being. I see so many people that come back and they go, "Oh, I'm so sorry that I haven't posted." In the nicest way possible, nobody cares. Like, yeah, there are people that I miss their content when they're not posting, but I'm also not like, "Why is this person not giving me the content that I want to see?" Like, everybody's so wrapped up in their own lives and their own businesses, you don't need to apologise for the fact that you've not been online.
Okay, then step four of The Robin Method™ is implementing the strategy. This is the bit that I suck at, and I'm gonna be so honest with you because I don't want to sit here and preach to you like I'm the best person at implementing because it is not my strong point in the slightest. Ideas machine, 100%. Implementation machine, not a chance. However in order for the strategy to work for you, you've got to implement it. But because you've created the strategy based on your capacity to create, it should now be much easier and much more exciting for you to actually do the implementing. And it is entirely up to you whether you choose to batch create your content or whether you prefer to post on the day, whatever works for you.
I had a conversation with someone recently, and they said, "Batching just doesn't work for me. I don't really like scheduling posts." But they are somebody that shows up so consistently on their socials anyway, they don't need to batch create because it already works for them showing up daily.
For me, can't do it. I cannot show up daily because of my energy levels. I'm a projector in human design, so I need a lot of rest. Also, ADHD. Like, I am somebody that cannot be on and cannot be face... Like, what's the word that I want to say? Face fronting. I don't, I don't even know if that's the that's the right phrase, but I cannot be- like, I cannot have my face online every day. I batch a lot. That's what works for me. I'm batching these podcast episodes because I know that when the hyperfocus is gone, I'm not gonna be able to record like this all the time. So you just have to decide what works for you.
But having a content strategy means that when it comes to creating content, you're not making decisions around what you need to post. All you need to do is sit down, look at your plan, and create the post.
And that's why The Robin Intensive is so valuable for my clients, because I do steps one, two, and three for them. So I do the review, do the optimisation, build the strategy, and then all they have to do is implement the strategy. So for a lot of people, that would work really well, not needing to make all those decisions. And of course, I'll leave the link to The Robin Intensive in the show notes.
Step five is nurturing the strategy. So this is where you continue implementing for 90 days, regardless of results. And then at the end of the 90 days, you can look at the results you've had and tweak your strategy from there. It's really important you give the strategy enough time to work. And then at the end of the 90 days, you rinse and repeat The Robin Method™. Or if you're a client, you can opt for The Quarterly Refresh, where, again, I'll go back in, I'll tweak the strategy for you so that, again, you don't have to make those decisions. I can do it all for you. And then all you- that's required from you is to create the content and implement the strategy.
And I want you to know that nothing is a failure. Everything is valuable data. If something doesn't land, if you're not getting much engagement, if your clicks have dropped, that is all useful information for you to know because then you can tweak your strategy with evidence around what works for you specifically and what doesn't work for you. You're not guessing, you're not following what the gurus tell you, you're building and evolving your strategy based on your personal data, which is so much more impactful in the long run.
So that is The Robin Method™: Review, Optimise, Build, Implement, and Nurture. Five steps that take you from I don't know what to post to a content strategy you're actually excited about. And I know that this was a lot to take in, so if you want to refer back to this framework, you can find the page on my website that is dedicated to this method. I've also got a blog post that will walk you through it, so I will leave the link to both of those in the show notes.
Now, I didn't sit down one day and just invent this framework. I looked back at nearly a decade of experience of working for clients, working in marketing, at every stage I'd built, every client I'd helped, every result I'd seen, and then I realised that I'd been doing the same five things every single time, but without giving it a name or giving it a structure.
So The Robin Method™ has always been behind everything that I do, but now it's got a name that fits with this company. And nearly a decade later, it is the exact same framework I use when you sign up for The Robin Intensive.
If you don't know, The Robin Intensive is done for you content with a twist, and that twist is you. So following the review, optimise, and build stages, I create a 90-day content strategy and plan for you, telling you exactly what to post, when to post, the purpose of the posts, the hooks, and the calls to action, all designed around your business goals, what your audience needs, and your capacity to create content. Then all you have to do is fill in the bit in the middle. So that's the caption, it's the carousel text if you wanna create a carousel, record the video, and then you implement the strategy, which you'll obviously be excited to do because you'll have every decision already made for you, which makes showing up consistently and confidently easy-peasy lemon squeezy.
You can fill out the enquiry form via the link in the show notes, and I will send you your bespoke proposal based on exactly what you and your business needs. I have had someone say that they've had issues with looking at the sales page on mobile, so if you're having a problem, I'm trying so hard with Squarespace to sort it out, but it still keeps erroring. If you're having a problem, check it out on your laptop because there doesn't seem to be a problem there.
So in the next episode of The Art of Confident Content, I am revealing the secret to feeling confident about every post you share. And this is really following on from what we discussed in episode two around relying on validation from external sources. And we are not doing that anymore, okay? No more. So thank you for listening. Don't forget to leave a review. Share on your socials. Send me a message on Instagram. Tell me whether this method will work for you, and I will see you in the next one.
The Art of Confident Content is planned, edited and produced by Rebecca at Robin Rose Creative. If you've been thinking about launching your own podcast and want support bringing it to life, email hello@robinrosecreative.com. I would love to hear about your idea and discuss how I can help you with the concept, episode ideation, and launch content.
And when you're finished leaving me a five-star review, don't forget to check out The Robin Intensive. This is done for you content with a twist that will help you post consistently for the next 90 days at least. The link is in the show notes.
Oh, and one last thing. If you made it here, DM me the word gift, that's G-I-F-T, on Instagram because I've got a little something special just for you.
The Art of Confident Content is planned, edited and produced by Rebecca at Robin Rose Creative (that’s me in the pic!). If you've been thinking about launching your own podcast and want support bringing it to life, get in touch here. I'd love to hear about your idea and discuss how I can help you with the concept, episode ideation and launch content.
You’ll find previous podcasts planned, edited and produced by Rebecca here:
