A blog first strategy is best. Here's Why.
Content creation begins at home.
I keep tabs on my clients online. If I see them post something wonderful (usually on LinkedIn) and I see that it hasn’t been also posted on their blog, I’ve been known to send a friendly admonishment via DM.
Why?
Scattering your ideas all over the internet without a trail that leads back to your digital hub (your website) is not great.
It means you’re digital sharecropping (creating content exclusively for a platform that you don’t own) and not maximizing your content creation workflow.
Here’s what to do instead.
Write one long form blog post.
For starters, it doesn’t have to be called a blog. If it feels better (and a blog feels like too much of a commitment) here are some other ideas: Journal, ideas, insights, perspectives, notes, reflections, musings…you get the idea.
This also doesn’t have to be written content. It can be a podcast, YouTube video, etc. The main thing is that it’s a long(ish) piece of content.
Chop up, distribute and rapidly re-purpose
This ‘main course’ content is ready to be chopped up and scattered across the socials. There are tools that even do this for you.
Some days, when I really don’t have the mo, I dig through old posts, grab a good paragraph, make a few tweaks and post it somewhere.
When I really have my act together, I’ll set aside time to do this multiple times and schedule the content out over several weeks or months.
It takes very little brain power and I can do it in the afternoon, when I only have the energy to do non-creative work.
Social media is ephemeral but it is still a useful tool for staying visible. Main course content helps you continually feed the machine in a way that isn’t draining.
This approach keeps all your intellectual property, expertise, thought leadership — whatever you want to call it — on your website, where it belongs.
Your website is your online hub, your SSOY (Single Source of YOU). Keeping all of your ideas on your site makes it easy for people (media, clients, etc.) to do a deep dive on all your stuff without going on an online scavenger hunt.
And it makes it easy for you to keep throwing chum in the social media water for them to find you.
I’ve used about 16 different metaphors in this post, so it’s probably time to wrap up! If you’d like to explore this topic more, you can book a free 30 minute conversation below.