The importance of building a social media content bank for your business

Time is so precious, and people often say, “Time is money.” Creating a content bank will without a doubt help save time and ultimately result in your social media success. Though challenging and hectic, gathering as much social media content as possible will save a lot of time and effort at the end of the day.

When it comes to social media marketing, getting your content organized is crucial to your success. In short, you need to have your content calendar and content bank in play to ensure all is well. The two are critical for any social media marketer as they help get rid of everyday content haggle and ultimately saving you a lot of time and effort to become a little bit more creative.

No more complaints with regard to what to write about or even, lack of enough time to create the kind of content you want, the following steps will help you to get your house in order and create the ultimate social media content bank.

1. Know the aspects of your brand you’d like to show your target audience

The very first step in creating your social media content bank is to itemize all aspects of your brand including user-generated content, brand attributes, lifestyle content, special dates, future product launches, your social media goals and benchmarks among others. In short, you will have to consider every aspect of your brand.

By any means, you need a content calendar by now. All the times need to be developed knowing that you intend to highlight them. It is just a matter of being prepared. However, if you already have your content calendar in place, you simply need to go on to the next step.

2. Gather as much content as possible; both old and new

With your content calendar in place, you simply know what you want to talk about. You then need to start looking at all your social media content on all of your social media platforms.

This will include all the content that you have created previously and what you are yet to post. Experts even point out to the significance of those old photos when re-purposed for throwback posts as well as using them as backgrounds.

You should start by overcoming the thought that everyone else knows the same things as you. Instead, you need to set up a never-ending source of relevant and unique content ideas that will help you to create the needed content for your content bank.

It is crucial to initiate mind mapping starting with your own business, industry or profession at the center. You will then look into the main departments, subjects or headers that you deal with such as websites, social media, copywriting and advertising among others. Afterwards, you may want to look into details on each of the main headers for instance in websites, you may consider SEO., without even drilling down too far, you will realize that you got a lot of content themes in your mind map. From the themes, you will be able to come up with the right topics. Take for instance SEO; you will have so many topics to talk about ranging from keyword research to answering the question “why you need to rank on the top of search engines like Google.”

With a record of themes in place, you will come up with a list of topic ideas which you will save as well and plan for the ultimate content bank you need to create.

3. Sitting down and creating your content

This is a crucial step in creating your content bank. Creating some creative content needs some time, and you have to be devoted to doing this. You will, therefore, need to set aside time at least once a fortnight to write your content based on the themes and topics you have in mind. It is necessary to auto-schedule your time to ensure things get done to a standard you will be happy with.

But, what happens when you think you are not such a good writer? You need not worry. There are many other options for which you can create great content. If you happen to be one of the busy workaholics or simply can’t get your hands right when creating content, you can consider the following options;

• Delegate- provided you know what you want to write about, it doesn’t have to be written by you per se! You may decide to delegate the task of content creation to your junior staff member who is working around the clock to learn more about your industry and such. This will be a perfect opportunity for them to research and write at least 80% of the content as you finesse it and work to complete the remaining 20%. This is the perfect win-win scenario where you will get your content, and the staff member will have gained some knowledge about your particular industry.
• Get professional- of course, there are times you may not be lucky to have a junior staff you can delegate the task to. In this situation, getting a professional copywriter will be the most viable option. There are many professional copywriters out there to help you get the task completed in the best standard you can think of provided you get one who is experienced writing on your industry or relevant to what you want.
• Try other options- content creation doesn’t necessarily have to be based on article writing. You can as well consider other styles of content creation. You may even consider using some of the many cool apps and programs online, some which are free, to help you in creating such content as cartoons, presentations, slideshows and infographics among others. Such content requires very little text but may be crucial as a visual form of communication making part of your content bank.

You, therefore, need not worry about your inability to create the best articles available on the internet. You can as well have your wonderful content ready for your content bank through the three options.

4. Create a system

After gathering as much content as possible, the next step is creating a place where all the content gathered will be put.

The importance of having a clear-cut system is to enable you in streamlining your efforts, especially when working with a large team. You may make it relatively simple keeping folders for every month or labeling the content that is yet to be posted as “For Posting” and that which has been previously posted as “Used.”

For the sake of a team, either Dropbox or Google Drive are some awesome options for you to keep all your content organized and all members on the same page. With the content properly organized and everything in place, it would be easier to identify the gaps that need to be filled. You will hence be able to point out if you need more videos or certain types of content and immediately embark on getting the gaps filled.

As a rule of thumb, in creating your content bank, you just need to keep on creating and saving your content. This will come in handy anytime you are requested to be a guest speaker since you have a whole lot of pre-made original content ready in your content bank for you to use.

Why do you need a social media content bank?

Original, thoughtful, inspiring and interesting content has often been considered as an indicator of expertise. Once you can create and share your quality content with the world, you will be surprised to learn how much your brand stands out in your industry. This is known as inbound marketing where target prospects are attracted to you and your brand other than outbound marketing where you need to go to the client in person as is the case with TV and trade shows.

While both inbound and outbound marketing can be crucial when mixed well, you need to get your content out there for your prospects to see. The ultimate secret to social media marketing is purely determined by the type, and quality of content shared out. To remain at the top of the game, you need to regularly add fresh and relevant content to your website and all other social media platforms where you are registered. To keep a good record of all the content your share out, you need to create your social media content bank for easy referencing and access to all your content.

You need your website to receive a higher search engine ranking, and the secret is simply on the quality of your content. Regular update of quality social media content is critical for your brand and no matter the effort and time it takes to get things in order, creating a social media content bank is well worth it!