Creating and releasing strong content is more important in 2021 than ever before. There is more content available to people, and making sure yours stands out can mean the difference between a steady stream of interested prospects and the deserts of Sahara.
We are living in the information age. Little carries a higher premium than information.
And quality information delivered in an easy to access format is even more valuable.
“Content is the reason search began in the first place.”
But how do you manage your content plan along with everything else you have on your plate? How do you make sure you have strong topics, content, scheduling, promotions and everything else you need to get your content in front of your audience?
How can you keep all the balls in the air at once and make sure nothing drops or gets lost in the shuffle?
The easiest answer to this is through a strong system.
Whatever kind of content you are trying to create, you need to keep track of your ideas, your content, your promotional plan…
All the pieces in order to make sure your system is running smoothly.
Create a Content Project
The first thing you will need to do is to create a project for your Content. This project will house your content ideas, your promotional plan, your template for all the things you need to do each time you write something, and will allow you to have people help you as your team grows.
Depending on your version of Asana you may want to create a separate team for this, or just a new project. I like to keep all my content related stuff under one team that I can add my graphic designer, social media person, etc to.
This is also where you will decide how you would like your project to be arranged. You can use a list, where everything goes in order. Or you can create boards like Trello and Kanban projects. Whatever works best for your work style is fine for this.
"It's quite fun to do the impossible."
Organize Your Project
Now it’s time to organize your project.
In Asana you can create sections. These can be To Do, In Progress and Done, or you can get more complex.
I recommend customizing these for your content creation needs.
Personally, I like to have an Ideas section, a Template Section, and an In Progress Section.
In the Ideas section I keep any ideas I want to write about. These may come up as I’m watching webinars, reading books or cruising the internet.
I get ideas from questions I see on social media, emails I get from people on my list, and conversations I have with coaching clients.
Anytime I get an idea I can create a new task, drop it in my Ideas section, and I always have a place to go when I’m ready to write a blog article, make a social media post or prepare for a talk or interview.
The next section is the Template section. This is where I create my promotion template task, and then duplicate it each time I have content to promote.
"Above all, you want to create something you're proud of."
Build your Template Task
Now it’s time to create your template tasks.
I may create templates for social media promotions, interview promotions, articles and any other type of content I want to promote.
For example, when I write a blog there are a number of steps that need to happen. Research, write, create graphics for the website, social media graphics, posting in social media automation platforms, sharing in FB groups, etc.
Whatever the steps are, I add them to the task as subtasks. Then I do the same thing for all kinds of content I create. FB live, webinars, podcasts, etc.
This gives me a bank of tasks I don’t need to recreate.
Take the time to really think this through. If you have team members that help you with this you can assign tasks to them. If it’s just you then you get them all right now. 🙂
But don’t worry. It won’t be like this forever.
As you assign tasks to yourself it may feel overwhelming. Just remember, you’ve been doing all of this already. You are just writing it down now and adding some structure to your processes.
And this structure is what will allow you to grow.
Traditional marketing talks at people. Content marketing talks with them.
Start Using Your Project
As I have said before, no project management tool is worth a dime if you don’t use it.
And, to be totally blunt about it, if you are not interested in using anything but Google Sheets to manage all your content creation, then that is the best tool for you.
I’m not about bringing people kicking and screaming into the world of Project Management and Asana.
I do believe it’s a powerful tool. I believe it will save you time and energy. I believe it will save you money by helping you to create processes that work and generate money. And I believe it will save you embarrassment by helping you make sure you hit all the important points, each and every time you write.
BUT…
You have to be willing to use it.
It doesn’t work if you use it sometimes. It doesn’t work if you use it partially and continue to manage parts of your processes on post it notes.
A project management system, and tool, will only work if you and your team fully embrace it.
This is a strong system for managing content creation, making sure you are creating regularly and consistently, and ensuring your content works for you by promoting it regularly and sharing it far and wide.
And…
Only if you use it. 🙂
If you do decide to give this a shot I’d love to hear how it turns out. How do you use Asana to keep track of your content creation? What do you find it most helpful for?
And, for bonus points, what hacks have you found that allow you to be more consistent and efficient in your content creation efforts?
