Hearing a song you love on the radio, you might wish they played it again soon.
The same is true for your audience’s response to your best content :)
So it’s good to have a consistent rhythm of reposting your popular articles, videos, or podcast episodes.
This may give you some relief — you don’t have to keep creating new content forever! Although, it is good for your creativity/mental fitness to experiment sometimes :)
So in addition to occasionally exploring and creating new stuff, be sure to improve and repost your best old stuff!
First, Create Experimentally
At first, when you have little to no content yet, you will need to create many new pieces, to grow your creativity-fitness and eventually stumble upon the gems.
Let me reassure you — quality content will arise when you focus on quantity of output.
You often can’t predict whether your content will do really well. So put it out there, and let your audience tell you!
Your Best 100
As you create more content over the years, you’ll notice that some of them make a much bigger impact with your audience. Take note of the popular pieces.
For example, you might find that blog posts about a specific trend in your industry have consistently outperformed others, or that videos where you told a story from your personal life resonated more deeply with your viewers.
Track your metrics (simply — likes divided by reach), to identify these high-performing pieces. As I explained in The 3 Stages of Content Creation, the pieces that get more engagement are worth re-sharing regularly.
Imagine having 100 popular posts that you’ve created, that you simply keep recycling.
Each time, before you repost one of your best pieces, take a few moments to improve it. A few ways to do this — add another example or two to make your blog post even more relevant. Maybe add an image or two. If it’s a video, edit it to add good looking subtitles. And update the title so that it’s even better.
100 improved (old) posts is enough content for a whole year — or even two to three years, if you are mixing in some new experimental stuff too. You’ll never run out of good content!
Track and Compare
To know what older stuff is worth repurposing means that you are using some system of tracking your content results.
Just once a month, go back and look at your writings or videos on one social media platform (e.g. Facebook or Youtube) and note down the Likes divided by Reach. This will help you to see what’s making an impact compared to everything else you’ve posted.
For example, let’s say a video received 21 likes and had a reach of 300. That’s a 7% rate. Compared to another video which had a reach of 400 but only 15 likes (therefore about 4%). The 7% one is an indicator that it resonated more with your audience. Compare this data across your posts to identify your most worthwhile pieces.
If you’re struggling with getting enough ideas in the first place on what to write or speak about, or want to dive into tracking content, study my Content Creation Course.
Have a rhythm, like a show
The “secret” to building an audience is to be consistent in posting content.
Notice that any TV show or popular radio show has a consistent schedule of when new episodes air. Otherwise, they disappoint and lose their audience.
My rhythm of content at this time is as follows:
Mondays I post a shortened blog post (something that did well before) to Facebook (and also schedule it for Instagram and YouTube.) I also post an old best video to LinkedIn.
Tuesdays I repost a good short video to Facebook, Instagram, YouTube.
Wednesdays are when I promote my current or upcoming offer.
Thursdays are when my scheduled posts (from Monday) are posted to Instagram and YouTube.
Fridays I post an article to my website blog (and I copy/paste it to Medium, LinkedIn, and Substack as well), and I make a corresponding video which I then post to Facebook and Youtube. I also immediately record a shorter video for Instagram Live. The best of these shorter videos are what I upload on Tuesdays.
You don’t have to do all these platforms. The key is to have a plan that you can be consistent with, so that you’re continually creating and publishing.
Notice that in my schedule, I only write a blog post once a week: on Fridays. Even so, I have already written so much over the years that I now simply edit a best older post every other Friday. So in essence, I only write something new once every 2 weeks, thanks to all the posts I’ve already written over the years.
You’ll get there too, as you keep creating and tracking your best content!
See it as a personal growth practice…
Before you build an engaged audience, being consistent with content is about the practice of gentle self-discipline. This will serve you in so many aspects of your business.
Be strict about showing up, lenient about the results.
In the beginning, when I had no content to work with, I experimented with creating a lot — I made a short video 5 times a week, and wrote a short post alongside each video. I did this to practice using my “voice” and finding my communication style.
Yes — it was 5 new pieces of content each week, in 2 different formats, for the first year of my creator journey. That consistent practice helped me get out of writer’s block and a previous resistance to making videos. It gave me the creativity-fitness that has allowed me to consistently keep making things.
Create a plan for yourself. How often will you create and publish content? Dedicate yourself to the plan. Do it for the sake of your creativity fitness, as well as your heartfelt service to your audience.
You’ll also grow a lot in your communication skills.
Do this and your audience will grow. And, they’ll tell you which of your content pieces are most impactful.
You’ll be well on your way to finding your 100+ best pieces!
This post was originally written in August 2021. Updated in July 2024.
This was so helpful to me for creating my fall business plan around my content and writing :)