788: Repurpose Your Content and Maximize Results in Under an Hour a Week

0:00It's a lot easier to market a piece of content than to actually create it. which means this is good news. We likely can be creating less content and thinking just a little bit more strategically about the promotion of that content and get way better results. Hey, my name is Jenna Kutcher and I am obsessed with all things business, marketing numbers, and helping you to navigate both the messy and the magical seasons of this thing called life. I'm a small town mama who took a$300 camera, grew a successful photo biz, and now I work from home and run a seven-figure online business. I teach you the tried and true secrets to building a career you adore.

0:38Shy away from the real talk? No way. Money, hardship, growth, loss, and marketing are all topics we discuss here. Think of this as your one-stop shop for happy hour with a gal pal mixed with business school. Pull up a seat, make sure you're cozy, and get ready to be challenged and encouraged while you learn. This is the Gold Digger Podcast. Are you feeling a little overwhelmed? If you are, I totally get it. When you think about it as entrepreneurs and bloggers and content creators, our to-do lists are never ending. It's this constant juggle between creating new content, engaging with our audience, and oh yeah, actually running our businesses.

1:15That's why today's topic is one of my absolute favorites, how to easily repurpose your content to maximize your results in under an hour a week. Now, the strategy I'm about to teach you today gives your content a way longer shelf life, making sure that your hard work actually gets seen and consumed and enjoyed. Gone are the days where you spend tons of hours working on a lengthy blog post, a podcast episode, a YouTube video, an Instagram reel, only to hit post without a plan to actually promote it. I'm going to share with you my best tips to get more eyes on your content in way less time than it takes to binge watch your favorite TV show.

1:52Together, we're going to unlock the power of the ultimate search engine and visual discovery platform rolled into one, which is Pinterest. Now, if you have been hanging out with me for any length of time, you probably already know my obsession with Pinterest. I want to invite you right now to join me for my free training. It's had a 20 extra traffic in one hour a week using Pinterest. You can head to teachmetopin.com and this will give you a visual of what I'm going to be talking about in today's episode. that's teachmetopin.com to learn how Pinterest can work for your business. I'm going to explain in just a few exactly why I love Pinterest so much, but I want to give you a little sneak peek right now.

2:31Pinterest content lives more than 120 times longer than any social media platform. We are talking about turning hours into months, sometimes even years. To this day, I literally get thousands of impressions a month on pins that are over three years old. And my question for you is, is the content that you created years ago still working for you? And if it's not, today's episode is going to change everything for you. If this doesn't revolutionize the way you think about your content and how you're promoting it, I do not know what will. So are you ready to transform your content strategy while reclaiming your precious time?

3:08If so, let's dive on in. More to do is less time and an infinite number of tools to keep track of. Gold diggers, do you ever feel like doing business has never felt harder? Well, the good news is you don't need a miracle to hit your goals. You just need HubSpot. Their all-in-one customer platform can make growing your business so much easier. Imagine this, high quality leads, fast closing deals, wildly happy customers, and more benchmark breaking quarters. It's not a miracle. It's HubSpot. Visit HubSpot.com to get started today. That's HubSpot.com. I want to take you down memory lane as we go through this episode, because in this topic, I see so many gaps in my own entrepreneurial journey and mistakes that I've made and places where I wasn't actually being strategic or savvy.

4:01And so I want to start and set the scene of why I'm so obsessed with smarter content creation, not only to save you time, but to drive more results. Here's why I'm obsessed with this. When I first started my business back in 2010, which it's crazy that it was that long ago, the first thing I did was I opened up a free WordPress blog. And a lot of people don't know this about me, but I blogged Monday through Friday for years. I'm talking five or six years. I blogged Monday through Friday. I never missed a single day. I didn't have a single team member. There was no copywriters helping me. I was blogging Monday through Friday every single week without missing a single day.

4:45And I smile when I think about that version of me because I don't know what she was talking about. I have no idea how she had so much to say. And I don't really know why that became my rhythm. But it's so fascinating to me because I feel like these days, we are so overloaded by content creation. And I recognize and see in myself, even in the earliest days of entrepreneurship for me, that I stepped on the hamster wheel of content creation. And I don't know that I've ever gotten off of it. I've just gotten better at managing it. And it's so interesting to me because the more that I speak with entrepreneurs, the more that I'm feeling this pulse in our culture right now of like, we are burnt out on creating content.

5:31We started our businesses to do the things we love, not to create dancing reels on Instagram, not to feel like we need to write five paragraph essays. like we want to do what we love, but yet content creation is an important part of the game. And so it's like, how do we find this balance where the content that we're actually creating is generating real results? It's not just living and dying on social media just for likes and comments, but it's generating real results. I've moved the needle in our companies so that any amount of time that we're spending on the content, we are clear and confident that it's actually worth it.

6:10And I really think that the burnout comes from this feeling of like, I am working so hard and I have no idea if it's actually working. I don't know if it's actually worth it. And I know for me as a mom, when I am working, I want everything that I'm working on to be absolutely worth being away from my kids because being with my kids is like my number one priority. It's the number one value that I have. And so if I'm going to spend any amount of time away from them and at my computer, the content that I'm creating, I don't want to just work on it. I want it to work for me. Listen to this statistic.

6:47HubSpot's state of the marketing report found that marketers typically spend around 16 hours per week creating content. This includes writing blog posts, creating videos, designing graphics, and more. So let's just say that we are working a 40-hour workweek. I kind of laugh at that idea because I think a lot of entrepreneurs probably we work more than 40 hours a week, but let's just say we're working 40 hours a week. Nearly half of our time every single week is going into content creation. So it's no wonder that we are burnt out, that we are sick of it, or that we don't even want to get into it in the first place.

7:22So when we look at this statistic that 16 hours a week are being spent on content creation, that is a good chunk of our time. That is also time away from your craft. It is time away from your family. It is time away from the things in your life that you love. Here's another statistic that I thought was super interesting. Clear Voice's content marketing strategy survey found that 27 % of marketers spend between one to two hours on content creation daily, while 35 % spend two to four hours, indicating that a significant of our work days are dedicated merely to creating content. Now, Now, what I think has happened in this culture is that there is this pressure to constantly be producing new content.

8:07And of course, we're feeling overwhelmed by that. When I look back at the Jenna who was blogging every single day, I'm like, girl, what did you have to say? Like, how did you even come up with ideas? And so this is why it is more crucial now more than ever to find actual strategies that allow you to actually get results from what you're creating and to make sure that those creations are moving the needle. I bring this up on pretty much every podcast episode. So it's not a surprise that I'm obsessed with this show. I want to someday be on this show. But I always think about Shark Tank. And when the business owners are pitching to the sharks, one of the biggest questions is like, how are you getting your leads?

8:48And so many people, I think, in the business world could not answer that question with clarity saying, the average cost per lead is, my average order value is, my churn rate is, and not knowing your numbers. And I think that with content, it almost feels elusive. We're creating all this stuff. It's really good work. But usually the only parameters that we're using to judge if it's effective or not, or if it did well, quote unquote, or not, are likes and comments. And it's not actually like email subscribers or orders or sales or new clients. And so I think that we've got to really shift how we're looking at content in general to give us that clarity and confidence.

9:34I think so many of us are desiring and that I also think will help so many of us to alleviate that burned out feeling of like, I don't even know why I'm doing this. So let's move on. We've talked about how much content we're creating and how much time we're spending on it. And it's no wonder we feel overloaded. But the next part is this, there is a massive neglect around our promotion of the content, right? So we are spending so much time creating the content, but we are failing to invest good amounts of time into the promotion of the content. Here's something I want for you to really think about.

10:14If you are spending all of this time creating this amazing blog post or freebie or podcast episode or YouTube video or Instagram reel, and you're head down creating this thing, but you don't actually have a plan on how you're going to promote it and get it in front of the audience you're creating it for, nobody's actually going to enjoy the thing. And I always think about Pareto's principle, where they say 80 % of your results usually comes from 20 % of your efforts. And on a content spectrum, I think that a lot of times we're spending 80 % of our time creating the content and 20 % of the time promoting it.

10:52And I definitely think we need to flip that so that we are thinking more about the promotion of the piece. Because if we don't do a good job promoting it, no one's actually going to enjoy it or get value from it. Zazzle Media's The State of Content Marketing Survey found that while content creation is a major focus. Only 30 % of marketers spend a significant amount of time on content promotion. This is basically telling us that the majority of marketers are dedicating less time to promotion compared to creation, which is what I was just talking about. So we have to really think about, okay, we are spending a very significant chunk of our time of our 40 hour work week on the creation, but we are not actually thinking about the promotion of that creation.

11:37Here's another stat that will drive this home. According to HubSpot, marketers spend about 10 % of their work week on content distribution and promotion. So again, this is usually only four hours per week. So again, if you're spending 16 hours creating and only four hours promoting, and I think that's honestly pretty generous, that is half of your week devoted to content and the promotion of it. That's a lot of time that we're spending on content creation. But my question for you is to ponder what would happen if we redistributed your time, made less content, but made the content that you're making drive more impact, drive greater results, and live a lot longer.

12:15Like my question that I think we should all really consider is what if we didn't have to spend 20 hours a week on content after all? Let's be real. As business owners, we know a reliable connection isn't optional. I've had my fair share of slow and lagging internet and let me tell you, nothing kills your groove faster. It is the ultimate productivity killer. You can't process payments, you can't talk to clients, and your team feels stuck waiting on you. Back when I started my business, I learned pretty quickly that things only run as smoothly as your connection does. And that's why I love what Spectrum Business is doing.

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13:34And if you run a business, you know, the holiday rush is no joke. I've done more Black Fridays than I can count at this point. And let me tell you, orders at 2am, inventory updates, refreshing my site, hoping it can keep up. It never stops being intense. That is exactly why I use Shopify. It keeps everything running smoothly when things get their craziest. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10 % of all e-commerce in the U.S. From household names to entrepreneurs who will be participating in their first Black Friday Cyber Monday this year. They've got ready-to-use templates, AI tools, and support available 24-7 so that selling stays simple even during the peak madness.

14:17And ShopPay's quick checkout, well, it's a game changer. It means way fewer abandoned carts and way more happy customers. This Black Friday, join the thousands of new entrepreneurs hearing for the first time with Shopify. Sign up for your free trial today at shopify.com slash gold digger. That's shopify.com slash gold digger. Go to shopify.com slash gold digger and make this Black Friday one to remember. When I think about where most small business owners, especially listeners of the show are spending the majority of their time, a lot of times it's on social media. And I love social media. I show up on social media.

14:56I love connecting with you guys on social media. But one of the things that I've realized over and over and over again, is that when we focus so much on content that performs well, quote unquote, we're really playing into the algorithm and the game of social media. And we're missing the opportunity to drive the real result, which is to get people off of those platforms and onto places that you own and can control. And so when I think about where our content creation is likely going, I think it's a lot of short form content that is living and dying within hours without actually reaching the people that we're creating it for.

15:34That is why I am still a huge believer and lover in things like blogging. I have been blogging for 14 years. Blogs are not dead. Long form content lives on way longer than that Instagram reel that you're trying to create. That's also why I've shown up on this show for hundreds and hundreds of episodes, because this content is going to serve people months and years to come. I can't say the same thing about an Instagram reel that I posted months ago. I don't think it's actually moving the needle and I don't think people are finding it months from now. So there is a huge impact when we're not actually thinking about the promotion of our content and promoting our content effectively.

16:17So here's a thing that I want to tell you about now. And I left this out intentionally. So remember how I was blogging daily for years upon years upon years. Well, there was a lot wrong to that approach. There's a few that were right. It definitely showed me consistency. It helped me figure out how to write copy. It helped me to show up on the internet. It helped me to kind of chronicle my life in a way that was maybe interesting. Those are maybe the few things that I got right. But there was so many things I got wrong. So here was my process at the time. I would write the blog post. I would schedule the blog post.

16:57And then I would write one Facebook post to a company said blog post, I would publish it. And then I would move on to the next one. So basically, if somebody didn't see that Facebook post promoting the blog, they probably would never enjoy their content. And when you think about social media, and a lot of the statistics saying 3 % to 5%, maybe up to 10 % of our followers even see what we're posting, let alone engage with it. I probably wasn't doing so hot. I barely even had a Facebook audience at the time. So maybe there were like 10 people reading those posts. What's so interesting is that it's no wonder we feel like we live in this churn and burn society when we're doing things like I was doing, where we were creating, posting at once saying, well, yeah, I promoted it.

17:44People saw it. And then moving on to the next creation. I could have done so much better if I would have flipped that strategy. And I'm going to share what I wish I would have done a little bit differently. Now, the reality is on platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, we all know this, but content has the teeniest amount of a lifespan. A tweet is relevant for 18 minutes, a Facebook post, five hours, an Instagram post around 48 hours at best, but most of the engagement happens in the first three to five hours. After that, engagement drops off sharply and our content gets buried. We know this.

18:23And yet we are spending so much time and energy creating content on these platforms where our work is literally dying on the vine. Now, here's what I need you to understand. These platforms are not necessarily set up to help us get our work found. They are not meant to connect people to our websites or our landing pages or our sales pages, their goal, like Meta's goal, when they sit down, this is what I imagine, when they sit down in a boardroom, Mark Zuckerberg is like, how long are we keeping people on this app? How can we keep them on the app longer? I don't want them to click off. So any posts that have call to actions telling them to get off the app, let's just bury those.

19:03We want to just keep people entertained and joyful and curious on this app. can you see that these platforms are not set up for us to sell on? Their goal is not to get people off of the app and onto your website. That means that while they can be a part of our marketing strategies, they shouldn't be the whole. I would love for you as a listener to sit down and just track your time for the next week to really look and see, okay, how much time am I spending creating content? Where is this content living? What results is it getting me? And how am I promoting this content? Now, what's interesting is, is that the content that we're working so hard on, it's not getting the visibility it deserves.

19:49And it's also not getting the lifespan it deserves. What this means is, and we know this, I think innately, we know this, and that is why the burnout exists, is that our valuable content isn't getting the visibility it deserves. We're creating awesome stuff that can help people and serve people and give people joy. And yet it's not even getting a chance because it's not getting seen. Given that we're spending around 50 % of our time each week and 26 % of our marketing budgets on content creation alone, it is very clear that we need to have a better strategy for promotion. So here is the solution I am proposing for you today.

20:28It is not all doom and gloom over here. There is this part where the angels sing, Pinterest. Hear me out. Okay. I know it's no secret. I am obsessed with Pinterest. I have literally been talking about Pinterest on this show for the last seven years. The funny thing is I did not even know Pinterest was a tool in my toolbox when I first hired my first team member. So I've painted the picture of the early days when it was just me all by myself. When I made my first hire, I hired an amazing woman named Caitlin. We sat down at a coffee shop and I will never forget the first day I met her. She says to me as I'm sipping my little almond milk latte, she says, so how is Pinterest working?

21:11And I said, oh my gosh, I have the best wardrobe goals. I have designed my dream house, which apparently has 20 bedrooms. And I have the best chicken piccata recipe that I will probably never bake, but it is pinned on Pinterest. And she starts laughing and she's like, no, no, no. Like, how are you using Pinterest for your marketing? And I didn't even know that was a thing. I was a wedding photographer. Pinterest is like a gold mine for weddings. And I wasn't even using it in that way. I didn't know that I could use Pinterest for marketing. So why Pinterest and how does this help solve our content problem?

21:49Well, unlike other social media platforms, Pinterest is a total game changer because it is a search engine. So it's not social media. It is a search engine. When you think Google, you also should be thinking Pinterest. And because it's a search engine, it allows our content to stay visible. And it also continues to drive traffic for months, even years. So when we think about this as a search engine by nature, its goal, they literally want to send somebody to your website, to your blog post, to your podcast episode, to your landing page, to connect somebody to the solution to their question. Think about when you go on Google, it populates all these different websites.

22:30It is literally telling you, click here, this matches what you are looking for. This is how Pinterest works. So let me really quick break down how Pinterest works for you, especially for those of you who might just think of it just like I did as a place for meal planning or outfits or dreaming up your dream home. Here's what you might not understand about Pinterest. Anyone can upload content onto Pinterest. Okay. It's so funny to me because a lot of times people will be like, oh my gosh, I saw there was a pin of your work. And I'm like, I know I put it there. That means that you can contribute.

23:02You can show your photos, you can show your freebies. And here's where it gets interesting. When you upload something on Pinterest, you can also attach a website link to it. So you can literally say, this pin should send people to this place. The link will direct people to a specific destination if they now click on your pin. So not only are you uploading your content and your work, but you are also designating the destination of where it should take people. Now, Pinterest's main goal is to connect its users with solutions or things that they're looking for. So when we think about this, if somebody is searching for something and they're using keywords related to the content that you have uploaded to Pinterest, your pins have a chance to pop up and then lead them.

23:49Even if you don't have a website, you send traffic to landing pages, to opt-in pages, to grow your email list, to your Instagram, to your YouTube, to your podcast. You can send them anywhere that you have a URL to on the internet. It's basically like having your own little traffic directing system thanks to Pinterest search functionality. So what does this mean for us in the realm of content creation and saving time? If we shift some of our focus from content creation to smarter promotion, especially leveraging Pinterest, overall, we can make less content and have our content work harder for us.

24:23So again, think of early days, Jenna, here's what I wish she would have done. I wish Jenna, instead of writing five blog posts every single week for five years, I wish that she would have written one really powerful blog post that would serve her ideal audience really well. One post per week. And then I wish that that Jenna would have thought of different ways to promote that one piece of content multiple times. And so instead of just posting up one Facebook post and whoever happens to see it at 8am on a Monday morning, clicks to the blog post, which is a very small amount of audience, I would give people multiple chances and multiple angles to land on the same piece of content.

25:12And that Jenna would be more strategic and savvy. And so not only would it be a blog post that would serve them, but there would be some sort of call to action or next step for that person to take so that I had the opportunity to get in touch with them. Ideally, now this Jenna did not even know about email lists. But ideally, I would invite them to opt in for my email list so that I could send them emails and stay in touch with them, capture that website traffic. So when we think about this strategy, my question for you to ponder is this, would it be easier to create one solid piece of content for me in this scenario, one blog post and think of five to 10 different ways to promote it?

25:56Or would it be easier to create five different blog posts and promote it five different times and then let it die. I think you all know that that first option is way easier. It's a lot easier to market a piece of content than to actually create it, which means this is good news. We likely can be creating less content and thinking just a little bit more strategically about the promotion of that content and get way better results. This isn't just about maximizing our marketing efforts. It is about saving us time and getting us off of that content creation hamster wheel. So let's dive on in to how we can better balance our time and use Pinterest as our partner to extend the shelf life of our content and the reach of it, which will help us drive greater results without the constant churn and burn.

26:47So remember how a tweet lives for 18 minutes, Instagram posts 48 hours max to survive and content is pretty much dead after eight hours on Facebook. On Pinterest, the average lifespan of just one pin, I'm talking about one graphic, is four months. That is right. We are talking about turning hours or even minutes into months, even years. So let's say that the old Jenna is now enlightened and she has a new strategy. So now she is just going to create one really valuable blog post per week. And she's going to started thinking about different ways that she can promote that one blog post. What's so interesting is that you can create a killer blog post, you can craft the perfect pin, and then you can share it on Pinterest.