There’s a lot you can do to increase your chances of success on social media — think optimizing your content for engagement, sharing at the best times to post, or using strong hooks.
All these tactics are well and good, but even they don’t guarantee success. Few things do when it comes the navigating the ever-changing labyrinths of social media algorithms.
From our research and experience, there’s only one thing that comes close: showing up consistently.
There are a host of reasons why posting consistently on your chosen platform is so powerful. For one thing, social networks want to keep their users entertained and engaged, and regularly coming back for more.
In order to do that, they need a steady stream of entertaining, engaging content — so when they get that from creators like you, it makes sense that they’ll reward you for it.
There are plenty of other benefits to posting consistently, like:
- Practice makes perfect: The more content you create, the better you’ll get at it. Your content quality will improve, and you’ll get a better sense of what kind of content will resonate with your audience.
- Building trust with your audience: Sticking to a regular schedule will help strengthen your relationship with your most engaged followers.
- Increased chance of success: The more you post, the higher your chances of going viral — think of it as buying multiple lottery tickets.
But you’re here, so I’m preaching to the converted, aren’t I? If your goal is to build a strong social media presence, you likely know you need to be creating and posting more consistently.
How do you do that, exactly? First, I want to acknowledge that it’s not easy. If you’re not a full-time creator, you probably have a day job, along with the demands of life (family, staying healthy, getting enough sleep, eating, all that stuff…).
But, good news (finally!): Working smarter, not harder, can be an absolute game-changer when it comes to creating content more consistently. There are a host of simple habits you can adopt to lighten the load and make the process of building your social media following so much smoother.
Here are seven habits to help you stay on track with your content creation and keep your social media presence growing.
1. Capture ideas as they spark
Even when you do have the time to sit down and create content, the last thing you want to experience is writer’s creator’s block. Which is where this easy, effective tip comes in: save every idea you have right away.
Inspiration can strike at any time — whether you’re in the middle of a meeting, out on a walk, or scrolling through your feed. I tend to have some of my best ideas at the gym (something to do with the increased blood flow, maybe?).
By saving these ideas immediately, either in a notes app or a dedicated content creation tool, you won’t have to worry about drawing a blank when it’s time to create.
They don’t have to be fully fleshed out right away, either. Even if it’s just a couple of words, get it down. All you need is that spark.
I’m definitely biased here, but my preferred tool for this habit is Buffer’s Create Space — it’s a flexible content library of sorts, where you can save your ideas as cards that can be organized in a bunch of different ways thanks to color-coded tags and a Kanban board view.
With the Buffer app, I can easily drop them into my Create space while I’m out and about (say, on the treadmill).
I find that it also removes some friction for me to have all my ideas in the same tool I use to schedule my content. All it takes to get it posted is a couple of clicks, and — bam! — in the calendar, rather than copying and pasting from elsewhere.
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2. Block out time on your calendar
If content creation is important to you, schedule time to do it. Think of it as a meeting with your head of social media (i.e. you).
Whether it’s 30 minutes a day or a couple of hours each week, having a consistent routine ensures that content creation becomes a priority rather than an afterthought.
Experiment to find what chunks of time are the most realistic for your schedule. I tend to prefer working in short 30-minute bursts a couple of times a week, rather than sitting down for hours on end — though the latter might be the best route for you, particularly if you like the idea of content batching (which we’ll get to in a bit).
I also like to treat these time blocks as deep focus time. I’ll put in my noise-canceling headphones, put on a lo-fi playlist on YouTube, and turn all other notifications off.
3. Create a content ‘bank’
You’re creating content all the time — whether you’re doing it for social media or not. Think about it:
If you’re a fitness creator, you likely have friends and family asking you exercise-related questions regularly. Save the advice you give them, and turn it into posts.
If you’re a professional building a personal brand on LinkedIn, so much of your communication to your teammates could be content. That report on your latest marketing campaign — are there snippets you can share? That how-to guide you created for a new colleague — who else might benefit from it?
An example that is applicable no matter your platform or content niche: Consider your own social media comments and replies. Whether they are a response to a follower’s question on your latest post, or you sharing an opinion on another creator’s content, these responses can often be gold mines for new content ideas.
Again, Buffer’s Create space is the perfect place to house all these half-written posts and ideas. My preferred workflow here is to drop comments in there as soon as I hit ‘reply.’ I have a Kanban board column devoted to all these snippets, as you’ll see below:
Let’s wade even deeper into the “everything-is-content waters,” shall we? One of my favorite habits that makes social media content creation miles easier is recording my own stock footage.
This could be anything from me sitting at my desk working to a picturesque sunset. Having ready-to-use videos like these can make creation so much simpler (and is a wonderful way to turn text-based posts into videos with a simple text overlay).
Here’s an example of how we created a video about this exact tip, with some of my old stock footage: