You did hear that right. I sketched out the plan and I got it buttoned down to four days of uploads and recording. Not kidding. It’s a few hours a month. Literally, no freakin’ joke.
I mean, okay. Yes. There are a few tips and tricks to newsletters and posts and whatnot that I can still share, but it’s FOUR DAYS.
It’s a long post, so get ready. Also, get your ideal reader profile and take notes.
Content Plan for Veronica
Yesterday, we talked about coming up with a plan for your ideal reader. I now know what social media platforms I’m focusing on in order to reach Veronica and other readers kinda like her.
So now we’re going to look at her interests so we can talk about topics she’s interested in and posts and videos that she might enjoy.
Topics
She has been or is now a single mom, so tired mom jokes are a good idea. Anything with coffee or wine and laundry and being an absolute mess.
I want to stay on the positive side of things, so I’m not going to touch on self-help or “how to be a better mom” because the moms in my stories are a mess. They’re varying degrees of mess.
We can, however, make fun of failing at just about everything. Cooking, driving, drinking coffee, relationships, getting dressed. I mean… epic failings. I’m so excited about this because this is a superpower of mine I finally get to share.
The big one for me—I had thought until I wrote those two above—is that she wants to practice witchcraft but doesn’t have the time to study how to do it right. That’s an area I’ve failed in supremely so I have a lot of experience there. Also, I was thinking of making this a lead magnet with some easy “supermarket” spells, easy lotions, and crafts.
But she’s also into crafts, so those bazillion crochet pins are finally going to come in handy. But not just those. Oh, no. I have more. I’ve dogeared crafts I want to do and some I’ve done and have sworn never to do again. I have so many spare… things around the house and garage for crafts we’re going to do.
Learning sounds like a great idea, but I’ve gotta stop taking only classes on marketing because my readers do not want to know about that or how to write better. Like, I’m pretty sure they just want me to do better in those two areas. So, I’ll have to find cool articles or videos to share on that, and that might be good.
She’s very concerned about current events, but… I’m on the fence. I know that if I post a meme or something, I’ll weed out the trolls, and I’m okay with that. However. I don’t want my author page to be a political crap-show either. So, I might just steer clear of that topic. Unless there’s something news-worthy that kinda touches on what we’re discussing in the books.
Baking is her last one. I could do videos there because I’m a terrible cook and it’ll be funny.
Reading excerpts out of my books because I do a really good job with that.
Talking to them about behind-the-scenes stuff, like when the cat messed up a chapter and it turned out better. Silly stuff.
Real-life stories behind some scenes.
Ghost hunting 101.
Facebook Posts And Ads
Facebook posts will be easy. I’m going to do 2-3 a week. Those I can schedule on a Sunday. Heck, I could schedule those the first Sunday of the month even.
Marvelous Monday posts, stories, and memes of amazing failures.
Tired Tuesdays because… come on! We need to power through the week, here.
Witchy Wednesday with snippets of witchiness.
And I think that would be good. Maybe do Thrifty Thursdays with cycle-up crafts, or just crafts in general.
Sugar Saturday for baking?
But I won’t do all of those days every week. Only choose 3-4 each week. I’ll choose 1 to do every week – Witchy Wednesday, after all, I’m writing about witches right now.
- Week 1: M, W, S
- Week 2: W, Th
- Week 3: W, S
- Week 4: T, W, Th
Videos, Shooting, Editing, and Scheduling
Videos, though, are going to have to be… less often. Like, maybe two a month. Well, maybe four?
Videos need to be scripted—or generally scripted. You need to have an idea of what you’re talking about or you ramble, and I need to keep most of my videos to 5-8 minutes. ‘
Then, they need to be shot. Now, sometimes, that’s just on a phone. Sometimes, that’s with the camera. I’ve got the equipment.
The next step is editing and I’ve gotta say I’m not great at that. It frustrates me, but it’s just one more thing I’m going to sit down and stop whining about. I’m learning so much stuff. I’m like the McGuiver of novel writing.
Then, when it’s edited and I like it, I have to schedule it for upload.
That’s a lot more involved than saving tired-mom memes. So, I’m going to limit those, but some will be easy like reading excerpts and giving them a tour of some ghost hunting equipment or running them through a simple and easy spell. I think the video will be fun but I’m not going to invest a ton of time every month to them. I’ll definitely get people who can relate to me.
I can tell you I don’t want to do the Facebook Live because those videos annoy the crap out of me. The person on the video is saying hi to people I can’t see because I’m watching the replay and I just want them to get to the juice.
The App
The app is going to be a lot more intimate and low-key. I’m a relator, so this is really important to me.
This morning, I wrote a chapter and there was this hilarious paragraph that made me giggle, so I shared that.
There’ll also be just random—and I do mean random—crochet and sewing projects. I’m also a knitter now too. I knit left-handed and crochet right-handed. I’ve got a whole group for nothing but that kind of stuff. Amigurumi? I’ve got you!
The idea in the app is invite people to talk to me and to each other.
I’m making lotions and soaps and shampoos. I’m going to talk about that day’s batch.
I’m working on a cover for the series? I’ll give them updates on how it’s coming.
The app is going to be a lot less planned. I’m a relator, so this is a great way for me to build up a relationship in a way that makes sense to me. I just have to be fairly consistent and remember to post something each week.
The Newsletter
I am not going to have monthly releases. I might at some point if I can get my writing up. I mean, I know I can write 70K a week on average, but most of that really is outlines.
So, I’m creating an Evergreen drip campaign that will include all of this stuff. And each week, they’ll get one or two things that happened either on the app, or YouTube, or Facebook. But it’s going to let them catch up on what they might have missed.
I will have 1 that announces books when they’re released, but I really don’t foresee me having too many of those. I will not be participating in NL swaps though. I lost a lot of good subscribers because of that, so I might swap with one or two occasionally, but not often.
Content Calendar Homework!
That sounds like a lot of work, doesn’t it? A daunting amount of work. But how much is it?
2/17: Film 2-4 short videos
2/23: Have them edited by now and schedule them for March
3/1: Schedule (10) posts to your Facebook Page and start a new ad.
3/1: Add to your evergreen newsletter sequence with posts and updates from Feb.
3/2: Create and schedule the newsletter announcing your next release, if you have one ready.
That’s it! That’s an entire month’s worth of social media in (4) days.
I can do this! And now that I’m not freaking out like a little girl, I’m excited about it!
Show me your plan! What do you got?
