Content Creation Hacks: How to Quickly Produce Valuable Content

Do you create content for your business?

Looking for an easier way to make your content work for you?

Discover easy ways to create and repurpose your content, courtesy of Nick Westergaard.
More About This Show
The Social Media Marketing podcast is an on-demand talk radio show from Social Media Examiner. It's designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing.

In this episode I interview Nick Westergaard, host of the On Brand Podcast and chief brand strategist at social and content agency Brand Driven Digital. Nick is also the author of Get Scrappy: Smart Digital Marketing for Businesses Big and Small.

Nick explores easy ways to create quality content.

You'll also discover how to repurpose recent and historical material.

Share your feedback, read the show notes, and get the links mentioned in this episode below.
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Here are some of the things you'll discover in this show:
Content Creation Hacks
Nick's story

Westergaard Advertising began 35 years ago in Iowa when Nick's father and now business partner started what was a small, general, traditional advertising agency. Nick had worked with brands in the early days of online marketing, specifically for educational publishing companies when digital really started to grow.

About 10 years ago, Nick started moonlighting as a freelancer for the family business. Eventually he would come in as a partner. In addition to changing the kind of work Westergaard Advertising specialized in, they morphed into brand-driven digital to help organizations build better brands online through social media and content marketing.

Nick's book, Get Scrappy, came from a phrase he found himself saying often. Nick does a lot of public speaking, and says it was one of those experiences where he quickly dashed off a title for a new speech. Then when it came time to write it, the topic took root and excited him. Plus, he was able to draw on work he did with clients of all shapes and sizes.

"Get Scrappy" was a common thread. Whether it's an entrepreneurial startup, solo small business, medium-sized business, or a larger marketing team, everybody's looking to get scrappy – to do more with less.

For instance, Nick talks about working with nostalgic brand Schwinn Bikes, and how it's easy to think of them as a big brand, but they're really a small, scrappy team at the headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin. Nick talked with them about this idea of getting scrappy. Schwinn's social media manager Samantha Hersil summed it up best.

"We could all use a few people and a few dollars more," Hersil said. That's really at the heart of the book.

Listen to the show to discover how Nick's business has changed over the last 10 years.

Why marketers object to creating content

Content is a tricky animal, Nick explains, so it takes a content marketing mindset. Some of the obstacles marketers encounter are from lack of a sound content strategy.

The Content Marketing Institute reports that many people fly blind when it comes to content strategy. It's both an obstacle and an internal objection, because companies are just jumping on the content marketing bandwagon.

Both in terms of social channels and content, Nick thinks it's easy to fall into the trap of what he calls "checklist marketing." Marketers do everything they hear about: they have a presence on every network, create every form of content, and so forth. Nick thinks if people instead develop a strategy with a business objective, their content will be better aligned with their business.

Content used to be driven by the written word, Nick explains. As people scoot up to that podcasting microphone and hit the Record button with video, they get scared. There's a ripple effect, as well. Subject matter experts may feel like they're not interesting enough, or else they believe they have interesting stor...