Have you ever watched one of those successful video bloggers and asked “How do they find the time to do that?”
We’ve all been there. We see something that inspires us, and try it ourselves, and then we get frustrated, blocked, furious, depressed, and eventually give up.
Four easy steps to planning to win with your video blog
I want to give you an easy four-step process for creating your own successful video blog, and it all comes down to planning. With some simple planning, you can be set to create a weekly video blog that’s consistent and doesn’t stress you out.
“You were born to win, but to be a winner, you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win.” – Zig Ziglar
Today, we’re going to plan and prepare to win by planning an entire year of content in less than an hour.
For illustration examples, I’m going to pretend I’m a bicycle shop owner who’s target audience are local families and commuter riders, and I want to come to my shop for bikes and service.
I’ve created a video explaining these steps, plus a screencast where I show how to do this using a spreadsheet like Numbers or Excel. But you can continue to read along if you’d like.
Step 1: Choose your content categories
If you visit most successful blogs, you’ll discover they don’t just write about whatever topics interest them. Instead they have 3-4 primary content categories – major topics that they write about.
Step 2: Cycle through your content categories throughout the year
Once you’ve picked your content categories, then cycle through them throughout the year.
Step 3: Pick a unique theme each month
To avoid repeating yourself throughout the category cycle, you’re going to want to pick a theme for each month. This isn’t a specific topic, but a theme that you’ll cover for the entire month, which will make one month’s posts distinguishable from another month.
Step 4: Break down each month by week and narrow down a focused topic
Now that you’ve got a unique theme per month, break down that theme into focused topics for each particular week. What you should be able to do is create a 52 week list of topics with common monthly themes for the entire year.
There’s going to be some weeks with topics that aren’t going to seem that spectacular or important. That’s okay. You’re doing this to create consistent content and avoid having to blog on demand. Blogging on demand is great when you’re fired up and passionate, but when you have weeks where interruptions happen, a consistent content schedule will help you chug through.
Behind the Scenes: How to Create a Content Calendar spreadsheet in Numbers
Watch as I show you how I created my personal content calendar in a spreadsheet app like Apple Numbers.
Now who want’s a template to save some hassle?
Click the link below to access a Google Spreadsheet that will help you plan out your calendar:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YZ30xycilJkFcr0EBJZJALRKTgj-KdCTI7PFxcVIGWI/edit?usp=sharing