What type of content planner are you?

This is a bit of a fun post about the different styles of content planning! Let’s be honest…even with all best intentions most of us don’t quite prepare, create, schedule and publish our content quite as consistently or as perfectly as we like.

When I do my Power Hours or get talking to fellow small business owners about planning their content in advance I’ve noticed (lovingly!) there are certain ‘types’ of planners!

Take a read and see if you recognise yourself…

Proactive planner

A proactive planner sounds brilliant, doesn’t it!?! A new year or quarter comes along and their content is planned out with monthly topics and loads of great ideas. They use planners and calendars and even a specialist content diary…! And whenever the proactive planner is most proactive and in super planning mode…we are all completely envious.

The colour co-ordination is something to behold. The diversity across the different content plans so impressive.

BUT…those plans never quite come to fruition…or may be for a bit…or may be just for a month or two…or may be just once in a while!! I love these types of content planners – full of good intentions but it’s just too hard to stick to. I totally get it. It’s a bit like starting a new exercise regime… where you buy all new kit and print out a timetable. You set your goals…make a plan and then guess what…it’s just too hard to stick to, isn’t it? More than that, perhaps the planning is just more fun than the actual doing!!! Who’s with me?

Reactive regular

I admit it I am so envious of these content planners. I bet you know a ‘reactive regular’ – someone who is in fact not a planner at all. However, they just seem to see something or think up of the perfect post or update on the spot and it just look great, sounds great…is great.

They get engagement. They get likes. And yet when asked what they plan to post next, or even why they posted what they did…they don’t really have a plan and actually have no idea how many followers, views, leads (or whatever metrics…’smetrics’…you choose) – they create content for the love of it…and, in truth, it shows through and it’s probably why there content connects with their audience so well. However, it does rely on a certain amount of commitment and time.

Self-doubting superstar

These are my favourite type of planners to meet (and help!)…they are the content planners who are doing all of the right things. They are posting regularly. They have an easy-to-follow plan. They are following the latest advice for the platforms they use. BUT…and it is a big BUT…the whole time they are doing it…every blog post, every social media caption, every email they send… they think is ‘completely rubbish’.

They don’t know why they are doing what they are doing. They are not sure if they should be creating content they are creating. Yet, all I can see is gems of amazing content and engaged, loyal followers….and often missed opportunities, because they spend so much time worrying and not enough time following up the leads right in front of them!

No show with big plans

“I will start doing regular lives.”

“I will start writing a blog”

“I will learn how to do reels”

“I will set up a mailing list”

“I will update my website”

I bet you know that business owner with ‘big plans’…but then nothing ever comes of it! As a client, we discuss in depth “how” but sometimes these wonderful, awesome plans just don’t come to fruition. There are notebooks full of ideas. There are commitments to doing something…but then life gets in the way.

Oh I get it…anyone else still trying to suppress the memory of home school and how many big plans it crushed?! However, this is probably the worst kind of content planner from the point of view that I worry so much about how I can make their life easier and help them to bring all of their big plans to life…so they actually do all that they want to.

Super scheduler

And lastly, those content planners I absolutely envy (and try so hard to be!) …those wonderful, organised schedulers. They’ve plotted their posts for a month – blogs and social media, of course. They have stories ready to go. They have website updates already drafted and probably scheduled for release. Oh…and emails written and waiting to fly off to their subscribers inbox a month in advance.

Nearly all content platforms have scheduling tools and it really can make a massive different in helping your content planning.

If you haven’t used scheduling tools for social media, then I highly recommend them. They certainly help to maintain a certain level of consistency – I use Facebook Creator Studio, Buffer and Agorapulse for myself and different clients. Let me know if you want to hear more about my experiences.

Nearly all website content management systems will allow you to schedule the publication of blog posts and release of updates too, as will most email systems, such as Mailchimp, HubSpot and MailerLite, so it’s great to get in to the mindset that ‘creating content’ and ‘publishing content’ can occur at very different times.

Content planning ideas and more

As a small business owner, we all know that content creation and planning is just a small part of all of the other jobs and roles you have to perform. Part of my role is to make content creation and planning as easy as possible. Take a read of my 12 months of content sorted to help with planning…and perhaps going forward we can all be both proactive planner AND super schedulers! That’s the aim!