How to Set Up Your Content Planning for Success

Behind the “Seens” with Lizzy Fox, Social Media & Brand Strategist at By Elizabeth Fox

Lizzy Fox is a Social Media Manager and Brand Strategist at By Elizabeth Fox. She joins me to discuss content planning. She shares her insights about content strategy with the goal to help us all get organized to be more effective, starting today.

Like all of us, Lizzy was affected by the whirlwind of events in 2020. The same exact situation happened to everyone around the world, and while people were losing jobs and businesses were shutting down, some people saw an opportunity.

Lizzy opted for a career change. Lucky for us, she chose to help a friend with her business startup. She discovered her passion for developing websites and content strategy.

“I exist to set others up to win”

Lizzy walks us through her thought process. Understanding the mindset and logic behind why you do things a certain way, or why things should even be done is critical when it comes to anything, especially managing the social media and content for your business.

It gets overwhelming in content management fast! Take a deep breath, grab your coffee, a pen and a notebook, and dive in.

Beginning with the end in mind and planning backward is a strategy that Lizzy also uses, but before you get there, let’s orient ourselves around what content strategy and social media management are.

Lizzy gives the most direct definition of and it’s worth memorizing.

Strategy is your why, management is how you accomplish it.

We dive into explaining how a developed strategy is executed so it grows your business. Lizzy encourages you to understand that setting up your strategy, which is largely researched-based, will help you navigate what you will and will not do.

“When you have that why that creates the boundaries in which you’re going to engage online.”

According to Lizzy, without a strong why, your brand and social accounts can just sound like NOISE. It’s also the problem that leads to burnout, which we are all trying to avoid.

Lizzy Pro Tip: set a timer as a “physical” boundary to get on social media to like, comment, or go live

While Lizzy gets you through the ABCs of content management, she also discusses resources and tools you can use to make planning the growth of your business and managing your social accounts much easier.

Now for some goodies!

Lizzy and I mention a few resources and tools that we find to be very useful and as promised I want to share those so you can check out what may or may not work for your business.

Build-in time, creativity, and efficiency into your content planning and it will remove much of the stress and frustration. Lizzy’s success with planning started with a scatterbrain 5th grade Lizzy that lost 10 jackets in one school year!

I know all the moms are cringing at the thought of this, but this is where Lizzy discovered her now-superpower to plan and execute so well.

Favorite Tools Mentioned:

Asana – a project management system that’s simple and team-friendly

Google Drive – Docs, sheets, calendars are all great ways to share real-time

Evernote  – personal blog post for ideation – digital file cabinet

Hootsuite – social media manager, great for 10+ clients specifically writers and business professionals

Later.com – great for creative, changes on the fly – analytics

There are tons of resources, and the key is to not get overwhelmed. Try something and see what you like, what you don’t, what features are an absolute must for you. If it’s too much of a struggle to use, chances are you won’t use it at all.

Lizzy Pro Tip: leave your digital project management system and calendars open on your computer so you always see them (don’t ignore them)

Lastly, although digital is incredible and has changed every one of our lives, sometimes pen and paper are still best to have. Lizzy likes to use a physical planner to also track personal life with business life, and that’s important.

Our Favorite Planners (for now)

Golden Coil Planners

Best Self Planner

Best Laid Plans Podcast – a podcast dedicated to planner addicts that we both adore!

“In order for me to remain in a creative space and not just be a systems person which can sometimes be where I hide in order to not show up the way I need to online […] I need to have spaces where I’m constantly pushed to do that.”

Continue to nurture your creativity and never neglect your self-care!

Build an incredible business and change lives for the better. Be confident knowing you can tackle social media and content planning with more clarity.

Want customized best practices, better content ideas, and a game plan for social media for your business? Check out Lizzy’s Content Strategy Intensive! Take the guesswork out of content planning and start showing up online like the expert you are!

Connect with Lizzy:

Lizzy Fox Website

Lizzy Fox Instagram

Interested in exploring where you are in your writer or author journey? Let’s chat! If you want to learn more about how to be seen, be found, be heard, please connect with me on the socials or let’s set up a call to chat.