Advice for creating content from our in-house content creators

Overhead view of a women working on a latptop with her phone and notebook beside her

If you’re creating content for an editorial calendar in 15 minutes or less, you’re not doing it right. Full stop. The fact is, when you’re curating third-party stories, crafting posts to support your key messages and value propositions and finding ways to transform long-form content into smaller, digestible chunks – that takes time.

We’re incredibly lucky to have a melting pot of talent at Hodges when it comes to content creation – whether it’s crafting craft quippy social media content or delving deeper on more robust, hyper-nuanced, 400-word blog posts. I polled some of our in-house content creators to get their tips and advice, which I’ve collected below. But let me kick things off with this:

Don’t be afraid to dig and explore when it comes to creating content. Break out of your comfort zone and really think about your organization, or your client. Think about the industry resources available, national surveys and related data, and where you can find images and creative that align with what you’re writing. There’s a whole world at your fingertips, but you have to think outside of the lines.

Now, for some advice from the folks I admire most.

“Repurpose your content to make it work harder – and longer – for you,” Aidan says. “Take the content from that blog post and turn into a podcast, Instagram Story series, newsletter and social graphics. People have different platforms where they go to hear from you, so make sure you hit them with your message on all of them.”

We’re all about slicing that content turkey. And while you can slice and dice your content, you also need to give yourself – and your editorial calendar – some grace.

“Sometimes, life happens, and you can plan every single day for the coming month, and then the month comes but you need something posted ASAP – look at the calendar as a guide. It’s flexible,” Hannah mentioned on Episode 5 of our Teaming Up podcast. “Sometimes you need to take something out and put something in; it’s like a game of Tetris. But at the end of the day, you’re still saving yourself some time.”

And to really drive my point home, we’re going to say this one more time for the people in the back.

“Building a robust editorial content isn’t a thirty-minute exercise, especially if you’re writing quality content and creating attention-grabbing imagery to go with it,” Paulyn echoes. “All of that takes time, which is why creating content really should be an ongoing part of your daily routine, not just something to check off your to-do list.”

For more content creation inspiration, be sure to check out our Teaming Up episode where we talk about all the content things.

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Casey Prentice

A self-proclaimed organizational junkie and data geek who confesses to a secret desire to be a professional organizer, Casey enjoys account management, writing, editing and digital content strategy. Her agency work has helped clients like Virginia’s Community Colleges, VCUarts and Swedish Match.

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