Systems and processes play a huge part in the success of any business.
Former Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam once said, “excellence is a continuous process and not an accident”. A powerful statement and one that backs up the need for effective systems and processes in any business and more specifically, in your content repurposing strategy.
As a company, we have systems and processes in place across all areas of our business. They not only help us work together successfully as a team but, most importantly, they help us produce the best possible results for our clients.
This post covers why systems and processes are such a vital cog in your content repurposing machine and how you can effectively create and implement them.
Keep reading to discover:
- Why it’s so important to have systems in place for content repurposing
- How to implement those systems and processes effectively
- Software that can help you along the way
- Why updating your processes is so, so important
As mentioned, we are firm believers in systems and processes and here are 3 compelling reasons why…
1. Systems and processes encourage consistency
Sticking to your systems and processes leads to consistency. Having plans in place to cover each step of your content repurposing journey is crucial for a few reasons.
First, your audience will come to know what to expect. If you produce a weekly podcast that comes out on a Thursday, then your audience knows that they can look out for it on that day. If you repurpose that podcast episode into a blog post or across your social channels, they know that they can find it there, without having to go hunting for it.
Keeping to a structure like this is so much simpler for you to maintain and it’s easier for your audience to follow.
But it’s not just your audience that value consistency. Platform algorithms love it too. While we know we should create content for humans, not algorithms, it’s still important to know how they work.
We are big fans of episodic content for this reason. You can find out more about why it is a good idea in an episode we did a while back called 7 Reasons Why You Should Create Episodic Content. It covers the subject in detail. So do give that a listen or a read.
2. They ensure you can repeat success and avoid failure
Not only do systems and processes allow you to build momentum and, in turn, success. But they also highlight your mistakes and ensure you can jump on them quickly.
If you documented a process when things went well, and you follow that process again, you have a better chance of repeating that success.
If you analyze and process when something goes wrong, and make sure you change the process appropriately, you are preventing that same thing from going wrong again.
Repeat success and avoid failure — we should all strive for that.
3. They help teams work together and streamline onboarding
Having clear processes in place makes it easier to work as a team. If all your content follows documented processes, it’s easy for people across the departments to understand what everybody else is doing, what is required of them and when.
It makes things so much easier than having an unstructured way of creating content — which is when balls get dropped and mistakes are made.
It’s also great for new people joining your business. A clear onboarding process helps new starters understand what you do very quickly, and when they are introduced to the systems and processes, it’s easier for them to hit the ground running.
How to implement systems and processes
Now let’s move onto the ‘how’ side of things. How can we implement these systems and processes in our content repurposing?
First, creating SOPs is very important. SOPs or Standard Operating Procedures are step-by-step guides on what to do and you can create them for anything.
For example, if you’re repurposing your weekly video series, you could have an SOP explaining ‘how to repurpose video into a blog post’, or ‘how to repurpose video into YouTube shorts’ or TikTok videos or whatever it is you do.
There are SOP writing tools and software available, but you can create them as Word documents or Google Docs, detailing any stage of the process, whether it’s planning, graphic design or publishing.
Talking of software, it’s also great to have software that makes your processes and systems easy to follow and track. Project management tools like Trello, Basecamp, Asana, Monday and ClickUp can really help make things more streamlined and avoid any disasters!
At Content 10x, we’re team ClickUp!
An important reminder…
Once you have your systems and processes in place, it’s so important that you update them as your business grows and changes. While something works well right now, that won’t always be the case.
Look at your metrics and if something’s not working particularly well, or working better than expected, change your SOPs and plans to reflect that.
Part 4 of Amy’s book Content 10x: More Content, Less Time, Maximum Results actually has a section on this (chapter 21 to 26). So if you don’t have a copy yet, do grab one!
In conclusion…
Ultimately, the key takeaway is you need to be a process-driven organization — process needs to be a part of your culture.
Always consider the knock-on impact of processes when you change things up — for example, when you agree a change in a meeting the next words should be, “OK, what SOPs and processes do we need to update as a result of this change?”.
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Originally published at https://www.content10x.com on September 22, 2022.
