Team Branding
Here at Bell+Ivy, we work with a diverse group of clients, and each of them has a lot to offer the world. We’re honored to work with such passionate individuals and organizations who strive to make this world a better place. As you know, getting your message and your brand out there is a key aspect of sharing your ideas, but something many people struggle with is turning their ideas into content.
At Bell+Ivy, we have a team that has expertise in PR, web content, social media, and more. Our team takes care of all of the nuts and bolts, but it’s you who has the message that we want to get out there, and sometimes that involves creating bit-size forms of content on various platforms.
According to DataReportal.com, approximately 4.14 billion people are using social media, which is 53% of the entire global population. While not every social media user worldwide is your core demographic, there’s a high probability that the people you want to reach are using one or more of the various social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, and others.
What makes social media marketing different from previous forms of marketing is that it helps people develop a connection with the brand. Users want to know that you’re a real person, and many personal brands want to connect with their audience but don’t have time or don’t know how to organize their ideas.
Not only am I the Content Manager here at Bell+Ivy, but I’ve also built my own personal brand on various social media platforms. Like many of our clients, I have a brain that has non-stop ideas, and in order to build my brand, it required transferring those ideas into bite-sized forms of content. With over 100,000 followers combined across various social media platforms, I wanted to share some simple strategies I use to organize my ideas and have a never-ending flow of engaging content.
If you’re reading this, you’re most likely a thought leader or trying to become a thought leader in your space. You have hundreds of ideas a day...and that’s on a slow day. I’ve met hundreds of creators and thought leaders who are these idea factories, which is why I’m always surprised when people hit writer’s block or any sort of creative funk.
We’re problem solvers, and each day we’re seeing problems and coming up with solutions. Maybe you have a product, and you’re regularly seeing situations in which your product would be the perfect solution. You might work in personal development, and while browsing social media, watching TV, or just hanging out with friends, your mind is coming up with solutions people can use for their problems.
What I’ve learned is that coming up with ideas isn’t the issue. The issue is that we’re not writing them down. This year, I’ve read 100s of non-fiction books, and I’ve realized that some of the greatest innovators throughout history had piles of notebooks. Recently, I read Choose Yourself! by James Altucher, and one of his pieces of advice is to set a daily calendar reminder for time you can set aside to come up with no less than 10 new ideas.
For a few weeks, I tried this strategy from James, but then I realized that I come up with way more than 10 ideas in a day. So, although I stopped using his strategy, I sometimes turn back to it if I feel like I’m hitting a creative block. Our creativity and ideas are like a muscle, and sometimes we need to make sure they don’t atrophy. Even when we’re not feeling inspired, we need to set aside time to at least try.
My primary strategy is that I use the Google Keep app for notes on my phone , and whenever I have ideas, I put them into a document. Sometimes, if I have an idea ruminating in my head while I’m driving, I will literally pull over to a parking lot to write the ideas down. Sometimes, I’ll outline an entire YouTube video or blog post in a gas station parking lot just because I’m so excited about the idea and think it can provide value to people.
Recently, I’ve leveled up my note-taking strategy to include Google Drive. Right now, I currently have a folder in Google Drive titled Video Scripts and Notes. Within this folder, I have a folder for Book Ideas because I’m a writer and get ideas for book topics, but most of this primary folder is other folders for specific topics.
I don’t choose when ideas are going to come to me, so I always have my Google Drive open when I’m working at my computer. Even during the workday, I’ll pause for a few minutes if I feel like I need to write an idea down.
When I get an idea, I create a new folder for the blog post and/or video idea, and I’ll title the folder something short-hand or the title I think is good for the piece if I have one. Then, within that folder, I create a google doc titled Notes, and this is where I create a rough outline. I’ll start a bulleted list, and usually, I’ll write some bullets for the intro since the intro is the most important part of just about any piece of content to hook the audience. Then, I’ll make a bullet for each idea I think needs to be within that blog post or video.
On average, this only takes me a few minutes. I just need to be able to go back and reference my ideas for when I have time to start working on the content. For you, maybe a physical notebook will work better. I personally prefer Google Drive because I can access it from my phone or laptop when I’m not at my desktop computer. This is convenient in case I come across a source link I want to use, or if I want to add or subtract some bullets.
Recently, I’ve leveled up my note-taking strategy to include Google Drive. Right now, I currently have a folder in Google Drive titled Video Scripts and Notes. Within this folder, I have a folder for Book Ideas because I’m a writer and get ideas for book topics, but most of this primary folder is other folders for specific topics.
I don’t choose when ideas are going to come to me, so I always have my Google Drive open when I’m working at my computer. Even during the workday, I’ll pause for a few minutes if I feel like I need to write an idea down.
When I get an idea, I create a new folder for the blog post and/or video idea, and I’ll title the folder something short-hand or the title I think is good for the piece if I have one. Then, within that folder, I create a google doc titled Notes, and this is where I create a rough outline. I’ll start a bulleted list, and usually, I’ll write some bullets for the intro since the intro is the most important part of just about any piece of content to hook the audience. Then, I’ll make a bullet for each idea I think needs to be within that blog post or video.
On average, this only takes me a few minutes. I just need to be able to go back and reference my ideas for when I have time to start working on the content. For you, maybe a physical notebook will work better. I personally prefer Google Drive because I can access it from my phone or laptop when I’m not at my desktop computer. This is convenient in case I come across a source link I want to use, or if I want to add or subtract some bullets.
Briefly, I want to discuss the best advice I’ve ever heard from one of the most respected creators in history, Stephen King. Stephen King is 73 years old, and this man sets a high bar when it comes to creativity. He’s written 86 books while also working on other projects, so much like us, he has a mind that never stops. In his book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, he says, “Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.”
I can’t begin to tell you how many pieces of content I’ve created that I’ve never released to the world. Whether it’s blog posts, entire YouTube videos, TikToks, or other pieces of content, I’ve had to “kill my darlings”. Sometimes, I’ve spent hours on these projects and never released them for some reason or another. Maybe it’s because the idea sounded better at conception, or I just couldn’t get it to turn out the way I wanted it to.
As a huge psychology nerd, I’m always trying to learn about the different cognitive traps we fall into, and one of the biggest ones is the “sunk cost fallacy”. Many of us hate putting time and effort into something and then never releasing it, but that time is already gone. We’re not getting it back, so sometimes, we just cut our losses. If you can learn how to “kill your darlings”, you won’t be so afraid to write down all of the ideas that come to your mind and even do a little bit more work with them.
If they don’t work out or come to fruition, that’s fine. Wrestling with the idea and creative process has provided you with a valuable learning experience for the next piece of content that you’re going to create.
Earlier this year, I really wanted to learn what makes things popular, and I also wanted to learn more about the balance between luck versus skill. I read some amazing books like Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction by Derek Thompson, Everything Is Obvious: How Common Sense Fails Us by Duncan Watts, and The Luck Factor: The Scientific Study of the Lucky Mind by Richard Wiseman. If there’s one thing I learned from these books is that we just need to create.
I’ve worked with so many clients who are perfectionists, and while it’s great to have a standard of quality, sometimes this paralyzes people from putting work out there. What we neglect to realize is that there is no formula for perfection, and it’s important that we drill this into our heads.
Think about it, if there was a formula for perfect content, why isn’t every movie a blockbuster hit? Hollywood spends billions of dollars each year on films, and most of them flop and lose money. If there were a formula for “the perfect movie”, they would have figured it out by now. It’s the same when it comes to books and music. A dozen publishers J.K. Rowling for Harry Potter, so clearly they didn’t know the formula of what would be a hit, and many musicians are turned down by record labels only to blow up by using social media to release their work.
A long time ago, one of my creative mentors told me that quantity turns into quality, and I realized how true that was. The more you write or create content, the better it gets. In his book Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise, world-famous performance psychologist Anders Ericsson puts an emphasis on what he calls “deliberate practice”. As long as you’re getting in repetitions and trying to improve one aspect of the work each time, you’re going to reap the benefits.
The problem is that we let fear hold us back. Many of the clients I work with don’t understand platforms like TikTok and Instagram, and that’s alright. Just start creating. In your free time, play around with the various platforms and look at content, and I promise the ideas will start flowing to you.
The final piece of the puzzle is time management. We’re all busy, but creating content must be a priority if we want to share our ideas and help others who might benefit from our content. For some of us, we need to look at our schedule and block out time to just create. Personally, I wake up at about 5 or 6 am each morning, and this is my time to create. Everyone is still sleeping, and I can spend an hour or two creating outlines or working on projects.
I also realized how many platforms we can use during small breaks in the day, and as you get better at taking notes, some of these platforms can be where you share your ideas. Recently, I’ve been playing with TikTok, and it’s a platform every thought leader should be on. At first, I had no clue what I was doing, but now, I get an idea, and I can share it with thousands of people within 15 to 60 seconds. Twitter is another great place for bite-size content because you can have quick conversations or tweet out ideas.
Again, the quantity will turn into quality. We need to fail in order to succeed, and that comes with practice. There are some other topics we can dive into such as brand messaging and making sure you’re PR-friendly with your posts, but that’s a conversation for another time. For now, get out there and be your authentic self, and just start creating and learning. There’s far too much opportunity out there for us to pass up.
