How to Organize Content
Leveraging your content is vital to your success. But you can’t leverage it if you haven’t organised it. Here's how to organize content.
When I ask people at conferences how many times they repurpose one piece of content they generally answer ‘two to three times’. But content can be repurposed almost 100 times (including via social media). And repurposing or leveraging your content is vital to your content marketing success. You can’t leverage it if you don’t have access to it. And you won’t have access to it if you haven’t organised it.
So, how can you organise your content?
Your content is your IP. Each piece is an asset in your business. You have to stop thinking about it like something that you have to do, and remember that it’s part of building your business itself. Your content is the IP and the assets you're building for your business. As Thomas Edison said, ‘The value of an idea lies in the using of it’.
Your content currency is being able to retrieve and repurpose the content that you’ve created. Here’s how to do that.
Levels of Content Organisation
Numbering
The lowest level of content organising, but certainly not the least important, is numbering. Whenever you create a piece of content you assign it a number and record that number in an easily accessed spreadsheet. Each image or graphic that relates to that piece of content is also assigned the same number so that you can easily keep them together, and recognisable.
This isn’t a difficult process. It’s just a quick step you need to add to your system whenever you write a blog post or put together a video script or create any other piece of content.
Cataloguing
After you’ve numbered your content you need to catalogue it. Think of yourself as a librarian. In a library, if the books about dogs were mixed up with the books about making cocktails or hiking through Thailand, you would never be able to find anything – at least not quickly. Your content operates the same way.
You need to create a system that lets you easily find your content and easily use it for repurposing and leveraging.
Put your content in order and in groups (as suits your particular business). Allocate platforms you’ve already leveraged it on, and the myriad of platforms you can access in the future. This will allow you to treat your content as an asset of your business, and not just as a one-off, single-use piece.
Cataloguing has the added benefit of giving you options into the future. When you’re on your own you only have the capacity of one person. But eventually, you may want to grow your business beyond that point. Having a system means you can bring people in to support you when it’s time for you to scale.
Filing
The second step in how to organize content is filing. So, once you’ve numbered and catalogued each piece of content, you need to put in place an easy-to-access filing system.
Filing sounds boring, but having a system that lets you find and access your business assets is invaluable to increasing your efficiency and your success. In 2012, McKinsey reported that employees spend almost two hours every day, or over nine hours per week, searching for information. IDC data shows that the average worker spends about 2.5 hours a day, or 30% of their working day, looking for information.
This can end up being waste of time and resources if not done effectively. And it’s particularly disruptive to the small business owner, or the thought leader, who has little time to waste. Getting your filing right means you aren’t wasting time searching for your business assets. You know where they are, you know how to find them and you can easily onboard others to assist you when you’re ready for that extra help.
Next Steps in How to Organize Content
Your next steps in how to organize content are simple. Each time you create a piece of content:
Number it
Catalogue
File it
I’d love to hear your thoughts….
Jane Anderson is a strategic communications expert, speaker and the author of seven books including the upcoming Catalyst Content. With over 20 years of experience helping people to communicate confidently, she is obsessed with authentic influence and human connection to drive business growth in a world of disruption and automation. She delivers Content Creation Bootcamps (Virtual and Face to Face), Coaching and Keynotes. To inquire about her working with you or your organisation please contact us here.