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Do you struggle to BOTH create content and run your business? Maybe you feel like content creation and running your business can’t happen at the same time – so you pick or choose which one you’re going to focus on. Which means you’re not tapping into the marketing engine you could….

Or you’re struggling to find time to both generate leads AND serve them.

It doesn’t have to be this way! In this episode, KM Robinson will show you how to create content in 5-minutes or less… and still maximize your efforts every step of the way.

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Get FIVE short-form video ideas from KM right now (so you can get started with content creation today)

Check out the entire library of social media episodes here.

Alyson Lex 0:02
The last thing you want to do when you're running your business is take time away from running your business to create the content that markets your business. But without the content that markets your business, you don't have a business to run. And so it's essential that we figure out how to do this content thing, without taking our attention away from what's actually going to make the most money. And that is why when Jenny and I met km Robinson, we knew that she had to come talk to you guys. She is a social media marketing educator. She's a speaker, she's a strategist. And she's got some really good tips on making content easy and fast. So Ken, thanks so much for being with us.

KM Robinson 0:48
Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to chat today.

Alyson Lex 0:52
Now, Jenny, and I have both in you been on your channel. And I remember during our time together, you started kind of talking about this easy content creation method, just off the cuff. And can you kind of recap what you talked about that was so game changing for me?

KM Robinson 1:15
Absolutely. When it comes to creating content, we tend to focus on perfection and really needing to make sure that we spend a ton of time and effort on it. Otherwise, we fear it's not going to perform well out on the platforms. The truth of the matter is people spend a ton of time and effort creating this content, and then it doesn't do as well as some of those off the cuff things that they can be creating. So I teach my students to spend no more than five minutes creating a piece of content. And that start to finish that's creating a concept, creating a script, filming it, editing it and posting it. And of course, in the beginning, we're not going to start off with five minutes flat, it might be a little bit more than that. But we shouldn't be spending more than five or 10 minutes on each piece of content that we're putting out on social media, because we have other things to do in our businesses like running our actual businesses. So the faster we can get our time down on that content creation, the more we're gonna be able to put out and the less we're going to be able to stress about it.

Jennie Wright 2:07
Question though. And I'm going to be the pragmatic one, because that's my role. And I'm fine with it. Does that mean though formally spending five minutes on the thought process, the creation, etc? Does that mean that we're going to create less? Well put out content because it's so like, just, you know, wham and done? How does that work?

KM Robinson 2:26
A lot of feedback from that, because people do fear, it's not going to be good quality. And when it comes to our content, we're going to have different levels of our content that we're putting out into the world, you will have content that's good, you will have content that's really good, you're going to have content, that's great. And you're going to have content that's exceptional. And sometimes you just need to be posting in the moment content. Now some of the things that you're going to be putting putting out into the world are going to be that exceptional level. But we can't always attain that perfection. So it's okay to post Okay, content, and good content, and great content and exceptional content. But that doesn't mean spending a small amount of time results in it being a lower level of quality. Because we as entrepreneurs, understand our businesses, if we don't understand the content that we're teaching, that we're speaking on the services that we're providing, the products that we're creating, we have no business being in business yet. We have to know our content so well, that we could be able to speak on it at any point in time. So as you're teaching things on social media, particularly on Tik Tok on Instagram reels on YouTube shorts, you're giving small pieces of information, you're not teaching everything that you're teaching in the world in one teeny, tiny little tick tock, you're taking one point, and you're going to be making it to the world. And that can be done in just a couple of sentences. And so spending a shorter amount of time means that you're coming up with one thing you're going to be discussing, you're going to narrow down what you're saying, you're going to in just a few sentences, create your point. And then you're going to tell that one point to the world, because you know your content, so Well, it's gonna be easy for you to script it, because you're only saying it's a couple of sentences. And then you can craft it and send it out in the world. So some of the most impactful content I have created, I have done in literally seconds in under a minute, I've created this content to then go out in the world. So that small amount of time does not mean lower quality. It just means you have a strategy for creating what you are creating. And then you're going to see how it hits and impacts with your audience. And then you can tweak from there.

Alyson Lex 4:30
Now I want to bring something up because you talk very fast. I talk very fast East Coast Baltimore, we talk very fast and so to you and does that actually affect the content or do you talk fast because you've gotten used to the short form content? Talk to me about how quickly we should be speaking in these videos.

KM Robinson 4:52
That's really important because it really comes down to how you run your business and who you are as a business person. Some people will have a very soft spoken at If they're going to speak softly and slower, and more gently to get their point across, and that will resonate with a certain audience, my audience resonates with that fast paced, energetic conversation. And so I speak very quickly because that's how my audience and I interact. But it depends on who you are and how you're going to be doing this. The trick, however, comes in with your editing. Because anytime you have a gap inside of your videos, and we're talking specific to short form video content here, and then you have a gap that allows somebody just scroll away. So as you're editing your conversation, you can be speaking slowly and softly. But you need to cut out any gaps, which is why the editing process in the way that you film is so incredibly important. So you do not give them the opportunity to scroll away. But if you're somebody who speaks faster or slower, it's okay to go with your range of how you speak and how you have conversations with people.

Jennie Wright 5:55
And get that and I love short form content. But again, I get to be the procrastinator person over here, not the procrastinator, the instigator, I don't know whatever the right adjective is for this long form. You are very Yeah, contrary and I will be contrarian. Thank you, you were the long form content or short form content Wait, that is your thing is what you're known for. does that also mean that you put any time or effort into long form content? Do you see a place for long form content? Do you use it? Is it the Is it anything that is part of your marketing plan?

KM Robinson 6:32
It is I love my long form content. So in addition to teaching on Tiktok, and Instagram reels, I am very big on educating on YouTube, which is longer form content, and I am the live stream queen. So I am doing longer form live engaging events for my audience on a frequent basis. I am doing daily YouTube videos that are at least several minutes long to quite a bit longer. And long form content is incredibly important. But it does have a different way of impacting your audience. So short form content is made specifically to deliver one small, impactful point and get out of the way, so that they can have quick wins inside of their life or their business. longer form content is designed specifically to form that engagement to really build up that community, and to give them a lot of tools and resources on whatever topic you happen to be speaking about. So short form content is really good for the people who are scrolling through and just want to learn something real quick and move on to the next entertaining thing. While long form content is made for those deeper dives, so that people can really grow inside of their businesses and lives.

Alyson Lex 7:36
I really like the way you've worked that down that the short form content is almost like a, hey, here's a tip by and then the long form is here's how to understand everything about XYZ tip is there a way to connect them like, Hey, here's a tip if you want more go there.

KM Robinson 7:54
Absolutely, you should be policing calls to action. If all of the video content you're creating, whether it's a longer for me YouTube video or something you're putting on Instagram that's a bit longer, or a short form video for tick tock Instagram reels YouTube shorts, you need to be drawing people to the other content you're creating. So let's say you've got a longer form piece of content that you've put out on YouTube, I do this all the time, I'll have multiple tips and multiple deep dives within that longer form piece of content. But once that's out in the world, I now need to draw attention to that. So I'll use my short form content to deliver one of those points. And then say if you want more, go watch the YouTube video. Or I'll use something like an Instagram story clip to talk about something and let them know I've got a new video and link it inside of the Instagram story. So you can use your short form content to drive traction over to your longer form content, because you're going to get more eyes on that short form content because it's easy for people to just scroll past it. And for it to show up in the Explore tab or the for you page or wherever it happens to be longer form content gets found more so when people are searching YouTube and searching for Google. So you're driving traffic toward that longer form content, which by the way tends to be monetized in a much better way. But you can also be using your long form content to drive traffic to your short form content. If you check out my YouTube videos, you're going to see that I frequently refer back to my Instagram and my tic tock and even when I'm not speaking are saying those words, I have it on screen I have little things that come flying across my screen. And people can see my different links to my social platforms to know that they can go get further education and community on my short form platforms. So I definitely use both to reiterate points to expand on him. I'll even break things down further. So if I've got a really good YouTube video where I talk about a bunch of points, and that I want to grow on that I'll create a spin off short form video that I can then put on Instagram and Tiktok and YouTube shorts to dive a little bit deeper. So you can use them to drive traffic. You can use them to do deeper dives. You can use them to form that community or even to put out question calls to help clarify things that they saw on those other videos. It was absolutely a great idea to be using both long form and short form content and using them in conjunction with each other.

Jennie Wright 10:08
That was a mouthful of awesome. Okay, so I'm on board with the synchronous way that you speak. And the fact that you take the time to I mean, you're you do talk with some speed, which I also do sometimes. But your enunciation is like, perfect. It's just glorious to listen to. Okay, question, what is the secret to not running out of content ideas?

KM Robinson 10:33
Oh, my gosh, I love content creation. And I'm one of those rare unicorns that can look at something and come up with an immediate List of 10 to 20 ideas, where most people struggle a little bit to kind of figure things out, I actually scared my little sister once because she couldn't come up with a topic or something. And I rattled off 10 of them immediately after she'd been thinking for a week on it. And so when you're creating content, the best thing that you can be doing is anytime you have an idea, or anytime you have a topic, write it down, then make a bullet point list of spin off topics or subtopics, or things related to it. Note, any time people are asking questions to you, or to other people in your industry, you can even go as far as to do your own research on what people are looking for. So there are websites that allow you to type things in and see what people are searching for. There are ways for you to go over to other creators platforms and see what questions are being asked on their videos, you can see a lot of different air interactions on social media and use that to inform what you could be creating for your content. But what I really love about content is that with especially short form content, there are so many ways that you can be using it. So you can take one topic and spin it off in seven different ways. So you could start off by speaking direct to camera and delivering the point that you want to be talking about. But then the next day, you can actually point to the beats of music inside of a tick tock and then put text overlays and say the exact same thing. Now you have the ability to do another video where we're using B roll footage, and you can put text or a voiceover saying pretty much the same thing. Only with different footage, you can be spinning this off in lots of different ways. And then of course, you can take it, you can use it as a caption inside of Instagram, or you could use it for a long form YouTube video, there are so many ways that you can use the same topic and say it either in the exact same way or with slightly different words so that people can learn in a way that's going to be resonating with them. And just repeat that content. And you can do it day one, day two, day three, or you can space it out and do one now drop another version of it in a couple of days or a week, or you can use it later on. And then after the fact you do not have to just let the content sit there, you can take that exact same video or those exact same principles and a month later repost them because a new audience is going to see them. So while you're creating all of this content, you have the ability to spin it off. But you also have the ability to reuse it and repurpose it later on, because a new audience is going to see it and if you wait long enough, your original audience is also going to forget it. And that's going to then reposition that in their mind and reinforce what you taught before and they're going to jump on it again.

Alyson Lex 13:14
Okay, I first of all love all of this. And the B roll footage thing is is one of the little tricks that we talked about when I appeared on your show. And it was kind of just ad hoc recording, you gave me some advice. So I will try and link that in the show notes so you guys can go see what she's talking about. But at the top of the episode I talked about not letting content creation take over your business. And then we just rapid fire talked about all this content creation that, frankly, could feel like it's going to take over a business. So how do we fit that in? How do our listeners fit that into the regular part of their day?

KM Robinson 14:00
Well, that's a really good point. Because for a lot of us, we think we have to be speaking direct to camera all the time. And that requires new content creation, it requires a setting up our tripods and our phones and our lights and do our hair and makeup and all of that thing and creating our scripts and then filming it. And that does take a few minutes. But we don't have to let it invade our lives. If we're documenting what we're doing on an everyday level, we have the ability to use it as B roll. So you and I had a great conversation where I said film yourself typing on your computer from different angles. So if you're doing your work or you're writing your book or you're creating your website, film from behind your camera shooting at you from the right side, then after a few seconds moved over to the left side. Then film your hands typing on the computer just your hands in the computer, then film over your shoulder. And this is all during the context of you doing your work. All it takes is a few seconds of moving the tripod to different locations. Now when you're done with your work you can film yourself doing Your laundry or making your lunch, you can clean your house, you can do the things that you normally do like getting ready for the day and just document it, you don't have to do anything extra, just every few seconds, kind of move the camera around. That way you get different angles and different footage, because there's no way you're going to use three minutes of yourself doing your makeup all in one clip, that's just way overkill. So you're going to move it from one section to another as you're doing things. And then when you need content, you're just going to grab a clip from there, and you're going to slap it into your editing program. And you're either going to put text overlays on it, or you're going to do a voiceover for it. So now you can document your day, you can create a mini blog out of it, you can create a point where you're giving one dedicated point or tip or trick and just have that straight B roll footage, or you can do clips of the B roll footage with different points. So three different ways that you can be doing this in your business or five different ways that you can handle that. And you don't have to create extra content, because you're already filming what you're doing in the moment. It's just part of how you're doing things. And then you can just drag it in. And literally 20 seconds later, you now have a brand new video without any extra effort because you've been documenting your day. So as you go through this, you should be doing a mix of talking direct to camera, and then that'd be real footage, so that it's not taking over your life and so that you are documenting and showing the behind the scenes of your business. And the cool thing about payroll is that it does document your business. It shows people how you are working and how you're serving them. It shows the behind the scenes of your business, and the behind the scenes of your real life so that they also recognize your real person with a real family and a real life. And you're not always going to be answering emails for them. So this is a really great way to community build, identify with people because they see what you're doing. And they're doing that too. They can learn and grow from you. And it saves you all that time and effort. Because you can easily create videos now within just a couple of seconds because you're just using a scripted voiceover where you don't even have to appear on camera. So you can do it without your hair and makeup done. Or you are just using that text overlay that you're just going to type out real quick and then put out into the world to make your points.

Jennie Wright 17:06
Holy moly. Okay, that is that was an episode in five minutes. You need to drink some water after that, because that was crazy. Oh my gosh. Okay. So cam, you mentioned reposting content and stuff and all that kind of stuff. But how does that affect the algorithms? How does it affect the algorithms on social? Is there anything that we should know to maximize our efforts on? You know, getting those algos to play nicely with us?

KM Robinson 17:29
Algorithms are one of my favorite things to talk about. Because so many people are afraid of algorithms, they think it's a big and scary thing out to get them. But the algorithms job is to find content that is going to keep a person on the platform as long as possible. So they can serve them more ads. So the longer that they stay and scroll through Instagram, or Tiktok, or whatever it is, the more ads they can be served, the more money the platform can make. So the algorithms are looking at our viewing patterns and our engagement patterns to decide what we may or may not like. and I are going to test that out with us to see how we like it. Now with that in mind, we're creating content that our audience is going to like and the algorithms like to serve up good content. And so anything that's going to serve them well will be served to them. Now with that in mind, we are using our content in one way. And we're testing it, we're posting it, we're gonna see how people engage with it. If it's at the right time, the right place, the right location, sometimes it's going to work and it will take off. And sometimes it's just the wrong place at the wrong time. And it's not going to take off. I have reposted my content that has failed, and then succeeded and gone viral the next time I posted it. I've also taken content that went viral and posted it later on and it didn't do as well. Now with the algorithms, YouTube does not want you reposting because it's so SEO friendly. It's going to last for years and years. I have videos that are getting hits from years ago that are making me tremendous amounts of money to this day. Tick tock loves to be displaying content that was really good. At one point, they like to serve the best content. So it has a much longer life. I still have condoms being kicked out from months ago that are making my clients money. And the people that have done brand deals with me are still getting sales off of those videos, that Instagram shelf life is a little bit less but typically lasts for a day or two and then it's on to the next. They always want the next new thing. Now we are aware that the algorithms are aware if it's the exact same video, tic toc doesn't care. And Instagram only cares a little bit. So it's still safe for you to be reposting this content as long as you space it out. It should not be the next day it should not be the next week, Try waiting a couple of weeks or a month to put it back out. Or if you want to mix it up and really make sure that the algorithm doesn't think it's the exact same thing. Clip it in a different way. You can end it early or you can start it late or you can add something into it you can change it up a little bit. Or if you don't Why don't you be the exact same video, take the scripts that you've already created, and just refilm it, it's an extra couple of seconds of your time to refilm something that you've already written and then edit it and pop it back out. So there's a lot of ways that you can be repurposing this. As long as you're spacing it out, it's actually ok on Tik Tok and on Instagram to be reposting the same content, because it's going to reach a new audience. And if you give that that gap of time of a month or more people are going to forget they saw it in the first place. And so even the old audience is going to view it as newer content.

Alyson Lex 20:34
A really like all of that, and frankly, my brain is now full. And I want to go shoot B roll footage all over the place, like I did after we had our conversation. So what is one thing that our listeners can do right now, other than the B roll thing, because you've already given that one. But what is one thing they can do right now, to make this content creation process feel less scary?

KM Robinson 21:06
Here's the thing, you do not have to be responsible for all of your own content, we feel like we have to create everything and make it as hard as possible, or we're not giving our best effort for it. This is just not the way that the internet works anymore. They love collaborations they love when you bring other people into this. They love when you're building community and conversation and interacting with other people's content. So most of the platforms actually allow you to do wet to stitch or to remix other people's content. So you can effectively find a piece of valuable content out there. And then just set up your phone. And for 510 15 seconds, smile and nod your camera and point to the other person to say this is a great point, you should pay attention to this, you're now delivering valuable content to your audience without any work. Or you have the ability to pull in other people, you can work together to form collaborations where you do half the work and they do half the work or you shout out somebody else and they shout out you, you can form a collaboration group where one person asks a question and everybody else stitches response to it in their own platforms. So the work does not have to all fall on your shoulders. If you build a community, and you're creating conversation, that's gonna work really well for you. And because you are then using features inside of the platforms, they know that you're forming collaborations and that you're forming community, and you're helping those conversations to grow. And that's going to do really well in the algorithms for you as well. So making sure that you're creating your own unique content. And then using that D roll and making it super easy for yourself, you're reiterating the points that you're putting out there, and then you're forming collaborations with each other is going to really take a lot of work off your shoulders, because like we said the beginning, you shouldn't be spending more than a few minutes on every single piece of content that you're putting out there. 90% of your content should be incredibly easy. and stress free for you to create so that you can have those conversations with people. And then the other 10%, you could put a little more time and effort into to make sure you're having those exceptional pieces of content perform as well. But it really comes down to testing and seeing what your audience resonates with and then leaning more heavily into that with the understanding that the algorithm is an ever changing thing. And what works today may not work tomorrow, which means you're going to have to keep testing and throwing things at the wall and seeing what's going to stick.

Alyson Lex 23:35
Well, thank you so much for this essential masterclass in content creation. I really appreciate all of the information, where can our listeners go. To find out more about you maybe get some of that short form and long form content that you talked about, and all that good stuff.

KM Robinson 23:54
You can come hang out with me at K M robinson.com. There's tons of information and it links out to all of my courses and my webinars, all of my YouTube pages and all the free resources that I have available for everyone as well. You can hit me up on youtube@youtube.com slash K M Robinson. And then you can find me at K M Robinson life on Tiktok and Instagram where I am incredibly active. So if you've got questions, drop them for me, and you'll probably get a video response.

Jennie Wright 24:24
I've watched your tech talks. And yes, you do do a lot of video responses. So I think it's really good that you do that. Because that helps people really understand what to do. There's so many questions around this. And you answered a lot of the questions and I think people really need to re listen to this episode to try and get all the information out of it. But you also have this information like you were saying available in so many different places. So we'll have all of those links and everything in the show notes. So you can go and click on that. So at system to thrive.com forward slash 157 which is going to be the episode number for this episode with camera Watson. So go check that out, get everything that she's talked about. There's tons of free resources I was on there earlier. There's like a plethora of them. And we just want to say, Ken, thanks so much for taking the time to talk to us. We really appreciate it. Thanks for having us on your shows. You know, it is about collaboration. And it's about supporting other entrepreneurs, other women trying to get information out there and support each other. So we really do appreciate that opportunity as well.

KM Robinson 25:22
Thank you so much for having me.

Jennie Wright 25:24
This has been a great conversation. Absolutely. So don't forget, if you are enjoying this podcast and you want to hear more stuff about it, and you don't want to miss an episode, please do share, follow, like all those things and make sure you leave us a comment. We love getting comments from listeners and we love hearing from you. We actually do make episodes based on some of the comments that we get. So go try that out. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. We'll be back again soon. Take care