Content That Breeds Like Rabbits | Part 1
Overview | Getting the most out of your existing content — The pillar approach to content creation
Welcome to the latest article in our SU Social series, where we take a look at the social media & mobile marketing & communication tips, tools, and tactics for each students’ union.
Each of part of the series have been de-constructed, carefully selected, and properly sequenced for easy understanding and usage so that you don’t have to sift through the thousands of articles on the web. And apply these strategies right away.
Today’s topic to explore is The Pillar Approach to Content Creation.
I’m jumping ahead here for a minute because one of the big concerns, for Sabbatical Officers and Senior Managers, when thinking of introducing ANY new approach to the team is Budget, Resources, and Staff Time.
We are no stranger to this predicament. In the spirit of pre-freshers planning chaos, we wanted to highlight a part of your Content Creation Plan so you and your team can add it to your Online Communications Strategy for the year.
Preparation
Before we actually get into the Multiplication Framework, we need to Audit our current content — gather all past blogs, posts, online campaigns, and stories that there are online and somewhere in your Intranet (if those still exist) or SU’s cloud drive.
The Pillar Approach to Content Creation
If you haven’t heard or are unfamiliar with the pillar approach to content creation, a pillar content is a main/ large piece of content — usually a longform content that usually has a large amount of resources and time dedicated to it. Instead of it being a single-use content, it’s then used to create multiple micro-content pieces like an infographic, a list based blog, cut into multiple short (highlights) videos for Instagram, and Twitter, or even Stories.
The nature of Students’ Unions allow for large campaigns and contents to be created in a short time, but with considerable team effort, then never seen again as the new Officers cycle starts.
For example, from a meeting with the Education & Representation team, we find that the typical Class Rep encounters problems with communication and negotiation with senior academics at staff student committees.
The pillar content here might be, following a workshop and training, a Communications and Negotiations ebook. The clusters might be an infographic for their facebook groups, a one minute video highlight from the training for twitter, tips from best communications books — made into quotes in an image for Instagram, 10 second inspiring snippet from the training for Instagram and Messenger Stories.
Students’ Unions are known for our high turnover of new ideas and campaigns. However, as new members, officers, and staff members begin their SU journey; it almost always feels like we’re starting from ground zero.
I have learn’t a large amount from SU archives and old NUS training materials. Please don’t let all that institutional knowledge and memory fade away. It can seem tempting to start from zero, but spending 1 or 2 days finding and cataloguing old content will save you time, and give you ideas for the long run.
You’ll get
- Another/ more staff member(s)*
- just by using this approach, you will get more content, which you would have only got by adding another staff member before. ;) - More resources and time
- In SU’s, resources and time are usually close-to, or at full capacity. More output in less time means more resources to be directed at much needed activities. :) - Relevant content
- Pillar contents are typically more researched and already tested with the membership. This ensure’s relevance, And you can micro calibrate and test as needed too. :)
Most of all, most SU’s and staff are looking for processes to properly execute their operational plans and targets, partly why i started SUsocial. This framework or your own modified version will, not only create consistency of content for our membership but, create consistency within the Union and the team.
#happyDays
Look out for future posts where we dive deeper into creating pillar contents, and the content multiplier matrix.
In social solidarity,
I hope and expect you found this SU Social Series valuable for you and your team. If you have any questions or would like a review, or simply would like help with anything related to this article or mobile-first communications just shoot me a message on rajbrighton@smoovemedia.com
Let’s not be anti-social ;)
