How To Publish 5 (Or More) Pieces Of Content Every Day While Working Full Time, Without A Team, And Using Free Tools To Automate The Process
I’ve always struggled with creating content for social media.
I was always late to start, missing the “sweet spot” when people grew quickly on new platforms like TikTok, and even when I managed to start, I struggled to stick with it.
You could find me sitting on the sidelines scrolling my feed watching the people I knew growing their personal brands, amassing thousands of followers, all while the feelings of envy of jealousy clouded my mind.
And it didn’t matter how many Gary Vaynerchuk podcasts I listened to, I couldn’t figure it out.
I saw a glimmer of hope in late 2022 when I built my TikTok following from 0 to 5,000 followers in 60 days.
ChatGPT had just hit the market in late 2022.
I remember sitting down at dinner one evening and telling my wife that there was this new thing called ChatGPT and it was going to change everything.
And right then and there I felt the pull to start creating content again.
This surge of inspiration was all too common, especially now that I understand my ADHD, but it was the spark that ignited my desire to “start” social media again.
I began creating 1 piece of short-form content per day and posting it to Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube shorts.
Then something I never expected happened, on December 18, 2022, one of my posts went viral (for me) generating over 200,000 views. (You can see the post here)
I can still recall the morning after I posted my first TikTok with my new account, sitting in my dark living room at 4:30 in the morning. Tears filled my eyes seeing 8 views. I was simply so happy that there were at least a few people that watched my video.
Then a couple of weeks later, one of my posts on ChatGPT “hit”.
I saw 1,000 views and I couldn’t believe it. I told my wife and she was so happy for me. Nothing I had ever posted before (in my 18 years as an entrepreneur) had received this many views.
I checked again, 4,000 views.
Then, I checked again, 6,000 views.
I couldn’t believe this video was still getting views.
By that evening it had over 40,000 and by the next day 100,000… Today, it has 237,000 views.
In just 60 days I went from a brand new TikTok account to 5,000 followers.
Then my wife leaned over and said “You should create an optin around this ChatGPT thing.”
This was a controversial moment for me because when I started creating content this time, my intention was to purely give value with nothing to sell, and even though I wanted views, I never actually expected anything to “hit”.
After contemplating and procrastinating, I built a lead magnet.
I created 30 ChatGPT prompts you could use to automate your content creation. It consisted of prompts for things like generating a headline, show notes for your podcast, Instagram posts, and more.
And, I did this on the absolute cheap.
The “lead magnet” was just a Google Doc.
I used a free ConvertKit account.
I built the landing page in ConvertKit which took all of 60 seconds.
You can watch me build it here:
Then I created 2 TikTok videos where I literally said “I just put together 30 ChatGPT prompts to automate your content creation” while scrolling through the Google Doc and posting it asking people to comment if they wanted it.
The first video posted on January 13, 2023, received 28,000 views and 759 “Saves”
The second video posted on January 18, 2023, received 49,000 views and 714 “Saves”
Seeing how successful these two posts did organically I turned them into ads.
I was generating leads for as low as $0.50 at one point.
Between the few dollars I put into ads and the organic reach, I added over 1,200 emails to my email list putting me beyond the “free” threshold with my ConvertKit account.
My content creation came to a screeching halt in May where I completely stopped posting for 3 months.
1 post per day turned into 3 posts per day.
1 podcast per week turned into launching a second podcast where I published 5 episodes per week.
Doing the editing myself turned into hiring a video editor.
Very quickly I became overwhelmed and when I hit my threshold everything came crashing down.
I discuss this concept at length in my letter on The Consistency Threshold which you can read on my Substack: https://landonpoburan.substack.com/p/the-consistency-threshold-pt-1 or if you prefer, listen to on my Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1854421/13812076
During this period (and the years prior) I learned 3 very important lessons.
We must be passionate about what we’re doing, and have a purpose driving it.
Consistency is driven through simplification and narrowing our focus.
We must consistently review and iterate on our process to avoid burnout.
When it comes to personal branding, content creation, and building a business it all comes down to two things: The first is getting started, and the second is not stopping.
We must be passionate about what we’re doing and have a purpose driving it if we want to be consistent.
I am not sure if I could “re-create” my rapid success of 0 to 5,000 followers in 60 days on TikTok. Most of it was driven by a single post that went mini-viral and was “timely” because ChatGPT was hot at the time… But, there was an important lesson learned through this.
Passion.
Very, and I mean very simply, if you don’t love what you’re doing you will not be consistent with it.
In my case, the excitement surrounding ChatGPT, and my desire to test, play, experiment, and talk about it drove my ability to consistently create content about it.
It was fun.
And this is a very underlooked component of consistently building a personal brand.
It has to be fun.
Purpose is the other component here.
Simon Sinek is known for saying “people don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it…” This is your purpose.
If you can combine passion with a purpose for your content strategy you will greatly increase your likelihood of getting started and maintaining consistency.
This ^^ is what got me started, but I missed out on something very important and that is what drove me to burnout where I stopped posting altogether.
Simplifying and narrowing our focus keeps us within our consistency threshold.
I went from posting 1x a day to 3x. Publishing 5-6 podcasts per week. Trying to build my YouTube channel. I hired a team. All while working full-time. It became too complicated and too complex. I had lost my focus, and I burned out.
In the following sections, I will provide my recommendations for where to start and what my personal process is but the key component is simplicity.
If it seems almost “too easy” you’re in a good starting position.
To avoid burnout we must continuously review and iterate on our strategy.
Understanding our consistency threshold is an important concept, and if you haven’t I encourage you to read about it here: https://landonpoburan.substack.com/p/the-consistency-threshold-pt-1
This is a continuously iterative process.
I am constantly reviewing what I am doing. Recently, I started to focus on YouTube again in addition to what I was already doing. I quickly began to feel overwhelmed and felt like I did not have enough time to complete everything I wanted to.
Because I was aware of this, I re-assed my focus, and made the decision to not focus on YouTube - I would post but I would put no time or effort into editing or thumbnails.
Review, re-assess, revise, and repeat.
This level of awareness is what keeps you in check on this journey.
You must remember…
"Good Enough" beats "Nothing At All" when getting started and staying consistent with content creation.
We cannot do everything.
If you’re working full-time, or have a family, or have ADHD, or [insert your circumstance], content creation can be a lot of work.
Our goal is to get started, and not stop/remain consistent over a long period of time so that we can remove the constant cycle of starting and stopping or sitting on the sidelines.
I am not a professional or full-time content creator. So good enough and consistent beats nothing at all.
This is why I have devised a content creation plan that can be done while working full-time, doesn’t require a team, and utilizes only free tools to automate aspects of the process.
Here is my recommended starting point for content creation.
Choose your medium. Ex: Written word, audio, video.
Choose your platform. Ex: LinkedIn, Podcast, YouTube.
Choose your frequency. Ex: 1 YouTube video per week.
Choose when you will create. Ex: Fridays at 9 am.
Choose when you will edit. Ex: Fridays at 11 am.
This will be your “pillar” piece of content.
Anything (and everything) else can be repurposed exclusively from this singular piece of pillar content.
Could you enhance or improve this strategy? Of course. Would that take additional time, effort, money, and complexity? Yes. This is where the compromise takes place.
To goal is to start simple and have it feel almost “too easy.”
Once you map out those 5 steps above you have everything you need to start the creation process. Even without anything else you can start creating. You can begin creating a bank of content that can be used at any time.
Here’s your zero-cost content creation tool kit.
Google Drive.
Descript/Capcut.
SquadCast/Google Meet.
Adobe Podcast.
Vidyo.ai.
Metricool.
ChatGPT.
This tool kit encompasses everything you will need from planning, storage, editing, and publishing all of your content.
Keep in mind that any tool can be swapped in and out based on needs and preferences. This is not an all-encompassing list, merely a list of free tools that I frequently use and recommend to entrepreneurs.
Google Drive is free (or paid) and can be used to store all files among other things. Ex: I am currently writing this in Google Docs.
Descript/Capcut are both free video editing software.
SquadCast/Google Meet are video recording tools. SquadCast is a part of/included with Descript and Google Meet is included with the Google Suite. Zoom is also an option. If you’re recording video, you may use one of these tools, you can record directly on your computer, or you can even use your phone.
Adobe Podcast is a free podcast enhancement tool. I really like this because it makes my audio sound great. They also have Adobe Podcast Studio that you can use to directly record your audio if you’re podcasting.
Vidyo.ai is an AI tool to create short-form clips from long-form videos. I use a combination of this along with Descript to create my clips.
Metricool is a social media scheduling tool. They have a free plan where you can post to Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, and more, all for free. Once you have your content ready, you can automate the scheduling and posting of all content - for free.
ChatGPT can be used for almost everything. Headlines, social media posts, idea generation, planning your video scripts, questions for podcasts, show notes, and with the release of DALLE-3 it can generate images, and it’s only getting more useful as time goes on.
If reading this seems daunting, start with the 1 thing that seems easy.
Here’s the exact content process I use to publish 5+ pieces of content per day.
Medium: Writing.
Platform: Substack.
Frequency: Weekly.
Creation: Saturday morning.
Editing: Monday afternoon.
My pillar is 1 long-form written letter per week.
Everything I publish is repurposed from this single piece of content I write.
I write 1 letter per week.
I read what I wrote while recording in SquadCast.
I edit it with Descript.
Here is what I publish each week:
1x Weekly Substack.
1x Weekly Audio Podcast.
1x Weekly YouTube Video (long).
1x Daily Clips on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube Shorts, Twitter.
I restarted this journey in August of 2023.
I knew that I needed to simplify my process so I started with only posting 3 clips per week. Only with time and iteration did I add to this. Slowly I added elements like YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn but only when I knew it wasn’t going to push me past my threshold.
I use Metricol to schedule all of my clips which saves me an incredible amount of time from manually posting it all daily.
This ^^ single automation hack alone has been a game-changer for people I’ve coached.
I do all of this while working full time, without a team, and using free tools.
When (or if) I feel something beginning to pull at my consistency, I take the time to evaluate it. It usually means there is something that needs to be adjusted.
If you would like assistance developing your own personal simplified content strategy please shoot me a message.
Landon
P.S: Here are a couple of other letters you may also like:
The Consistency Threshold:
https://landonpoburan.substack.com/p/the-consistency-threshold-pt-1
What Are You Willing To Sacrifice In Your Pursuit Of Success In Business:
https://landonpoburan.substack.com/p/what-are-you-willing-to-sacrifice