Content creation is an essential part of any marketing strategy, but it can also be one of the most time-consuming and challenging aspects of the job. 

The good news? You can use automation to streamline your content creation workflow and create more content in less time.

Ready?

Use a Content Management System

One key to simplifying your content creation process is using a content management system (CMS) instead of a project management tool. While project management tools like Asana and Trello are great for managing people and tasks, they aren't specifically designed for managing content.

A CMS, on the other hand, is built specifically for managing content at a granular level. It allows you to organize, track, and collaborate on content throughout the creation process, from ideation to publication.

One popular CMS is Airtable, which offers a highly customizable and user-friendly interface for managing content. For example, you can create custom content packages that include all of the assets and information related to a specific piece of content.

Let's say you have a podcast that includes a variety of different assets, such as:

• The main video file

• The audio files

• The transcript

• Social media clips

• Show notes

• A blog post based on the episode

You can create a custom package for your podcast that includes all of these assets in one centralized location. You can then track the progress of each asset as it moves through the creation process. For instance, you might have columns for:

• Episode number

• Episode title

• Recording date

• Status (e.g., "Recorded," "Edited," "Published")

• Main video file link

• Audio file links

• Transcript link

• Social media clip links

• Show notes link

• Blog post link

By linking all of these assets together, you can keep everything organized and easily accessible to your entire team in real time.

But the real power of using a CMS comes from its automation capabilities.

Automate Your Workflow With Triggers

To fully automate your content creation workflow, you'll need to use tools like Zapier and Make. These tools act as the glue that connects different software and services, allowing you to set up triggers and actions that automatically perform tasks for you.

For example, you could set up an automation that automatically creates a new row in your "Podcasts" table whenever a new episode is recorded. This automation could be triggered by a specific action, such as uploading a new video file to Google Drive.

You could also set up an automation that sends a notification to your podcast editor whenever a new episode is ready for editing. This notification could include a link to the main video file and any relevant notes or instructions.

Other examples of automation might include:

• Automatically generating social media posts whenever a new episode is published

• Sending a notification to your team whenever a task is completed or a deadline is approaching

• Updating the status of an asset when a specific action is taken (e.g., changing the status to "Edited" when the video file is updated)

Leverage AI Tools

Another way to simplify your content creation process is by leveraging AI tools to help with transcription, writing, and image creation tasks.

Instead of spending hours manually transcribing the video, you could use a tool like Whisper to transcribe the audio automatically.

Once you have the transcript, you can use a tool like ChatGPT to generate a blog post based on the video's content.

You can even use AI tools to create images for your social media posts. Tools like Dall-E and Midjourney can generate custom images based on text descriptions, allowing you to create eye-catching visuals for your posts quickly.

Advice is provided with insights from Stephen G. Pope, a featured guest on the Social Media Marketing Podcast.