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If you’re an entrepreneur, there’s a great chance that you’re also creating content. And while you may not be quick to call yourself a content creator, the work that you’re doing surrounding your offer whether it’s a digital offer, a service, or a physical product, is considered content.
If you’re showing up on the internet, if you’re posting anything, if you’re shooting off emails, recording podcasts, writing blogs, or making videos – you are a content creator.
And as a business owner, the content you spend your precious time creating is valuable – you pour your insights into a social media post, blog, podcast episode… for it to only ‘live’ for a few minutes or hours. Such a bummer, right?!
Well today, I’m going to share with you my secret weapon to multiplying the shelf life of the content you’re already creating with one of my favorite, FREE social media platforms… It’s not Instagram, or Facebook, or even the ever-addicting TikTok…
Most social media platforms have lifespans for their posts that last only minutes to hours, depending on what time they are posted. However, Pinterest pins can have a lifespan of six months to a year. This means people can still see your pins months after you’ve shared it, creating a really stellar organic ROI.
If you’re ready to make the most out of your content, get more eyes on your business and work smarter, not harder, this episode is for you. I also have an awesome FREE class for you to learn even more about this platform: 20x Your Traffic in 1 Hour a Week with Pinterest!
Now, let’s dive into the power of Pinterest and why it’s the platform you shouldn’t be skipping!
How Much Time Do You Spend on Marketing?
The average entrepreneur spends an average of 20 hours a week on marketing. Most of the business owners surveyed in a study by Constant Contact (82 percent) say they spend at least 20 hours per week marketing their business across multiple platforms. That includes Web, email and social media, mostly.
The reality is that most of our content is falling onto platforms where there are algorithms that dictate how your content is seen and experienced as well as how it’s engaged with.
This means that a lot of our efforts when it comes to marketing are at the mercy of platforms we don’t own and we can’t control and that there’s also a good chance they won’t even reach the people we’re creating the content for.
Let’s chat about the average lifespan of a post on each popular social media platform, to really paint a picture of what you can expect!
Average Lifespan of Social Media Posts by Platform
The average longevity of an Instagram post in the general feed is 48 hours, which is when it will get a majority of its likes, comments, shares, and saves. After the 48-hour period, the post is less likely to receive much attention.
On LinkedIn, posts last even shorter– with an average of 24 hours. And on Facebook, although it varies, a post typically receives around 75% of its total activity within the first five hours.
X (formerly Twitter) is even shorter. Since users can send up to 5,000 tweets per second it’s no wonder that tweets lose their relevance at a significantly faster rate than most social media networks. This is undoubtedly the most competitive venue, with the fastest disappearance of your posts. The number of people that follow you on Twitter determines how long your tweets last. If you’re one of 3,000 people, your tweet will most likely be limited to a few SECONDS.
TikTok videos have a much shorter lifespan than videos on other social media platforms. Within the first few minutes after its release, your video gets most of its views. Unless your video goes viral after that, it’s pretty much dead.
Now let’s talk about Pinterest… As you can see, most social media platforms have lifespans for their posts that last only minutes to hours, depending on what time they are posted. However, Pinterest pins can have a lifespan of six months to a YEAR. This means people can still see your pins months after you’ve shared it, creating a really stellar organic ROI!
The truth is, most of our precious time is being spent on content that isn’t really doing much for us. We’re not thinking like a CEO in the fact that every hour we’re spending on our work should be yielding us some sort of return. We’re just creating content because we feel like we should – because someone said we had to – or because we’ve always done it.
The ROI of Pinterest
From an ROI standpoint, most of the content we’re creating we’re aiming for “likes” and “comments” which ultimately are vanity metrics that don’t really move the needle for us. A lot of times when we think of ROI we think of the return on investment for our money – but for me, when I think of ROI, I’m looking at it from a return on TIME because time is my currency. Anything I am spending time on, I want to be able to link back to a result.
For most of us when it comes to content we often: ideate, create, publish, and then we’re back to the beginning again of ideating, creating, and publishing. We’re adopting this churn and burn mentality that is keeping us stuck constantly creating but seldom promoting or evaluating our efforts. Most of our content gets one chance to land and then we’re on to the next piece.
Years ago, I made the decision to build a business that can run while I rest by creating email funnels and welcoming team members who can ‘own’ parts of my business.
Social media can’t do that for us – if I stop creating and stop posting, the results stop coming in. The algorithm is quick to forget about us and it’s not showing our content from weeks ago.
So how do we transform not only how we THINK about our content, but how we strategically create it so that it can work for us?
How To Be Strategic With Content Creation
As you create content, here are some questions you should ask yourself:
- Are we creating content that is more evergreen? Will this still be relevant and valuable weeks, months, and potentially even years later?
- Are we focusing more on the promotion of the content then creating new content? If we’re investing time into creating this, are we spending equal or MORE time thinking through how we’ll promote that piece of content?
- Are we leveraging platforms that favor longevity and the long game vs. the platforms that are focused on quick hits of dopamine?
- Are we working smarter and not harder when it comes to where our time is going in our business?
- Is there a way to repurpose this work and toss a little strategy behind it to elevate my results without added effort?
Answer me this: Is it easier to create one brand new piece of content from scratch or to create 10 different graphics that promote that piece of content using templates?
Let me give you a breakdown of how much time certain marketing efforts take:
- Ideating, outlining, reviewing, recording, editing, and promoting this podcast episode probably took around 3 hours.
- Writing an email to their list: It can take anywhere from 20-30 minutes, little less than an hour, or 2 to 3 hours for writing a single marketing email. How long writing emails (blog posts, or landing pages, etc) takes can vary depending on the experience level of the writer
- Writing a blog post: The time it takes to regularly work on a blog depends on a number of factors. Writing blog posts, doing research, promoting content – all these take at least 5 hours per week, often more.
- Outlining/Recording/Editing/Publishing a YouTube video: An average of 7 hours for every 1–5 minutes of video uploaded to YouTube
- Creating 10 unique graphics to push to one other piece of content using templates already created takes me 5 minutes….
So, which one will you choose? I hope you choose to work smarter, not harder, and use Pinterest to 120x the lifespan of your content today!
The Clear Choice: Pinterest
Clearly, I LOVE Pinterest. Honestly, it’s a flex. I mean, 70% of the WORLD’S population over the age of 13 is on Pinterest! That’s 450 MILLION pairs of eyeballs in one place—it’s the Internet’s favorite inspo board!
Not only is it an enduring part of the online/social media marketing ecosystem, but it also has the ability to carry significant weight in your business strategy.
After all—as business owners and content creators, everything we do needs to work together in a complementary way… but more importantly, any time you can use a single piece of content in multiple ways to create a traffic avalanche of MORE people to YOUR business… It’s a good thing.
Especially when we work so hard to create the stuff we make!
I don’t know about you, but if I’m gonna bravely hit ‘publish’ on something I put my heart & soul into, I want to make sure the people I made it for actually see it!
We ALL know what “0 views” feels like. What if you could see “100 views” or “1000 views” … just in a matter of hours, let alone days/weeks/months.
On Pinterest, nothing is one-and-done. It’s a continuous loop of new traffic, more peeps, and farther reach. When you’re releasing your content to a platform of 450 million humans—the possibilities are endless!
Basically, if you’re a business owner of ANY kind, you should be pinning. And NO, it doesn’t have to be a BIG “thing”—my whole strategy takes less than 1 hour per week!
I’m teaching my favorite FREE live workshop where I’m sharing 20x Your Traffic in 1 Hour a Week with Pinterest!
I’ll walk you through EXACTLY how my team and I use Pinterest to make sure ALL my content has a longer shelf-life and bigger impact every single time we post, without adding stress to anyone’s week.
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