Marketing: 15 Content Ideas in 30 minutes, October 2021

(00:04):

Hi, it’s Nicola from Mint Business Club here with the most gorgeous, delectable, our Michelle from Michelle Rose Marketing. And we’re going to just give you 15 content ideas for October. October 2021, obviously, just to be clear.

(00:19):

And I think we said Michelle, we, well two things. We were not entirely inspired were we? By the awareness days in October. We normally have far too many to give people and tend to end up going over our 15 minutes a lot of the time, but we felt that there was a lot of samey samey this month and a lot of opposites, you know, so one month had been the, like we had national no beard day and then suddenly it was beard day. So samy samey, opposites. But it has, I think if we go through them and then at the end, we can talk about actually the good reminder of some lessons that, that has brought out as we were chatting before we recorded.

(01:05):

For absolute sure. So if you are looking for a month of stuff, the awareness months that we have for you in October, breast cancer awareness, and we have black history month as well. So I’m going to jump into there and ADHD awareness month, which is very personal to me having been diagnosed last year with ADHD. So some things that, again, you’ve got a whole month to dip in and out what resonates, what you want to share, what you want to talk about. And certainly for me, I will spend a lot of the month just looking around and seeing what’s going on. So yeah, we’ve got a whole month to cover that lot. Wonderful. and then what are we going to, did we go to the fourth?

(01:44):

I think on the fourth we had world habitats day which is, obviously the, the planet, the green movement, it’s massive. If you have an eco store, if you do anything with animals, wildlife, but you really feel like you’ve got green credentials, you’re giving back, your supporting businesses to rewild, you’re a farmer. You have a small acreage. I mean, you can see how just one title, even though the people who set the day up might have a specific aim, there’s nothing to say you can’t jump onto the hashtag and do something wider.

(02:20):

I think what’s interesting is on the fourth it’s world animal day and world habitat day. So you’re bringing those two sides of that, very green coin together, aren’t we, and whereever you stand, there’s probably going to be an animal that you quite like, and there’s probably going to be some habitat or outside space, somewhere that you quite like, and for all the reasons in the world. But it does seem that some of these awareness days are often clumped together. So things that naturally fit, although beards and cake,

(02:51):

They seem to keep coming together, we keep finding. It’s a nice one, it just gives an idea, if you’re sort of a business that does educational resources or you’re a tutor, or if you’ve got a gate or you can team up with someone on how to make a hedgehog hotel or those sorts of things. And you can give that out as a freebie on that day, increase your mailing list, again, think around it, be creative. These ideas that we give you, we say every month, doesn’t just have to be about social media content. It can be wider marketing ideas on and offline. Absolutely.

(03:28):

And for example, if you’re a small business owner, and especially if you’ve got kids at home, as we know you might want hide in some habitat to get 10 minutes to yourself how great to be taking those pictures while you’re like literally hiding in a den that you built to get away from everything?

(03:43):

Love it.

(03:44):

You know what I mean? We could happily, could we not, go and hide in a den and you and me, as long as it’s big enough that we can get in, and then lock it afterwards,

(03:51):

It’d be good. and that brings us onto the fifth, the world do something nice day. Someone could build us one of those outdoor hidey habitats, that would be great.

(04:03):

For Michelle and I, to go and escape everything that would be like, we’d sit there, you know in our den and just create so many ideas. It would be like, right and news from the den. Right, Nicola stop now. What did you say about ADHD month, Nic? Yeah.

(04:20):

All I can see genuinely, is me and you in a den, right? Except it’s a, it’s a glamping den and it’s got lights and some of them will be pink and there’s like a pen and a pad and loads of colouring things for us. And we’ll just be creating ideas,

(04:33):

But any glamping sites out there who would like to give me and Nic a freebie and we’ll come and post on Instagram about it all weekend, we’re up, we’re up for it. So you see, you could use your social media to shamelessly as well.

(04:48):

That is thousands like, hundreds of thousands probably, our reach is. So even, you know, if you fancy it, please give us a den for the weekend, lovely carrying on, we’re not shy, are we? Would you like to jump forward then? Or do you want to do something nice day? Oh, well teachers’ day and do something nice day, again, a really nice pairing. Oh, do something nice for teachers, as an ex teacher, like honestly do something nice.

(05:17):

Definitely. And I like as a mum to three and one’s homeschooled, so I could do something nice for me, I guess, but joking aside, I think throughout the whole of COVID, our teachers have worked tirelessly, they’ve done so much. They really have been maybe an unsung hero. So if you are in a small town you know, a market town, a village, independent shops club together, see what you can do, give your teachers, you know like they can go large for free on the day and I can have free gift wrapping, they can have a, what can you do to treat the teachers who, you know, work in the schools local to your businesses. So again, these ideas can inspire, you know, maybe even bigger campaigns or ideas. And if, and if that comes to you, if it feels right and it feels fun and you’ve got time to plan it, then, then go for it.

(06:13):

Absolutely do it. We’re coming onto the 10th. For me, the juxtaposition of actually these three things on one day, cause we’ve got world mental health day, which obviously is something that we are passionately, always encouraging our members, our community to talk, just talk openly, whatever’s going on with you, your family, you know, Michelle and I have loads going on. So you know, when you’re passionate about that, it’s also world homeless day and mental health and homelessness sits together as a pairing completely because you know, you’re homeless, your mental health is probably probably unlikely to be brilliant.

(06:50):

And then you’ve got national handbag day on the same day. So before we started recording, we’re like blimey, you know, we can’t be flippant and just say, I’m buying a handbag on world mental health day, because that’s not what this is, but it does show all the light and the dark or the serious and the cute little light, or I don’t know, you pick and choose from these days don’t you, Michelle? Is what we’re saying. You pick and choose, and you’re not going all out to try and be in amongst everything, because that would be really confusing. And for your followers, like one minute you posted about mental health the next time it’s like about the handbag that you’ve just got it just, it just would be such a confusing moment for you,

(07:30):

But it would mean if I picked out, I know a few of your Mint members make bags, but they could, they could do some lovely content in the run-up to that, or on the day, you know, their best sellers they could do if they wanted to do an offer, they could, but, you know, they could really jump on those hashtags and they can, maybe it’s, some influencers might be, might be wanting to do something. So there’s, there’s lots of things there. But I know, you know, certainly that, that some of those said members have had, like we have, their, their own mental health struggles. So you’re right. That they might, they might not want to post about that. Cause it might jar if that’s not something they talk openly about, but they could certainly go and comment on the other conversations or use that to find other blogs or podcasts that they want to listen to.

(08:21):

And from sort of talking about how, and we’ll come onto this at the end about how content, especially on sort of your website on blogs or podcasts or YouTube videos can have quite a long life cycle. My blog, which is my thoughts on world mental health day 2020, still nearly two years on gets one of the highest amounts of traffic out of all of my blogs. And it resonates with a lot of people. So dependent on how you do talk about your mental health, think about what you can create beyond the day that would, that would last and would exist in an evergreen format. And sometimes that simply sorry, I interrupted there, but if you if you do some really good Instagram posts, or you’ve got a Facebook group and you post in that Facebook group, lift that content and turn it into a blog, it can be as simple as that, but then it exists beyond the day or the week then. And it means that your humble content, you know, what you’ve just put out there, actually it gets a chance to, to help people in the much longer term.

(09:30):

Yeah. Just to bring something to that again, what Michelle and I are asked very, very frequently is about authenticity and how much you share. And I think when you’re talking about things that are quite sensitive, we remember that, you know, if you start sharing absolutely everything in your life, either you might give your parents a fright, if you’ve never actually shared that stuff with them, or your close friends and family. Think about triggers, you know, because if you’re writing really sensitive stuff and mental health is a massive, massive, massive bucket of sensitivity, right? So, you know, are we, are we making sure we we’ve warned people what’s coming. Are we, are we actually using the phrases, you know, this could have triggers for you, please note this. And there’s some things that even two years ago, I wouldn’t have thought to put in blogs, you know?

(10:18):

But perhaps we need to think because the conversation has moved on so much and that’s absolutely amazing, just be sensitive to who’s reading it. And, and this, this idea of authenticity and Michelle and I are really aligned on this. You have to be yourself, but you have to choose how much of yourself you want to share. And it’s a very, very personal thing. Your content for your business is you for your business. And we are our businesses, but, you know, don’t ever feel pressured that you either have to share less or more just because her around the corner did that, or he over the road did that. And it’s a very, very personal voice that you choose to have and your authentic self, however much or less you share, you’ve just got to be comfortable with that for yourself and for, you know, your audience for the people that you’re trying to attract.

(11:05):

Definitely. And you’ve, you’ve reminded me of something sort of, I think really powerful. And, and I, I only have like one social media account, Michelle Rose Marketing everywhere. It’s like me and the business, you know, there’s, there’s no staff. It’s just, I am the business. The business is me, and Nic, you’ve got Mint and you are obviously, you set up Mint, you founded Mint, you head up Mint, you know, you’ve got, you’ve got, you’ve got team and sort of your, you know, your, your pillars, your corporate values. But as you’ve gone through your ADHD journey, you’ve sort of got your own other account now where you can much more talk about you. And that’s not to say people who follow Mint wouldn’t follow you as well, but it also enables people who aren’t interested in that side of you to not follow it and follow you for the business advice.

(11:54):

So for some people would be like, whoa, that’s too much that’s, but that’s it. Social media does give us those options as, as well. And I know that some of your members who’ve been having treatment for cancer have decided to have a separate account to document that journey because they want it to help other people and get help for themselves, but not fill up their business account. And so it’s, this is it’s really comes back to, I think the light and the dark and how social media can be so negative, but also it can allow you to access, support and advice and companionship and mentorship in ways that like 10 years ago just wouldn’t have been possible.

(12:36):

Absolutely. And I think, I mean, it’s fair to say, Michelle, for both of us, our businesses wouldn’t exist without it. You have the power of social media and marketing full stop, not just social, not just digital, but the power of marketing and communication, talking to people, find out a bit, without social, both you and I, well we wouldn’t have met and we wouldn’t be working together and we wouldn’t have the business that we have. And when we look at your Kieron’s business, you know, The Autistic Advocate and he, the way he works with people around the world, with the pair of you doing that without these, without these platforms and this stuff, we just, all three of us wouldn’t have what we have. So we take, we take these awareness days with a pinch of salt. Sometimes we dive into them because it’s really relevant. Sometimes we choose to stay away from them because that’s got nothing to do with our business at all. But all of it is about that authentic voice. And maybe just having a little bit of fun to bring something different into that authentic post.

(13:31):

I mean, for example, it’s, it’s national no bra day on the 13th now, just to lighten it up a bit.

(13:41):

The boys don’t need to answer this one, but who has worn a bra you’re during lockdown and working from home, do you think, see, this would be really interesting to me if like Marks and Spencer’s did a survey to see if like bra numbers, like fitted bra numbers had plummeted, but then like, sort of like elasticated, like stretchy, like crop had improved. It’s really interesting. So if you do retail or all of these things, there’s like, there’s actually some really good stuff you can dig down on. You could obviously just talk about your bras. Yeah, yeah. Maybe your bras have lasted longer. You’re not buying as many bras. You don’t wash them as much because you’re not wearing them. Who knows?

(14:21):

Or because you’ve put so much weight on during Covid that they don’t fit anymore. Am I talking about myself there? I cannot get in them!

(14:28):

The point is, is, you know, we truly believe you and I about having fun in content. It’s relevant, but we’ve got to have a bit of fun. And where you would go with national no bra day. I mean, you know, the videos, the things that could happen, boggle the mind. And when you, you know, you choose, you choose these days. As we always say, every single month, you choose what to dip into and what not to dip into what’s relevant. What’s not, I mean, our Aimee with her corsets, you know, she could really jump in on those conversations cause she makes corsets for men, women, and anybody who identifies and, and are on different journeys. So, I mean, for Aimee, that kind of day, Corsetry and Couture, by the way, just drop that in there. You know, each one of these days will be relevant for some of us and absolutely not relevant for some of you.

(15:19):

Reuse stuff, because you’ve reminded me of, Rachel McClumpha who I know is another one of your sort of Mint members. And she did a charity calendar, was it for last year. And it was like sort of calendar girls esque, but out in the countryside and the ladies didn’t have any clothes on. So bringing those back, share those photos, you tag the charity in, or talk about the brilliance of it. So I get one idea, lots of different options for you. Yeah.

(15:45):

However, moving away from bras,

(15:49):

To beards?

(15:49):

To beards. Oh my goodness. So what we were saying was last month in September there was a national beard day and eat extra cake, and this month, let me get the dates right, on the 18th it’s national no beard day, but also national chocolate cupcake day. So for anybody who made these awareness days up, whichever company marketing person made these up, can you explain to us why beards or no beards always go with cake. Cakes and puddings and beards.

(16:24):

Who did this? Who did this?

(16:29):

But if we solve that, I think we’ve, we’ve we’ve solved the conundrum of the universe.

(16:34):

We’ll be viral. Definitely. Definitely.

(16:39):

But we were saying you don’t have to always sit on like one side of the fence with this, so if you were a barber, jumping on board, you know, I mean invite people who’ve had their beard styled to come back and have it cut off and you say, Hey, does anyone want to come and have their beard cut off and have a lovely shave? And you know, I’ll give you a discount, we’ll do it for free. We’ll do a few different styles, but we want to do it on our Instagram stories. We want to, we’re looking for local influencers who are willing to, you know, have their beards taken off live on IGTV, or whatever.

(17:10):

So you know, it comes back to what Nic was saying about relevant. Pick the ones that are relevant for you. And these are ideas and you’re not going to use all of them. And you shouldn’t because at the end of the day, your, your marketing’s got to really push you towards your goal. And with the best will in the world, you know, you cannot do, and nor would you want to, every single awareness day, cause they’re not going to push you towards your goal, but some months, a couple might, one month, a couple of months none might. So just, you know, I guess if we can inspire you and get you to have a love and a

freshness and a joy for creating your social media and your content, then these, you know, these videos that we’ve been doing throughout the year, wll have really, you know, hit the mark, won’t they Nic?

(17:59):

Indeed.I’ve got no idea what time we’re on. So I’ll take us to evaluate your life day on the 19th.

(18:08):

When, when you’re sat in your, your habitat.

(18:11):

In our habitat. When we are sat and locked in, by the way nobody’s coming in. I mean, unless I don’t know, you’re Barenaked Ladies or someone who Michelle would have in, the point is, is evaluate your life day. I mean, again, for all of us, full stop. All of us in the small business community. Self-Employed community, sole traders, freelancers, called yourself what you will, I mean, we’re always asking and questioning ourselves, are we good enough? Are we doing the right thing? Is our business going in the right direction? So evaluate your life day. I mean, that could lead us anywhere.

(18:44):

And it’s making me think about when you’ve had your Mint planner. So those of you who are selling planners, those of you who are encouraging people to take up fitness or to drink less you know, to all of the things that people are going to start doing in the new year, get them to start thinking about it now. Get ahead, promote, start, start dropping little, you know, breadcrumbs and little ideas about what’s coming up about, you know, why wait till January to reevaluate your life? Let’s do it now. Let’s get to January and be ahead of the curve and be ready to go. And I, you know, I like that idea as well as reminding me that I need to finish my own planner and to sell it.

(19:29):

The Mint planner is ready to pre order just because this is October. So we’re all good. I think we’ll skip forward. Can we, because I love mischief night, which is the 30th. I mean, I just think a little bit of mischief is always a good thing, isn’t it? Mischief night.

(19:52):

It’s interesting, isn’t is? And when everyone else will be doing Halloween,

(19:56):

Which is the day after, clearly.

(19:56):

Yes, this is a nice one to yeah. To do something different,.

(20:03):

To have a bit of mischief before Halloween. Yeah. So I’ll tell you how great social media marketing is. My 10 year old niece, Evelyn Evie, she’s absolutely spectacularly brilliant. She loves Halloween. It’s relevant, loves Halloween. And our very good Mintie member, Alan, who also works for Mint does our marketing with us. He has launched Halloweenmas, as in like Christmas for Halloween.

(20:26):

Awesome. And she was looking at it on Instagram, she’s ten, just looking at it. And she just said, I just want to go and work for him. So to which Alan is going, kickstart? Maybe she’s a bit young she’s 10. And then she was like, can you eat the, the, the gingerbread heads that you, you know, the ornaments, you hang on a tree. And I looked at her in her innocence and just thought, oh, sucked in completely. She’s a marketeers dream with her instant reaction to Halloweenmas, I want to go and work for him.

(20:58):

Fantastic. So that’s a story for me to share on Halloween, to tag in Alan, tag in his products and his own following, but actually I don’t want to do it then I want to do it in September. So, so he, his products are raised, but I mean, just even, you know, when you are looking for authentic stories and authentic stuff, they just come out out of everywhere. Don’t they Michelle? It’s just around you all the time.

(21:24):

It is. And unless you’re an influencer, you know, you cannot, you, you cannot share them all. So go easy on yourself. And there’s a, you know, there’s an argument for being in the moment as well, and not having to Instagram story your, your whole life, but you know, if you’re gonna do a lot of stuff like that, then pick out the highlights and turn them into a blog. I follow, you know, way bigger than, you know, me or Nic, Leoni Dawson, an Australian entrepreneur who, you know, $10 million. Way more than that now. But every month now, she’s sending out like my month in review blog slash email, and, you know, I’ve been doing my annual ones, but this month’s one and there’s so much, but what is interesting is that this, bare in mind what we were talking about with October, and it’s being a bit samey samey.

(22:17):

So let’s just say, you know, I don’t know what her sales must be every month, but in the hundreds of thousands, does no social media. Came off social media, absolutely sort of middle of next year. Now, interestingly though, has no source of media is doing no paid for advertising, still has her email list, her website, which is SEO’d and has freebies, but she relies on her mailing list. And because she’s doing no social media and not analysing ad results and things like that, she’s got the time now to write these beautiful, what I did this month, what I learned this month. And you know what? I would rather sit with a cup of tea 12 times a year and read that, then I’m scrolling and trying,

(23:06):

But what’s interesting if that’s the utopia for some of us, which we know, because the reason we recording these is because people run out of ideas constantly and ask us all the time. I wonder for how long and how much social she did to build that network up, to build that audience up to then, to be able to come off it?

(23:27):

Ten years.

(23:27):

So ten years of social. Hammering social, pushing and pushing and pushing. Wearing herself out probably, I don’t know,

(23:34):

There’s a huge mental health story there as well.

(23:38):

But the point is, is she’d got it to that point, to be able to do what she’s done. If she hadn’t built a newsletter, if she hadn’t have used all of the tools at her disposal rather than one or two channels she wouldn’t have that option. She would just be sitting there with poor mental health and no email list, no way of going forward. And again, as we always talk about on our own, Let’s Talk About Marketing funded training, you know, we need to get to the point that we’ve worked out A) how well we know ourselves. B) how well we know ourselves at work? What skills we’ve got, what time we’ve got, what capability we’ve got, what clients we’ve got, what works for us, get rid of all the stuff that doesn’t work. And that’s what our course is essentially about, which is empowering people to get rid of stuff that doesn’t work, you know, and go forward with the marketing that works for your business, that you’ve got time for and you want to do as well.

(24:31):

And so if you live in the Northeast and you haven’t watched one of these videos before, if you want to come on our fully funded training, we’ll be running it all through next year as well. It’s not open to people in County Durham or Teesside, but please, please, please, if you want to do four weeks fully funded, your in the Northeast is just get in touch with us, nicola@mintbusinessclub.co.uk. But I think coming back to where we started, we were not inspired by October. And yet, look what we’ve, from being totally over time, but not inspired to now loads of content. And in this video itself, this recording itself has loads of content that we can cut up and carve up and turn it into a written blog post, as well as this video, as well as social media.

(25:24):

On the months where you think meh! Go easy on yourself, recycle, reuse, be looking to create evergreen content that you can, I’ve got, I’ve hit a point with my Instagram where, you know, it’s been going really well and it dipped a little bit and I’ve thought, do you know what? Rather than think, I’m going to frantically think what new content am I going to come up with, I’m going to go back four months. I’m going to go, that was good, that was good. That was good. I’m either going to, same image, different text or different image, same text. Tweak them slightly because not everyone saw every single post.

(26:04):

There’ll hardly be anyone. I mean, let’s be fair. You know, people want to see them again. I’ve been teaching the same marketing thing now for the past 10 years. So I’m like, if I can teach it again and again, then I can post it out on my social again and again, that’s

(26:22):

And we call it evergreen content. Stuff that we can reuse. But, you know as, as some of our trainers keep going on about, as we’ve talked about, the only person that sees all your content. 100% of the time is you. You are literally the only person in the, in the world that sees that. Cause it doesn’t matter how, how ardent and in love with your brand, your fans are, it is unlikely, unless they’re stalking you, that they’re going to look at every single post that you put out there. So, you know, if you go back six months, look at the analytics, find out the things that have worked that worked a bit better. Boom, right? Those three, they did really well. Let’s, let’s tweak them. Let’s change the image. But let’s use that to inspire the next set of content.

(27:08):

Cause it’s worked once and it’s like one, two, maybe 3% of your followers are going to see your stuff. That’s an awful lot of people that aren’t seeing your stuff.

(27:17):

So that’s us. That’s us for October then everybody, if you’ve had any, I hope you’ve had some inspiration from what Michelle and I have done and talked about, send us some feedback, send us some messages, you know, tell us what you’ve been posting. Tag us into stuff, right? If you tag Michelle, Michelle Rose Marketing or us, Mint Biz Club. Tag us, we’ll reshare your stuff cause we’re canny like that. And we’ll certainly give it some thumbs up and a few comments to help it reach just that little bit further.

(27:43):

So thank you for joining us and we’ll see you very shortly for November. Who knew? And then, and then Michelle it’s December. Two more till the end of the year. Staggering, absolutely staggering, but we’re loving it and we’re going to keep doing it. So thank you so much for watching.