3 ways to squeeze the most out of your content budget

When budgets tighten, social media managers are often expected to do a lot with a little. Here’s the good news: you can do a lot with a little. 

Economising digital teams can still make an impact. Work smarter, not harder, on your content with these three content hacks:

Polish up old videos until the opener shines

Repackage, rebrand and reposition existing video content by reworking just the first three seconds. If a video hasn’t done so well, really study those initial moments. 

What isn’t appealing? Does it start with an empty screen so it doesn’t leap out on social feeds? Does the text take too long to come on? What does the text say? Does the headline fail to create intrigue or promise the viewer a reward for watching? Spruce it up and post it again.

My team creates little content boosts called scroll stoppers, which do exactly what they promise. Adding an animated thumbnail to the start of a video can be enough to grab attention and convince a user to keep watching, even when discussing the most serious of subjects (like health and safety… 👇).

Sharing is caring for your audience 

The pressure of consistent publishing is high. Don’t feel like you need to reinvent the wheel: sometimes sharing content that isn’t yours can be beneficial. 

Are there partner organisations that wouldn’t mind, or would maybe even appreciate, your organisation sharing their work? For example, the UN offers a variety of free social assets linked to the Sustainable Development Goals and awareness days. 

It might feel counterintuitive to sing a competitor's praises. But it can actually position you as an aggregator of knowledge, a thought leader who puts their followers first. Remember to tag and credit your peers; their engagement could make your post reach further.

Posting third-party articles is also a great way of increasing publishing power, telling the algorithms who you are and that you are serious about your subject matter. 

An asset-less post is better than no post at all. Sharing a third party pioneering paper or industry report with your expert analysis as the caption is enough to remind your audience that you’re there and useful. 

We’ve partnered with organisations for whom we’ve produced only one high-quality creative asset a week. And yet, their audience has grown because we’ve supported this with a variety of link posts from other sources. 

All of this third party sharing has an additional bonus: learning about your audience. Regularly and consistently sharing content that isn’t your own helps you understand what topics resonate with your audience and what doesn’t, guiding your future content to land perfectly.

Invest in templates

Give a man a social asset and he’ll be happy for a day. Give him a social template and he’ll be laughing for months. 

Investing in editable templates can be a worthwhile expenditure, as it can help you create an unlimited number of assets. 

Tip: when briefing the designer, make sure you ask for a variety of colours and layouts for both single social cards and carousels. The more options you have, the more interesting your feed will be. 

Our template suites at The Content Engine contain an option for a thumb-stopping headline, pithy quote as well attractive carousel layouts. It helps us keep our content creation slick, efficient and, of course, comes at a lower price.

Being smart with resources could show your boss the value of content - and maybe even earn you a more generous budget next year. But if you’re still struggling with a tight content budget, we can help.