It’s a common dilemma for coaches and counsellors. They’re looking for a solution to social media overwhelm and fatigue, but they have a tight marketing budget. As a one-person business, you can’t do it all yourself – not for any length of time and not without burnout. But it is expensive to hire a social media manager. And the reality is that it is you’re unlikely to get a return on investment if you hire one. Not yet, anyway. So, where does that leave you? As a coach or counsellor working on your own, how do you find quality social media content at a price point that fits? You might be starting to suspect that finding a good quality solution within budget is like looking for a unicorn.
It’s not a unicorn, but Sixty Second Social is hard to beat as a solution to social media overwhelm in your therapy business. I find the content and write the post to accompany it – all you have to do is upload it. It takes less than 30 minutes to do it once a month – that’s the equivalent to 60 seconds a day hence the name Sixty Second Social. So, in under half an hour, you have an entire month of relevant curated content on your social media. It’s fast to implement, and it’s cost-effective at only £27.
For some, though, there may be a question mark about the content at that price point. Are you asking: how do I know that Sixty Second Social is good quality content? How can I be sure I will be happy to share it with my followers?
Confidence in the quality of Sixty Second Social’s social media content
The main reason you can have confidence in the service is that there is a real person behind it, unlike other curated content providers. Others use an algorithm to find content. Sixty Second Social involves a human (me) finding exactly the right content for counsellors and coaches. And that same human writes the posts to accompany it. No AI and no automation and no outsourcing it. If I wouldn’t feel happy about putting it on a client for whom I do bespoke social media, I won’t use it for Sixty Second Social.
That should be reassuring because I have a lot of experience working one-to-one with coaches, therapists, counsellors and employee wellbeing practitioners. So I know the type of content that works to engage and attract followers.
Of course, those clients have opted for a bespoke service. That’s because they want the content to support their particular services. Sixty Second Social may not be specific to one business, but the quality of content remains high.
Still unsure? Let me share my system for making sure each post is a good fit for Sixty Second Social subscribers. I’ll also share the design for subscribers to double-check the content is right for them. The combination means that it’s like having your own bespoke social media manager without the price tag.
I handpick each piece of content to ensure quality
Handpicking each piece of content means that I quality-check the content before I select it. Each and every article I source must meet certain criteria before I use them.
The most obvious of those is that the articles need to be authoritative and relevant. They’re all magazine-style websites, professionally written and edited. That means no blogs, for the most part. I don’t share anything in which the writer has their own agenda, such as services to sell or excessive affiliate links.
None of the articles contains vulgarities or political viewpoints. Why risk offending your followers? The aim is to engage, not upset.
All the articles are on web pages with a clean design that’s easy to read. In addition, the articles must be well-edited pieces without spelling or grammatical errors.
Quality social media content is fee-free and subscription-free
The next quality check is that websites must be free of charge to make the cut. No matter how great the content is, followers need to be able to read it – otherwise, there’s no point. So I reject anything behind a paywall. There is nothing more frustrating than reading a post on social media and clicking through to read the article, and finding you need to pay.
As well as being free of charge, they need to be subscription-free. That means that followers can read an article you share without being asked for an email address. Even if no payment is required, it’s still annoying to face a demand for a subscription to read the article. It takes more time – never a good thing on social media – and they need to part with personal information to get it.
None of that is positive for your brand. On the contrary, you’re leading them up a blind alley and undermining trust in one fell swoop. You’ve promised them a great read, but it turns out to be conditional on them giving away personal information. Not good! So I reject any content that falls into that category.
I source the content myself, so again there’s no automation or AI – the links are read and selected by me. It means, each month, I can choose more on a particular topic to fit in with awareness days. So, for example, when it’s stress awareness month, I’ll select more articles on stress.
I write the posts so you can be sure of the quality
Once I’ve chosen a piece of content, I write the posts that accompany them. Again, no AI. I compose the text to make sure it’s engaging and appeals to the followers of life coaches and counsellors. I also ensure that it takes the right tone for mental health professionals – that is, non-judgemental, supportive and warm. And I keep personal viewpoints out of all posts. Of course, you are free to add your own slant to the posts – you can edit them to include anything you like.
The aim is to engage and/or educate those who do not have in-depth knowledge or experience of coaching or counselling. I write the posts to appeal to those with an interest or a need who may become a client. So there’s no jargon or assumed knowledge.
Nuance is another advantage of a human – rather than a piece of software – writing the posts. For example, during national lockdowns, the mood of the country shifted. We all went through an extremely challenging experience. It changed again as restrictions eased.
AI and bots tend not to be adept at subtleties. A human can be sensitive to cultural changes more easily than a piece of software. That also applies to the articles too, of course. The timbre of content differs depending on the circumstances. I talked about that in more depth in this blog post in which I share some of the considerations for coaches and counsellors active on social media during the pandemic.
The post lengths are checked for Twitter
Before I finalise the wording for each post, I check that it fits into the word limit for Twitter. Tweets have a much shorter word count than other social media platforms, and it’s easy to go over the limit. So I check each one to ensure the process of uploading the content is as fast and smooth as possible.
All the scheduling tools that I recommend will not allow a post to go out on Twitter if there are too many words. So if you’re using any of them to post your own tweets then you don’t need to worry about them going out with half a sentence missing. Most scheduling tools that I’ve come across are the same so you’re also likely to be covered if you use another one. But it’s time-consuming and a hassle you don’t need to fix it. So I do it for you meaning that, when I say it takes less than half an hour to schedule your content for the month, it’s true.
The links are checked to ensure that they look right on social media
This saves you time because there is no need to add images. When a link works, your followers see a preview of the article. It’s usually the image and sometimes a short description of the article. But there are some sites – or sometimes just the occasional link – that shows up as a long line of text when posted on social media. It presents the link as if it’s in a word document – just the wording of the link and no image. It doesn’t look professional when you see that on social media. I check there is no content like that, so you don’t have to.
A system for you to check the social media content is right for your followers
Once the content is ready, you can upload it as it is. You can be sure that the links all work and the wording of posts is professional and appropriate. But there may be certain posts or topics that aren’t a good fit for your market and followers. That’s why there’s a system for you to check.
You can delete any links that aren’t the right fit. And you can edit the wording of posts too. It means that when a post goes out, you are sure that the content is perfect for your followers. That’s the reason there are 35 posts and links each month. It’s one per day plus a few extras in case a couple are not the right fit for your business.
Guaranteed quality in your social media content
There’s a lot that goes into this entire process. It takes a lot of time to find the right content and it is labour-intensive to write and check each post to be confident it is perfect. Without doubt, outsourcing that work would be faster. But then I wouldn’t be able to put my hand on my heart and make the promise that the content is consistently high-quality social media content. And I take great pride in that.
My aim is for coaches and counsellors – who are time-strapped and with small marketing budgets – to have good quality social media content that they can share easily. Each month, this is what happens. No drama, no hassle, no wasted time and effort. And no unicorns.
Just a month of top quality social media content that speaks to the followers of coaches, counsellors and therapists. Are you ready to sign up?
Main image by Lefttime on depostiphotos.com
Need more help with your social media? Take a look at Sixty Second Social
Sixty Second Social is tailor-made for coaches, counsellors, psychotherapists, and anyone working in the mental health sphere. It provides you with fresh content, curated from around the globe, each month. For £27 per month, you get 35 links to relevant articles, together with the ready-written posts. All you have to do is upload it. In under 30 minutes each month – or 60 seconds a day, hence the name – you’ll schedule content on your social media accounts for the month ahead. Or, if you prefer, I can do it for you, saving you even more time.