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In this second episode of The Content/SEO/Social Flywheel Series, I share the PLAN. What tools we use, who does what (freelancer or in house?), what metrics we will track and what the individual workflows will be... it's a must listen if you plan to build this out for your own B2B business (or forward this to your marketing manager!)
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So I'm gonna break down exactly what tools you. What team structure you need and what the workflow's gonna be for the content seo, social flywheel journey.
All right, welcome back to this, a very special podcast series where I think it's the first of its kind where we're gonna be going through the exact process, the steps that we are. To build out what we are calling the content, seo, social flywheel, or in other words, the content machine. Now, if you're not sure what that is, then go back to the episode before this on the feed where I explain exactly why we're doing this, what it is, and why you should also be doing this.
If you are, say, the founder, CEO of a B2B company, then maybe you're not gonna be the person who's gonna be implementing this, in which case, I would recommend sharing this with your marketing. If you are the marketing manager, then it's probably gonna be you though. If you are the founder or CEO of a smaller company, you may also be implementing this, so it could be hyper relevant to you.
But in today's episode, I'm calling this one the plan, where I'm gonna outline the team structure that's needed, the setup, the tools that are needed, the metrics we're gonna track, and then I'm gonna dig into the individual workflows within this whole process that enable us to build that fly. So let's jump in first and outline the team requirements or the people requirements that are gonna be needed in order to implement and effectively get the flywheel turning.
So first it means you, now you are probably either founder, CEO of a smaller company, or the marketing manager or marketing resource in the marketing team of a larger B2B company. Now your job is essentially to be responsible for everything or responsible or accountable for everything. All the metrics that we're gonna be talking about later in this episode, you are responsible for improving them.
You are the almost the sponsor of this project. If you are the founder, ceo, you probably don't have a boss or the board, essentially your boss, and you're saying to them, We're gonna invest this amount of time and funds over six months. This is what essentially we're gonna get back from. And the same if you are the marketing manager, you are either reporting to the CMO or potentially directly into the founder, ceo, or maybe even the coo.
But again, you are saying, We're gonna invest this amount of time and cash into this project and this is what we're gonna see in terms of metrics. So that's your job and really what we're gonna be trying to do with you. Is ensuring that you're as strategic as possible. We don't really want you to be getting into the weeds of any of the workflows because if that is the case, then it's harder for you to be strategic about this, but also about every other thing that you're responsible for in the business.
So you are overseeing this at the start. You may need to actually action some of the workflows in order to actually make them work for handing over to someone else. But ideally, we wanna keep you as strategic as possible. So you are gonna be responsible for finding and training the other team members that would talk about in a second, tracking metrics and ensuring quality.
That is gonna be the limit of what you are you should be doing in this machine. Next up, we want to have a full time admin slash outreach person. Now we want to be full time because these people are relatively inexpensive. We could probably find someone reasonable on our work for let's say $10 an hour.
We're gonna have them full time, and this really is gonna unlock all of the smaller admin tasks that you don't need to be doing. They can be doing all of the outreach that we're gonna be doing. They're gonna be doing this, and so we recommend having this person full time. They can be freelance or they can be in house.
You can find very good people on Upwork or other freelancer marketplace. Next up, we're gonna be a graphic designer. Now this person can be part-time, but we are gonna be wanting to design images and potentially even videos that are gonna enable us to get more engagement on social. And a designer is crucial for this.
This designer should be working with the brand guidelines of your company. Already, so they won't really need to design like new things. Typically, they'll just be working through those guidelines to create new types of assets. And so they won't need to be like hyper skilled. They don't need to be like a really experienced designer.
They can be a junior slash mid-level designer. Next up, we're gonna also need one to two writers, and I suggest these writers are typically free. And we can either pay them either per amount of words, or actually I prefer to pay them per hour. And we typically pay writers between 20 and $40 per hour, and that will get someone who has experience writing within the niche who's super important.
We, if we're gonna be able to create content that our ideal customers actually want to consume and that actually helps them with their goals, we are gonna need someone who has domain expertise. Now that person is typically you and so you can kind of insert that domain expertise into the writing, but it's also very useful if we have the right with actual domain expertise.
And so that's why we want to keep these people freelance to easiest find someone with domain expertise and then also pay them a little bit more. So we're around 20 to $40 per. So that's the team yourself. Probably you're full-time in the business, but this might be, say between 10 and 30% of your time you're gonna be strategic.
Then we have one fulltime admin person probably around $10 per hour if you're going freelance, maybe less if you employ them full time. A part-time designer, they need to be junior to midlevel and then once to write a freelance paying between 20 and $40 per. Next up, let's talk about the setup and tools.
And so we use four different things. We recommend using these, but obviously if your company uses different things, different tools, then you could switch a. So we basically need a project management software. We need some way to communicate asynchronously. We need some way to communicate externally via email.
And then we also need some way to store all of our assets. So for those four things, we use Trello. For project management, we use Slack. For a synchronous communication, we use Fresh Desk for external. Communication via email. And then we use Google Drive in order to store assets. And so Google Sheets to create what we call a master tracker, and then also tracking metrics within that sheet.
And then we use Google Docs to write out strategy and to store written content. So there are obviously alternatives to all of those four, but these four do tie nicely together. They all integrate so they can all talk to each other and you can have it alert set up within Slack for Trello, Fresh desk, and Google Drive.
And so these four all fit nicely together, but I'm assuming that Asana could also slide in there quite nicely. I'm assuming that Dropbox could also replace Google Drive. So let's dig a little deeper into the setup within each of these. So we have one TR board called the content. Which has all of our resources within there.
We also then have lists for the stages of different tasks. So we have a pipeline, a list where this is for tasks that are no longer like the, We don't actually need to action right now to do, I think the task, we now need to action that in progress, in review and live flash done then on hold. And so for all of the task we're gonna be discussing later on in this, They will have a trailer card assigned with a relevant due date with the right label and also with the right person assigned.
So at any one point you, the marketing manager slash CEO can jump in there and understand the current state of all the work within the content machine. Now in Slack we have one channel, which we call the content machine, which all those update significant updates in Trello, eg. When a card is moved from one list to the other, they are posted into Slack.
So again, everyone can see what's happening. And then we also have ad hoc asynchronous communication in Slack where we need to discuss things. That can also happen within Trello comments, but if it's more urgent or more general, then that'll happen in Slack. Fresh Desk is used to communicate externally, so if essentially a help desk tick thing.
So we can send outbound emails from that, and also when we get replies, everyone can view them and then we can assign them to the relevant person who needs to. And then Google Drive. We have one folder called the content machine, and then we have sub folders within that for different workflows. We have a master tracker, which is a Google sheet with different tabs, tracking different things, And then we also have one strategy doc, which within a Google Doc.
Then of course, every blog post or every social post is created within a Google Doc, and the links to those assets when they're being created are added to the trailer cars. If anybody wants to understand what's happening with a specific task, they can go to the trailer card, find the doc, go and review it, and we can also use the comments within the Google Sheets at Google Docs in order to collaborate on the creation of those assets.
All right, and let's now move on to metrics. So essentially the few metrics that we're definitely not looking for are the few metrics that we are looking for. So first off, we are not looking for email leads, Generat. This is something that used to work maybe five, 10 years ago when Hub thought popularized collecting leaves in exchange for eBooks, but now we don't advocate for that.
We advocate for giving away your best stuff through onto social channels and onto your blog, getting the engagement that that deserves actually helping people. So they might tell their friends about you as opposed to trying to get the email address and. We're not concerned about picking up emails. We are concerned about what we like to call consumption metrics.
We know that if we are producing content for our ideal customers or for the people that influence our ideal customers and it's getting consumed, then ultimately that's gonna come back to us in the form of word of mouth or in the form of demo requests slash proposal requests. Ultimately this content machine down the line is going to or should produce an increase in demo requests or proposal requests, depending on how you do this.
Although if you have like a product like growth strategy, then also we probably see an increase in installs or free trials. That's ultimately what we're looking for, but within the first. Two to three months, we're not gonna be too concerned about that. Cause there are other metrics that will, that are leading metrics that if we get those right, then we definitely will see the increase in those other metrics.
So those consumption metrics that we're gonna be looking at are gonna be web traffic, podcast downloads if you're running a podcast. And then social engagement slash impressions. So the highest on that list or the highest number? There will probably be social engagement, flash impressions. Then next probably podcast downloads and then web traffic.
We're also gonna be looking at SEO specific metrics, such as referring domains. So that is the number of other domains there linking to your domain, and then also total organic sessions. So those are the consumption metrics that we're gonna be looking for within the first two to three. As we start releasing this content and building the flywheel, we should see a slow increase in those.
At the same time, we're gonna be looking for qualitative feedback. So these are comments on LinkedIn, dms, on LinkedIn, Slack messages in C communities that you're in, Tweet replies, and basically anything from anybody showing that the content you are creating is making them think or is adding value to their.
So first two to three months, we're looking for that quality feedback. And then we're looking for those consumption metrics. Over time. We are gonna be looking for an uplift in proposal requests, demo requests, or if you have a product like growth strategy, then it's gonna be installed and free trials. And so the way we're gonna be tracking this is in our master tracker, we're gonna have one tab called metrics, where we're gonna list each of those metrics that I just.
And then on the X axis, we are gonna have week, we'll start up by tracking weekly. That could probably go to monthly down the line, but we wanna understand if we're actually making progress week on week at the start. And then the juicy stuff. So what are the actual workflows we're gonna be kicking off for me?
Kick off the content. SEO's, social flywheel. So I'd like to break this down into. Sections, we're gonna have own content, so is the content that we are creating, and then putting onto our social channels, onto our domain, and then also guest content. So any content we're gonna be creating that's gonna go onto other people's RSS feeds or other people's domains.
So in own content, we have five different areas. So you have social posting. This can be both through your personal profile and then also through own communities. For now, we're not going to post anything from company. Right now, they're not getting enough organic engagement, so we're just gonna limit this to any community that you own.
We'll also talk about in future episodes, how you build a community for yourself, and then also your personal profile. And we're probably just gonna choose one to start with. Probably gonna be LinkedIn. If you're in b2b, then blog content. So this is the written content we're gonna be putting onto our own blog podcast.
If we're running a podcast, this is for the audio content we're gonna bring onto our own rss. Email. So this is content we're gonna be putting in email. So we're gonna be sending to our own lists. These are opt-in lists. And then the final one here is Link building. So this is content that we're gonna be sending out, not to be published, but in order to get links back to our own domain.
So that's the five within own content. And then we have two on guest content that are both guest blogging, so written content being put onto someone else's domain. And then guest podcasting, which is us co-creating audio content to put on someone else's rss. So in future episodes, we're gonna be digging into each of these seven.
Different areas, more may emerge in the future. And we're gonna be digging into exactly what we're gonna be doing on each area, what we are doing here at fame on each area. And I'll show you what we're doing, how that's evolved, how it's working and what isn't working at the same time. And so I think that's gonna be the next, like seven or so episodes we're gonna have, spend one digging into each of these areas and then perhaps in between.
I'll be updating on how we're doing with each of those areas and like sharing metrics of what is and what isn't working.
So I hope this episode with a valuable, I hope you have a good understanding of what we're actually gonna be doing within the content fbo, social flywheel flash. The content machine. In episode one, we talked about what this is, why it's worth doing, why you should be doing it. In episode two, we just discussed the team.
We're gonna need, the tools, we're gonna use the metrics that we are going to track, and then also the separate workflows that we're gonna be working towards. Any questions you have hit me up. tom@fame.so, or just add slash DME on LinkedIn or Twitter. I'm super excited to get this started and I'm super excited to see any results that you may create.
Thank you for listening.