Today, I’m going to give you the holy grail.
No, not an elixir for everlasting life.
I’m giving away my system for ever-lasting content.
If any of these describe the current state of your content creation efforts, you’re in the right place.
- You’re struggling to come up with consistent daily content.
- You’re finding it tough to create content that resonates with your audience.
- You spend hours every day brainstorming and writing.
- Your impressions are stagnant, and your comments section looks like a ghost town.
- You’re not creating content because you can’t think of any good ideas.
Don’t worry; I’m removing all the stops and busting out the Dom Perignon for you.
Let me introduce you to:
The Content Waterfall Method.
Let’s nerd out and dive in!
Key Takeaways
- How to ideate topics for your content waterfall.
- What content works best for the Content Waterfall
- How to repurpose content for your Content Waterfall.
What is The Content Waterfall?
The Content Waterfall is a systematic approach to content creation that ensures a consistent and resonating “flow” of content for your audience.
Imagine a waterfall, continuously flowing, creating a stream below.
The top of the waterfall represents your main piece of content.
This could be a long-form blog post, an email newsletter, or a video.
This content is rich, comprehensive, and packed with value.
The water flowing down, creating streams, represents the derivative content pieces.
These are smaller, easily digestible chunks of your main content tweaked and re-purposed for different platforms and mediums.
These could be social media posts, infographics, or Shorts/Reels.
This method allows you to maximize the use of your content, keeping your engagement high and your audience always informed.
Here’s a visual for ya’ll.
Let’s dive into my step-by-step process.
How to Create The Content Waterfall Step-by-Step
Traditionally, when I use the Content Waterfall, I use it with the Leads Field Guide Newsletter.
However, you could use it with any long-form piece of content.
Just apply the below system to your style!
Step 1: Ideate Topics Based on Your Audience
The first step in the Content Waterfall method involves researching topics that resonate with your audience.
It may go without saying, but the best engagement will come from content that your target audience ACTUALLY wants to read.
Here are my favorite places to get ideas!
- Google topic ideas
- Use Twitter to find ideas
- Subscribe to industry-specific newsletters
- Use Redditt. What are people asking a lot about?
- Follow other business owners on Linkedin.
Whenever I come across an idea, I drop it into my Trello board.
Step 2: Write a Long Form Piece of Content
Your primary piece of content forms the foundation of your Content Waterfall.
It should be rich and detailed enough to extract various discussion points or perspectives.
Broad concepts like “How To” Guides, “The Ultimate Guide to…” or “All You Need to Know About…” serve as excellent core content.
They deliver precise and authoritative insights, making it simple to derive numerous subtopics from them.
No strict word limit exists, but more substance (Guides1,200-1,500 words) offers increased adaptability.
My favorite content mediums are:
- Email Newsletters (The Leads Field Guide)
- Long Form Blog Posts
- Long Form Video
But again, you can use what fits your overall marketing plan best.
Step 3: Repurpose Each Step into Written Social Content
Break down your long-form guide into smaller, digestible chunks of content.
The best part? You’ve already got all the ideas you need!
Each point or step in your guide can be turned into a short social media post.
Example: This Step ^^ will become a LinkedIn post.
I might show how I take each email newsletter and break it down into several LinkedIn posts/Tweets with screenshots.
Step 4: Repurpose What You Just Repurposed
Ok – Now we’re digging a little deeper.
Let’s say you repurposed a step in your email into a LinkedIn post.
Next up – Repurpose the LinkedIn post into a Twitter Thread.
Then – Repurpose the Twitter Thread into several Tweets.
Now, take your Tweets and make Facebook posts.
The sky is the limit when it comes to repurposing.
This way, you’ll never post the same thing twice!
Step 4 BONUS: Repurpose Written Content Into Video Content
Take your repurposed written content one step further by turning it into video content.
Video content can help you reach a broader audience, increase engagement, and go cross-platform.
I typically like to create short Instagram Reels or YouTube shorts from my written posts.
The best part? I pretty much paraphrase my social media post and do an off-the-cuff video.
The script is already done for me!
Step 5: Track Social Media Metrics
Finally, don’t forget to track your social media metrics.
This will help you understand which pieces of content are performing best and which might need tweaking.
Keep track of likes, shares, comments, and other engagement metrics and any increase in followers or subscribers.
From there, re-use your best templates and consider honing your process.
Start The Content Waterfall Today
Let’s get crazy.
I’m encouraging you to launch an email newsletter this weekend.
- Write one 1,000-word step-by-step guide.
- Turn your newsletter into 5 LinkedIn posts.
- Turn your 5 LinkedIn posts into 5 Twitter Threads.
- Turn 5 Twitter Threads into 20 Tweets.
- Turn your 5 LinkedIn posts into 5 short videos using your iPhone.
This first one might take a bit longer, but after some practice, it should take you about 2-4 hours to come up with 40 (ish) pieces of content.
Final Thoughts on the Content Waterfall
In essence, this method helps me save hours of weekly writing time while producing content that gets high engagement.
I’ve been using this method for years with a ton of success.
Now it’s your turn.
I can’t wait to see what you come up with!
LFG!
