Strategy in Retrograde: How to Refresh Your Content Strategy
You know the drill—Mercury goes into retrograde, and suddenly, everyone is bracing for impact.
Communication gets wonky, tech glitches out, and all your plans go sideways. Once I made the mistake of launching during a retrograde and ended up losing all of my content for my course thanks to a random hard drive fail…now I plan my content calendar around the retrograde so I never have to go through that again. 😂
But what if, instead of seeing this as a time of chaos, we flipped the script? Mercury retrograde doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom—in fact, it’s the perfect time to hit pause, reflect, and update your content strategy.
Even if you’re not into astrology, the sentiment applies to the end-of-summer phase we’re in right now too (or almost-spring-time phase if you’re in the lower hemisphere).
While this might not be the ideal time to roll out something shiny and new, it’s a great opportunity to dig into your analytics and see what’s working, and what’s not. And it’s the perfect time to plan for the rest of the year!
Oh, and if you need a helping hand to walk you through every.single.step of creating (or updating) your content strategy, that’s exactly what my Content Strategy Playbook is for! You can create your strategy in a day, or work through it a little bit each day this week.
Step 1: Reflect & Repurpose
Mercury retrograde is all about introspection, so let’s take advantage of that cosmic energy to slow down and take stock of where your content strategy stands.
When was the last time you revisited your most valuable content? That blog post that went viral, the Instagram reel that racked up the views—those gems are worth their weight in gold. So why not repurpose them?
One of my favorite tips from The Content Strategy Playbook is to take the audio from a talking head video and turn it into a voiceover set to b-roll footage.
Or even…repost the exact same video!?! 😱 No one knows your content better than you do, but remember: all of your followers are not seeing every single post from you. So go ahead, try reposting that video that went viral, or add a lil twist to it.
I know it might sound like a weird strategy, but it really does work. My friend @foodess does this with her most viral videos every few months, and every time, she gets millions of new views. The key is that reels are reaching fresh eyes in the algorithm, so your content gets a second wind!
Step 2: Review, Review, Review!
Next up: it’s time for a content audit. This is where you get to play detective, combing through your posts to see what’s been working and what’s been, well, not.
Before you start overhauling your strategy, you need to know what’s resonating with your audience. Are your skincare posts getting more love than your makeup tutorials? Does your audience prefer quick tips or deep dives?
Check out which posts performed best over the last few months, and pay attention to the content pillars that seem to hit the mark every time. If you notice a pattern—like all your green screen videos blowing up—lean into that!
If you have no idea what analytics you should be looking at or how to look for themes in your data, the workbook in The Content Strategy Playbook shows you every single step and teaches you how to conduct a thorough content audit!
It’s so important to feel confident running a thorough content audit, because this is where you’ll uncover those hidden gems and glaring misfires, and you should be doing them a few times a year.
And while you’re at it, don’t forget to check in on those goals you set back in January. We’re halfway through the year—how’s it going? Is your content still aligned with those goals, or do you need to make some tweaks to end the year strong?
Don’t feel bad if you need to lower your target metrics! You can set big goals, but they also need to be realistic so you are actually motivated to work towards them.
If you set a goal to launch a newsletter back in January and get 5000 subscribers this year, but you haven’t launched it yet, now would be a good time to reset, make a plan to get your newsletter launched, and reach your first 1000 subscribers by the end of the year.
Step 3: Refine Your Content Strategy
Now that you’re armed with a ton of insights about your top performing content (and the content that flopped), it’s time to refine your content strategy.
Mercury retrograde may not be the time to launch something new, but it’s perfect for revisiting your strategy, tweaking your content calendar, and optimizing your efforts for better results.
You’ll definitely want to review your content pillars to make sure they are all still relevant. Are you posting too much of one pillar and neglecting another? Time to plan some content for it!
I think 3-5 pillars is the sweet spot, so don’t be afraid to ditch a content pillar if it just isn’t hitting, or you’re not that into it anymore.
And don’t forget to realign with your audience; make sure your personas are still relevant, and that your content is meeting their needs. Spend some time scrolling through accounts that your target audience might follow to get inspired and see what’s trending in your industry.
Then, you’re going to want to channel all your insights and go into planning mode with your content calendar.
To help you get that newsletter you’ve been putting off to see the light of day, pick topics for your first four issues and map out a plan to make it happen!
Here’s how to prep your content cal for the busy season:
Go through your backlog of content ideas: remove anything that isn’t relevant, and move the good ideas on to your content cal for September.
Clean up your content cal: create new publish dates for any content you didn’t get around to creating, clean up any overdue tasks, and update your calendar with your new pillars so you can start September with a clean slate!
And if you don’t have a content calendar yet? Well, I got you covered there too with my Notion template.Brain dump new content ideas: If you’re feeling creative and inspired, spend time doing a big brain dump of content ideas so your backlog is full for the fall. Start by thinking of ideas for each content pillar, and scroll through social saving content to a “content ideas” folder.
Need help with content planning? These blog posts walk you through my personal content planning workflow:
How I Plan my Weekly Content Calendar
My Monthly Content Routine
Step 4: Course Correct
Now that you’ve taken the time to reflect, review, and refine, you’ll emerge from this retrograde with a clearer, stronger strategy to achieve your goals. 💪
By planning and prepping your strategy now, you’ll be ready to execute on all your genius ideas when Mercury in retrograde ends on August 27th.
And PLEASE don’t be hard on yourself while you’re reviewing everything, your goal isn’t to look for all your mistakes, but instead use the past to inform your future success.
It’s totally normal to have to do a little course correction halfway through the year, and there’s still plenty of time to achieve your goals and end the year on a strong note! Especially with Q4 & the holiday season quickly approaching.
I’ve come to really appreciate when mercury goes retrograde, because it brings a lot to the surface and causes me to re-evaluate what I want to keep, and what I want to get rid of.
You can also use this as a time to reflect on what you’re best at, and see if you need to bring that back into your life/content/business more. It was actually during the last retrograde in April that I decided I wanted to go back to marketing consulting!
(Speaking of consulting, I have 2 spots left for 1:1 Content Strategy sessions in August. If you want me to review your strategy or help you with any part of it, you can book here and we’ll get it done before September!)
Happy planning!!
