Posting daily is like cardio … intense, but it won’t make you stronger.
👋 Welcome back to Content to Commas, your weekly playbook for turning content into authority, consistency, and growth.
If you’re new here, a quick update: I recently left my 9–5 to build full-time (and if that’s your next move, grab the Exit Strategy Playbook, it’ll help you plan it the smart way).
For the past two months, I’ve been optimizing for two things: staying healthy as a founder and staying focused as a creator. And weirdly enough, the gym has shown me a lot about content.
So today, you’re getting your Content Fitness Plan — how to set your goal, design your training split, feed the algorithm (and your brain), and master the one rule that outperforms every hack.
In this issue:
A training split so you never skip leg day
Weekly check-ins that coach, not criticize
The plateau rule most people ignore
Let’s get to work,
Brandon Smithwrick
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💪 Content is a Muscle. Train it.
Here’s what I noticed this week…
Every fitness app starts with three questions: Who are you? What do you want? And by when?
Then it builds a program around you. It tracks your progress, schedules rest days, and only adjusts when you plateau (not when you get bored).
That’s exactly how you should treat your content.
Today, you’ll build your own Content Fitness Plan — one that helps you grow stronger, not just busier.
Apply it to your brand, your content, or forward it to a friend who’s stuck in content cardio and seeing no gains.
Step 1: Current Content Weight
Before you build a training plan, you need a baseline.
Not vibes. Not what worked for someone else.
Your actual constraint, your actual outcome, and one metric that proves you're moving toward it.
Let’s start with three questions:
1⃣ Outcome: What do you want your content to produce in the next 90 days?
Leads, sales, speaking gigs, or account growth? Pick one primary goal. Not three … just one.
That’s your North Star. Every post should move this metric.
2⃣ Constraint: What’s the challenge that stops you from going to the gym?
Time? Team? Budget? Energy? Job?
If you have 4 hours a week, don’t build a plan that needs 14. If you’re a team of one, don’t build for an agency.
The best training program is the one you won’t talk yourself out of.
3️⃣ Progress: What’s the ‘YES’ signal that proves it’s working?
Pick one core metric that tracks real progress toward your outcome.
No vibes or vanity either.
If your goal is leads, track profile clicks or DM opens.
If your goal is sales, track link clicks or checkout starts.
If your goal is authority, track saves and shares from your target audience.
Step 2: Training Plan (don’t skip leg day)
Only training biceps makes you look uneven. Same with content.
You need a foundation that holds up over months, not just a week.
Foundation: One anchor series you can ship weekly. That’s your bench press.
Balanced split: Reach content (discovery), Trust content (proof), Revenue content (offers).
Experiment: One new play per month (it could be hook style, platform, or format).
Example split:
Mon → Reach: a short, spicy take that stops the scroll
Wed → Trust: a proof post (screenshots, data, or lessons)
Thurs → Revenue: a long-form playbook with one clean CTA
Sat → Engagement: an edutainment or story-style post that keeps your feed human
Strength comes from structure, not doing random IG workouts. Your content will see the gains when you stick to a plan and train that content muscle better.
Step 3: Diet Plan
Chicken, rice, and broccoli work … but it’s bland.
Your content diet needs variety that will fuel ideas
Let’s talk about what to feed two things: the algorithm and your brain.
1⃣: Feed the algorithm (what you publish)
Stop trying to teach three frameworks in one carousel (one post, one idea).
Rotate formats weekly. (Screenshots, Client results, a quote from a customer, a mini-case study)
Stop starving your CTAs. One link, one destination. If you hate saying “link in bio”, use Manychat to automate the process (recommended)
2⃣: Feed your brain (what you consume)
Your input shapes your output.
Create a Hook Vault: Make a saved folder on TikTok or Instagram called “Hooks”. Anytime a video grabs you in the first three seconds, save it.
Before you draft something new, open your vault and read five hooks. Think of it as your mental warm-up.
For each saved hook, jot down how you’d apply that same to your niche. You’re not doom-scrolling, you’re doing reps.
Step 4: Coach yourself weekly, not daily
You could weigh yourself every day (don’t recommend) or you could check in once a week, learn, adjust, and keep moving.
Your weekly content check-ins:
✅ Did you post as planned? If you said you’d post three times and you did, that’s a win, even if reach was low.
✅ Which post hit your goal? Look at saves, shares, profile views, replies, or click-through rate. Focus on the signal tied to your one metric from Step 1.
✅ One small adjustment. Tighten the hook, improve the proof, or simplify the CTA. One upgrade per week compounds faster than constant resets.
Tool I use: For LinkedIn content, I use Stanley, which sends a weekly email that reads your content back to you, like a coach for your posts.
It tells you what worked, what didn’t, and cuts out the AI “this is great” fluff.
Step 5: Consistency (…shocker)
When you’re on a hot streak, people ask, "what's next?"
Nothing. Don’t change anything.
You keep the program until you plateau.
The Plateau rule: Only change the plan if your core metric is flat or down for two full weeks.
Rest day: Give your feed one day off. Use it for comments, DMs, and community engagement. Posts shouldn’t cannibalize each other and scarcity creates attention.
I shared my Q3 recap this week and got a ton of "what's new?" messages. The answer was "nothing." It’s working and I’m staying focused.
When the compound lifts are working, you do more of them. That's the point.
🏋 Steal this playbook
You don't need a content shake weight.
You need fundamentals, a weekly plan, a method to review what’s working, with tiny upgrades over time.
Train the plan. Trust the boring stuff. That's where the compounding happens.
Write your three answers from Step 1 at the top of a doc: Outcome, Constraint, Proof Metric.
Block your weekly split on your calendar: Monday reach post, Wednesday trust post, Saturday revenue post.
Start your Hook Vault today: Save 5 hooks right now and label each with the pattern it used.
Set a Sunday review alarm for 15 minutes: Score the week, read the signals, pick one small change.
Reply and let me know what part of your content you’ll be training this month.
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♻ ICYMI… (bonus gems & more)
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Catch up in minutes:
🎤 Catch me Friday, Oct 17 at OneClub’s WAATBP conference + career fair — See details
🧠 Struggling with content choices? My 3-part playbook eliminates decision fatigue — Read it here
🚘 Keep business travel simple: Uber for Business helps teams save and stay organized — Get started here
📈 Inside my $30K/month LinkedIn playbook (via Creator Spotlight) — Steal the playbook
💬 Want to try ManyChat Pro free? — Sign Up
🔥 Tired of burnout? Steal my Anti-Burnout Content Plan to stay consistent — Get the plan
💸 Unsure how to monetize? Monetization 101 lays out the exact pathway — Start here
📧 Trying to hit your first 1,000 email subs? This playbook breaks it down step by step — Grab it now
🎙 Speaking at the Brand Advocacy Summit in NYC on Oct 21 — Join 150+ leaders shaping the future of advocacy
Brandon Smithwrick
Thanks for reading!
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