We’ve all been there: saving yet another “low-lift content” tip to a folder we’ll forget about, hoping it’s finally the thing that makes content feel easier. But what if the problem isn’t your templates, your workflow, or your posting schedule?
In this episode, we’re breaking down the low-lift content illusion — why it sounds dreamy in theory but falls flat without the one thing that actually makes content creation easier and way more effective: a brand that does the heavy lifting for you. You’ll walk away with a clearer understanding of what’s missing, what to focus on instead, and how to finally create content that’s both sustainable and unmistakably yours.
If you've been online for the past five years, you've seen the rise of so-called low-lift content — content that's supposed to be easier to create, take less effort, and less energy.
And who doesn't want that?
We all know how marketing has this frustrating way of taking way longer than it should, especially for us service providers who make content to market our business, not become full-blown content creators. If you're anything like me, whenever a busy season hits, content tends to be the very first ball I drop.
So all the classic low-lift tips — filming B-roll clips as you go about your day, setting up a custom GPT to write captions, building a carousel template library you can just plug text into — sound like the perfect strategy to keep showing up consistently without falling into that burst-and-burnout cycle of posting three times a week for two weeks and then ghosting your audience for a month.
These tips are meant to save time and effort, right?
But we've heard all of these tips before, and for some reason, they never really seem to stick or work in our favour.
Filming B-roll clips sounds easy until you realise you're sitting at a desk for eight hours without moving and start questioning if you need to put on makeup and a non-pyjama outfit to capture 15 seconds of your day?
Custom GPTs seem like a dream until they start spitting out captions packed with nonsense emojis, clunky phrasing, generic hooks — and you end up having to rewrite the whole thing from scratch anyway.
Carousel template libraries really are a time saver... until your engagement starts dropping because you're using the exact same template every single time, and now no one can tell your different content pieces apart from each other.
The real trap becomes when we start treating low-lift content as just post it content.
And I've been there too. There are seasons in life and business when other things are more important than showing up online. But that doesn't mean you want to stop showing up altogether. So when you're trying to keep up with content demands, it's very tempting to grab a template, auto-generate some copy, add a hook, and just hit post.
But if your content is becoming that mindless for you to create, then it's probably that mindless for your audience to scroll past.
But these content creation "hacks" are all missing the thing that actually makes them low-lift and easy in the first place.
They're missing a brand to lean on.
Branding and marketing have walked hand in hand throughout the ages. But when it comes to the online business circus, marketing has full-blown taken centre stage — churning out content, posting daily, endlessly tweaking every little thing from captions to hooks to editing the video and syncing it with the audio — and branding gets pushed into a corner.
We pour so much more energy into content than we do into building a brand that makes that content work.
Because when you lean into your own bold, intentional, unmistakable brand, content creation not only gets easier, but it gets sharper, stickier, and more you. You stop second-guessing yourself and trying to reinvent the wheel every time you sit down to post.
And that thing called consistency that feels like a far-away dream actually becomes achievable. You actually start building trust with your audience without needing to be online 24/7 because your brand is doing the heavy lifting for you behind the scenes.
You see, when your brand's spot-on, your online presence commands attention. You're suddenly able to drop a two-line caption and still deliver value. You can repurpose an old carousel and get as much engagement, if not more, than the original. You can even whip up content in 15 to 20 minutes without it being shallow or templated because it's anchored in your clear identity.
It’s your brand that actually makes low-lift content have something to lift.
You don't need another hook bank, content creation system, Canva template pack, or fill-in-the-blanks caption.
You need a brand to fall back on, one that your audience can recognise by your tone, angle, fonts, colours, and freaking emojis. The repetition of those elements builds familiarity, and familiarity builds loyalty.
Now, another thing that these types of tips and tricks of low-lift content make it sound like is how they're supposed to be more authentic and more you because you're not putting any effort into it. Like the less you try, the more real you are.
But when did effort become the opposite of authenticity?
It's like somewhere along the line, "authentic" got repackaged as unedited, unfiltered, unpolished. Like if you plan your post or write a caption instead of brain-dumping it into your notes app, it somehow becomes fake.
But I don't think realness comes from how undone your content is. I think it comes from how much you care about the content that you're putting out.
And with that care comes intention.
That's why advice like "just be yourself" is just not useful at all. Because being yourself is, if you're anything like me, also sitting on your couch binging Netflix from time to time. But I doubt that turning that into a B-roll clip would actually do your brand and business any favours.
So with care and intention, there has to be a degree of curation and making choices — repeated choices that signal to your audience who you are and how you can help them.
Authenticity can't be a synonym for "posting because I have to," and it certainly isn't auto-generated captions from a robot trying to sound like you.
Authenticity is showing up with something to say, in a way that only you would say it.
And that only happens when you take the time and care and intention to know your brand inside and out. When you build that foundation, when you work through your audience, when you nail your positioning, when you create your visual identity — so everything you post for your brand's online presence already from the get-go has your DNA baked into it.
So if you're feeling the pressure to post every day, romanticise being chronically online, and finding yourself glued to a screen posting last minute, I would ask yourself: do I really have a content problem, or do I have a branding problem that's making content harder than it needs to be?
Because when your brand's there to support you, troupe — that is what turns marketing from a hamster wheel into a high-wire act. And it actually feels fun and low-lift for a change.
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This episode was co-produced with Adrienne Cruz.
Over the last 5 years as a Brand & Marketing Designer, I’ve helped freaks like us design their unconventional brands so they can step onto the main stage & own their weird. Because if you wanted to be, look or sound like everyone else, you wouldn’t be where you are today. Now it’s your turn.
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