In this episode Shaun Whynacht, founder of Blue Cow Marketing, introduces the concept of OPC – “Other People’s Content” – as a strategic approach to filling social media calendars. He explains that relying solely on original content is unrealistic for most businesses, so blending curated content (videos, articles, memes, local news) with original posts helps maintain consistency, provide value, and build community. The conversation emphasizes the importance of defining a channel’s purpose beyond sales, using a local real‑estate example to illustrate how curated community and lifestyle content can attract followers. Shaun advises adding personal commentary to shared content, always crediting the source, and avoiding the temptation to claim others’ work as your own. The episode also promotes Blue Cow Marketing’s Social Connect tool, which automates scheduling, content discovery, and posting, reducing the time needed to maintain a strong social presence.
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Hi, it's Shaun Whynacht, the founder of Blue Cow Marketing and the co-host of this podcast. You know, scheduling your social media can be a daunting task. That is why we are using Social Connect, a proprietary tool that we provide for our clients. It allows you to automatically schedule, find content, get it out there, and really reduce the time it takes you to have a great social presence. If you want to find out more about it, go to bluecowmarketing.ca/socialconnect. Now let's take a listen to this great episode.
State to your followers why it's providing them value. Basically, that's a good way of looking at it, because if you think that something is, you know, simply interesting, you know, it's not necessarily, you know, super educational or anything, it's just interesting about your industry, say like, hey, I found this article and I think it's really interesting.
Okay, here we are, episode number 47. This is my turn to return the favor from the last two where you came up with the ideas and kind of bombarded me with questions. I did tell you kind of what we're gonna talk about. We're gonna talk about OPC. Do you know what OPC stands for?
OPC.
It may not be an actual acronym, but it's what I call it.
Um, no, I don't.
Other people's content.
Oh, nice, right?
So, um, I just like it, right? It's— but, uh, you know, the idea behind that is, you know, and you see it probably every, every day working with clients, is, is we're trying to get them in the mindset of creating their own content, right? So their own videos, their own posts, their own photos, and that type of stuff. Which, I mean, to, to be filling a content calendar with all of that is a big ask sometimes, right? OPC, other people's content, are other YouTube videos, other blog posts, other memes, other things that are out there on the internet. How important is it to have a good blend in your opinion on a page or an account?
I think it's essential not only for consistency because if we're being realistic, you know, you can't always be on top of content creation. It's not possible. I've yet to have a client who has been 100% 100% of the time. So in terms of consistency, it's essential, but also in terms of adding value, you know, you have to accept that you're, you know, in your entire industry, you're not gonna know every single thing that you need to. You can't provide the most value just, you know, you yourself creating content, but, you know, as soon as you open the doors to to other people's YouTube content, articles, anything in the industry news or related to your product or service, like when you open those doors, the value grows exponentially. And that's why it comes down to using other people's content in a blend of your own as well.
And you touched on a word there, you said providing value. And I think, It's important to look at your social channels and figure out what is the purpose of this channel, right? You know, if, if your main purpose is it's for me to sell, then you've got the wrong purpose because people do not want to follow a page or a channel because you're just going to be selling to them, right? They get enough advertisements in the run of the day. People are just hungry and thirsty for, for value, right, and purpose. So I mean, you look at a YouTube channel or a Facebook page, think about What is the value I want to provide back to that person? So, you know, let's use a real estate agent in a local market because, you know, local marketing is a little easier than trying to do national marketing when you're looking at other content for the reason that, you know, they have stuff about the homes that they're posting, but there's a huge amount of content out there online about, you know, how to stage a home, how to list a home, you know, a whole bunch of other things like that, but there's also local events, local community things that are going on. There's a huge source of other content that you can bring into that space, um, you know, especially if you're breaking it down to, you know, you deal with, with purchasers, right? People that are buying and moving to the area. What do they want to know? They want to know about the schools, they want to know about the recreation, they want to know about the lifestyle, the lifestyle. Um, and if they're going to follow you because they want to, you know, move to that area and you provide more of that It's a huge resource for them.
Yeah, of course. And I mean, I think when you're looking at it from a marketing perspective, it can be kind of intimidating and not seem like a positive thing to be using other people's knowledge and information because you want that to be kind of all, you know, you want people to perceive that as all coming from you. But, you know, try and remove yourself from, you know, that perspective and and think about it from your followers' perspective. You know, when you follow a page and you get a diverse amount of content and, you know, just different types of content too, because a lot of people will stick to what they know in terms of, you know, just sitting in front of the camera, filming themselves talking. But, you know, throwing articles in there or, you know, how-to videos or, you know, whatever it might be that, you know, other people's content is providing your page, like that's so much more interesting to your followers. And in addition to that, you know, when you're talking about local and, you know, say you're posting or using, you know, the school's content that's in your region or, you know, whatever it might be, that also just builds this sense of, you know, connections from your followers' perspective. They see that, you know, you're connected to the school or you're connected to, you know, whatever post that you are actually reposting. Like, it just builds that kind of form of community, I guess.
And you don't have to just be like posting the content out as it is. I'm not gonna, you know, advocate that you alter the content, but what you're gonna do is you're gonna provide your perspective on it. So, you know, let's say there's a community organization that does a YouTube video for a fundraising event. You can post it, but you can add your comment to that and say, You can say, here's an event that I really enjoy, I really support this every year, or it's a YouTube video where somebody's talking about a certain topic that your audience would be interested in. You can say, okay, here, this is some great advice, I would also add this to that, right? So now you are just becoming an addition to that content as well.
[Speaker] Yeah, and even relating it to content that you've created in the past. So if you're sharing an article, that builds on a blog post that you've done, link your blog post back to it. Just state to your followers why it's providing them value, basically. That's a good way of looking at it, because if you think that something is simply interesting, it's not necessarily super educational or anything, it's just interesting about your industry, say, like, hey, I found this article and I think it's really interesting. That's—
Or what do you think about this?
Yeah, exactly. Just find a way to engage them and tell them why you're posting it, basically. I think that that's a, a really simple way to look at it for people who are first starting out with kind of curated content.
Yeah, for sure. And, you know, as you start to generate your own content, your content will be other people's content, right? So it's a win-win on both sides, right? So it's important to look at it that way. And just, you know, especially starting out, you're going to rely, you know, more so on, on filling those blocks with other content until you get your, your content kind of operation up and running, going a lot faster. And, and from that standpoint, I mean, it's going to force you to see what this other content is like, and you're going to get ideas for your own content to create. Like, I love the style that that person shot that video, or, oh, I didn't know you could just like bring up a website and do a video just talking about it, because that's, that's helpful, right? So you'll start to see, especially if you're starting to learn how to do this.
Yeah, no, of course. And I think the most important thing to touch on about content, um, even just in general, is you have to make sure that it's providing value. You know, circling back to that, every single post that you make, everything you share, you should be able to answer the question of why you're posting it and why your followers and your target audience is going to get value out of that. And if you can't, then don't post it. You know, like, it is so much better to post an article that is filled with really important and valuable information than it is to just fill the gap with your own content, um, just because you want to say that you posted or you want to hit that target of 3 posts, 4 posts, 5 posts, whatever it is a week.
It's all quality. Versus quantity.
Exactly, it comes down to that basic rule.
So I guess the takeaway from this is don't avoid using other content. Never pawn it off as your own.
Right.
Give the credit that's out there. And it's not like you're driving people away, right? You're not, they're not gonna be like, oh, I'm gonna go talk to Tony Robbins now because, you know, you posted one of his videos, right? They're just gonna be like, "Hey, that's a really good point." Yeah. Right? And it's gonna be helpful to them. So don't be scared of OPC.
