You’re creating blog posts and sharing them on social media, but your brand’s content seems to land more with a dull thud than with a big splash. What’s going wrong?
It could be one thing, or it could be a number of things. If your content marketing seems to be treading water (or worse, is DOA), putting one or more of these content marketing tips into action might be just what you need to give it a jolt.
10 Quick Content Marketing TIps
1.) Know your audience (make personas)
Who are you creating your content for? If you don’t have a quick, immediate answer to that question, then that’s probably the big issue with your content marketing.
The easiest way to get to know your audience is to create buyer or audience personas for them. Personas are generalized versions of the people you want to be reading or otherwise engaging with your brand’s content. According to Hubspot, creating personas lets you connect with your audience as real people.
Once you know who your audience (or audiences) is, you can start creating the type of content that best suits their needs.
2.) Think value first.
What are you giving your audience when you produce content? Are you producing blog posts full of drivel, and long-winded stories about your brand? Or are you giving your audiences something they can actually use, like tips on improving this or that area of their lives, or advice on how to do X with Y?
If you’re not producing useful, valuable content, what’s the point?
3.) Build your content on a cornerstone.
“Oh, but making content is so hard!” Yes, it is. That’s why it helps to produce cornerstone content, which is content that forms the backbone or basis of the rest of your content marketing (and SEO) strategy.
Your cornerstone content can be anything you’re really proud of, whether it’s a funny video, a useful e-book, or a stats-filled white paper.
4.) Don’t sound like a robot.
Here’s an essential tip: You’re human, and you’re audience is human. You need to address them as humans. Really, there’s no need to be so formal, or worse, to sound like someone let a robot get behind the camera.
When you create content, whether it’s videos, articles, blog posts, or whatever, pretend like you’re talking to a friend. It will help bring your content down to earth and make it conversational.
5.) Don’t neglect old content.
If you had a slideshow or video that did really well and was a hit on social media, or ranked highly in search results, don’t assume that its day is done.
One of the best things you can do with old, successful content is repurpose it. Maybe a popular blog post sees new life as an infographic, or you post a slideshow on your website and on SlideShare. You can also transfer posts from your company’s blog to a blogging platform like Medium to increase their reach.
Neil Patel shares the stories of several people who have reused their content and been able to increase their audience size considerably. Remember, if it’s not broke, don’t fix it, but don’t ignore it either.
6.) Remember that “content” is more than writing.
Hate writing? Do you freeze up when you open Google Docs? Remember, you don’t have to “write” to make great content. In fact, some forms of content might be quickly overtaking written blog posts and articles. Video is one key example. By 2021, about 82 percent of all internet traffic will be video, according to Cisco.
7.) Think visually.
Here’s another reason to think beyond writing when producing content: People are wired for images. The human brain processes images 60,000 times more quickly than it processes text, according to Thomson Reuters.
Plus, content with images is more likely to be shared on social media than content without. For example, according to Buffer, tweets with images were retweeted 150 percent more times than tweets without images.
8.) Interact.
What’s better: content that’s passive or content that spurs people to action? Active or interactive content is content people are going to excitedly engage with, whether it’s content that promises to tell them what Disney princess they are, or a poll that seeks to solicit their real opinions.
When you produce interactive content, you’re telling your audience that you value their thoughts, and giving them a chance to learn more about themselves.
9.) Work with influencers.
Maybe you don’t need to change what your brand is saying, but who is saying it. It could be that you just haven’t found the right voice for your content yet.
Working with influencers — whether it’s a blogger who is well known in your field or social media users who are known for posting about topics relevant to your brand — can help you reach new people and improve the effectiveness of your content.
10.) Use tech to your advantage.
In some cases, your content might seem not to work because you have no way of tracking it or actually measuring response. Content marketing platforms and software exist to help you manage every aspect of the content creation process, from ideation to promotion. They also let you measure how each piece performs, and help you figure out what you need to change and what you can keep on doing.
