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A Raging Stream….of Content!
How can you possibly keep up with the constant stream of content you need to publish so you can attract new visitors and satiate the the existing ones? Oh, and it has to be really valuable, interesting, entertaining, and, you hope, draws them to you in a way that leads them to hire you or buy your stuff eventually.
First, have a strategy and plan.
How much content do you actually require to meet your business and marketing goals? That depends…..typical answer, but it’s true. Here are some sample goals you might have:
- Raise awareness for your business
- Increase sales or leads
- Establish and maintain professional credibility with your audience
- Provide helpful “How-To” content to your audience
The list goes on, but you get the idea. If you’re trying to raise awareness for your business, a regular newsletter and consistent posts on social media, along with a solid blog, will go a long way. OK, so that’s the WHAT but the frequency question is still there. There are businesses that publish a newsletter quarterly, blog monthly and post on a single social platform a couple of times a week, based on what they have as goals. Others find that they need to stay in front of their audience’s eyes more frequently. The newsletter goes out weekly (some send them daily!), the blog articles are weekly or a few times a week, and the social posts are many, throughout the day and on several different platforms, based on where their audiences reside and if they are global, national, regional or local (although that may not really make a difference any more…).
The plan usually takes the form of some kind of content calendar, both for tracking and planning purposes. Tracking allows you to see what you’ve done, and planning allows you to get ahead of the immediacy of the constant current of publishing. As I’ve told many clients, once you get on this horse, you don’t get off. You might alter the platforms, adjust the audiences, play with frequencies and the like, but as long as you’re in business and there is an Internet where your customers live, you need to be there actively.
The second fear many have is about coming up with the content itself.
Ideation for the stuff you create is one thing, but much of what you publish doesn’t need to be BY YOU! Content curation, done intelligently, critically, with the value to your audience firmly in sight, can provide you with an enormous amount of things to post and comment upon.
Consider the web sites you go to regularly, both for information you find professionally useful, and for information you find stimulating and of great interest….something you are passionate about. When you come across an article you find helpful, valuable, challenging or provoking, save the link. Posting these links with a compelling comment (which gives your audience a reason to click through and read it…), and tagging the post to make it easier to find, can help you develop a valuable stream on your platforms that others will visit frequently….now THEY don’t need to find the really cool stuff! You’ve done it for them. That makes you and your stream valuable to them and they’re likely to visit more frequently to get more of the same.
Don’t forget the value in the visual! Infographics are prolific across the web, and curating the ones that make sense for your goals is a great way to leverage these assets further. The same goes for videos, GIFs and photos. You can use numerous graphics tools to create (and brand!) your own, if you are so inclined. It is kind of fun and personalizes your online voice, which is a good thing as you differentiate yourself from all of the other voices vying for attention on the web.
These are just a few ideas about staying ahead of the constant need for content that you have to deliver if you’re going to have a successful digital marketing plan for your business.
Further thoughts? Leave them in the comments….and feel free to point to other great examples of how to build this kind of process for small businesses for others.
We’re all working to succeed here!
RESOURCE: Great short article by Mark Schaefer about how he screwed up his bogging strategy, and got it back on track. Very insightful….even the top pros run into this!
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Authentic Voice 