Creating great content is a challenge for many business owners who aren’t used to talking about their business or industry in a public forum. So what is content marketing, and how do you go about it?
It’s all about creating compelling content that will be a highly effective way to find new customers and retain existing ones. Distributing engaging email newsletters, relevant blog posts, how-to videos, and other types of online content can help you build an audience and establish yourself as an expert in your field.
People are turning away from conventional advertising
This is particularly important at a time when consumers are increasingly adept at ignoring advertising messages in both conventional and online media.
Which brings us back to the question of content.
A good place to start is to think about the challenges your customers talk to you about every day. What questions do you get asked over and over again? How do you respond? These premises could inspire a series of blog posts, how-to videos, or even a short e-book.
Lift the curtain on your business
You can also pull back the curtain and talk about what's going on inside your business. Talk about your successes, but also be honest about the challenges you face and the efforts you're making to improve for the benefit of your customers. You can also share the charities you and your staff support in your community.
You can also step away and discuss the big issues affecting your industry. Any ideas that help enrich your content are good.
Let’s face it – we collectively have very short attention spans overseas chinese in canada data on the internet. So you don’t always have to create a bunch of videos or an 800-word article to achieve your goal. Often, a simple photo with a caption, a quick-hit idea on your blog, a tweet, or a Facebook update will do the trick.
Knowing your audience and their habits will help you craft the right content.
Reduce, reuse, recycle
There is a huge amount of content created on the Internet every day. Some of this content is relevant to your industry. Why not leverage it?
Sharing existing content can be just as effective as creating your own. If you come across a good article on LinkedIn , share it and add it to your Google+ page .
You should also look through your archives for content. Is there an article you wrote for the local newspaper or a video you put together to give a presentation? This material can be repurposed online.
Establish a content calendar
Still struggling to schedule content creation time into your day?
A content calendar can be helpful. Select regular dates on your calendar where you’ll add certain types of content, and stick to them. This should help you determine how often you should be posting and give you the discipline to do so.
Another frequently asked question: should we post regularly, say once a week, or as often as possible?
What matters is consistency
There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to this question. But it’s certainly better to be consistent than to post too often or (more likely) too infrequently. It’s important to maintain an active presence across all your channels. Don’t suddenly abandon your audience just because you’re running out of time or, worse, losing interest.
No one can create amazing content all the time. You can be very prolific and create a ton of posts in a short amount of time, but remember, this is a marathon, not a sprint. You’re likely to get tired.
I've faced this situation on my own blog, where my posting pace has slowed down. But I strive to post at least a few times a month and stay very active on social media to keep the lines of communication open with my audience.
With a little organization and imagination, you'll find that content marketing is well worth the time and effort.
