Are you tired of hearing about “content”? Your Web site must have great content. Your blog must have great content. Your social media must have great content. Your e-newsletters must have great content. But, what exactly is great content?
Content is simply described as useful information vs. a sales pitch. It usually includes tips, hints, how-to tips, and perhaps industry trends or data. So, are all of us now becoming our own editor-in-chief in charge of writing content whether it be on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, our blog, or our Website? Well, yes we are. But, you don’t have to have a Ph.D. in linguistics to share useful information. Here are a few tips that may help you become your own editor-in-chief.
- Know your audience. Write about things that interest them. Understand their problems and offer solutions to those problems. What do they care about most? What information are they craving? Take a poll and ask your readers what they want or what topics interest them. Right now, for example, social media and search engine optimization seems to be the two biggest buzz phrases. Everyone wants to know the magic bullet for promoting their company via social media. And, everyone wants to optimize their Web site so that their search rankings will be higher.
- Always think about your audience’s needs and not yourself. So, provide information that is useful to them. If you get too overly promotional, no one wants to read a sales pitch. Set yourself up as the resident expert in your field or trade. Be the “go to” person for your audience when they have a question or need information about a specific topic. No one likes a spam artist. So, don’t get the reputation for hawking your wares.
- Segment your audience depending upon where they are in the sales cycle. Are you introducing your products or services to this audience for the first time? Do people already know you? Where is your customer in terms of buying your products or services? Are they just kicking the tires? Or are they ready to consider a company such as yours? Or are they ready and want to make a decision.
- Consider publishing a survey or other market research statistics. People love to read competitor and industry information. And research data gives you instant credibility with your audience.
- Develop a glossary of frequently-used terminology for your particular industry. Or create content for an educational class, Webinar, or Internet-based workshop. Search engines love PDFs or PowerPoint presentations, so your site just might be better optimized using this strategy. Promote your class via an e-newsletter, Webinars, online videos, or other documents posted on your website. But, again, don’t be promotional with this material. Keep the selling out of it. If you don’t have anyone in-house who is a great speaker, then consider hiring someone who does voiceovers so that you have a professional presentation.
We’ll give you more content hints and tip in our next blog post. So, stay tuned for more.
