Building a Core Content Strategy
Jacob Reeleder | Content Coordinator
Blue Moth Creative Inc.
December 13th, 2018
While everyone agrees that content is the key to getting noticed, many brands and companies are unaware of where to start. What type of content should they invest in? How often should they update their content? How do they make authoritative content? What do people mean by organic, SEO, analytics, and other key content terms?
There are entire courses designed to teach creating effective and authoritative content that will get you noticed. So, in general, it’s always best to hire an expert. But, in order to make sure your ideas line up while they strengthen your business’s core foundation, you could use some tips at creating a great content strategy for your brand.
Find Your Voice
The first step to making sure your content stands out is by discovering what makes you stand out. A 2018 Global Consumer Insights Survey by PwC shows that the biggest influence on consumers, when it comes to making a choice, is trust. By being authentic to your brand and ideals, you build the trust of your customers and clients.
Sit down with your team and decide on your brands voice. Make a plan for the tone of blog posts. Decide if videos will be funny, formal, or uniquely strange. Be very clear about how you want customer interactions to sound across all your platforms. Make sure your team is onboard and understands the unique voice of your brand.
Once you have your voice, keep it consistent across all your platforms. The way you respond to a google review should have the same feel as your blog posts. When customers and clients see that you are being authentic and true to your brand, they start to build trust. This trust is key to word of mouth sales, and continued outreach through content.
What Content Works For You?
After you decide on the voice that fits your style and vibe, you have to figure out where to spend your time and efforts when it comes to creating content. Content refers to any media that is created for your brand. Visual: videos, photography, webinars. Written: newsletters, Blog Posts, customer success stories. Interactive: VR experience, downloadable files. Let’s not forget, the ever popular podcasts. All of these mediums come together to create your content strategy, and you need to determine where to focus.
Blog posts are always a great starting point, as long as they are well written. Blogs create lots of searchable content that can be linked to other sites and sources to improve your standing as a thought leader in your industry. Now that long form content is predicted to be the top trend for 2019, blogging is the best place to start.
Video, podcasts, or webinars are great for those who have some more time and resources to invest. However, quality is the key. Make sure you have spent the time and done the research before investing in video production, or finding a podcast or webinar team. Nothing hurts client trust more than videos that look like they were done in one take and slapped together five minutes before posting, or podcasts where everyone is uniformed on the issues.
Once you’ve built a client base, success stories are going to really set you apart from the rest. By conducting interviews with past clients, and writing a detailed account of their experience, you are able to do two important things. Firstly, you show future clients how useful your product actually is. Secondly, you can understand how your client’s used your product and their experience. This is great for learning how to move forward.
Know Your Audience
Who is your target audience for this content, and what do you know about them? If you’re going to make content that cements you as a thought leader, you have to understand what topics your audience is interested in, and how those interests relate to your brand.
As good as it might be to know what is trending at the moment, if your site normally produces content about education, there’s no real reason to blog about how Pokemon GO is suddenly trending again. On the other hand, a good content creator might write a segment discussing the effects of Pokemon GO on middle school students.
When you take the time to understand why your audience is coming to your page, you can keep your message and voice clear and constant. This helps you find unique ways to discuss trending topics, and relate them back to your brand, reaching out to a new potential audience at the same time.
Evaluate your Channels
OK, you’ve figured out that your brand is going to push some “company life” videos. You know that you want to show a relaxed, yet dedicated in-house atmosphere, and your desired audience for this content is other industry professionals you want to attract to your company. You’re looking to hire top-talent and you feel you have the content to draw in the right fit.
So where do you post that video? Just on your website? On Linkedin and Facebook? Are you going to run an Instagram campaign at the same time to drive traffic to the video? Are you going to mention the video in a newsletter? Food for thought – did you know Pinterest generates the highest conversion rates of any social media site?
Building the content is great, but your promotional strategy around key content needs to be planned out. If you’re spending money to make a video, you want to make sure your plan to share that content is well thought out. Tailor your strategy to the right platform.
Audit Your Content
Make sure to invest in monthly analytic reports for your content. Knowing how well a post performs, who it performed well with, and where in the world it’s being seen the most is the most important thing you can do to constantly develop your content strategy.
Invest your time into reading this data and building experience. Being able to tell when to follow the data and when to change direction is key for your brand’s strategy and reaching out to the right audience.
It’s a Team Thing
Never forget the value of your team when it comes to creating and spreading content. Your team shapes the culture and voice of your office, and they often come up with the best ideas for future content strategies. They are also your best way to spread the word about new content.
Get everyone involved when it comes to sharing content and spreading the world. Ask them to share company blog posts and videos that they find interesting. Or, have a team member take over the Instagram account for a week and show their version of what the company does. Get creative and let your team help you shape your ideas.
Celebrate Your Customer’s Success
A surprising number of companies fail to see the value in “customer success” stories. Much like a case study, but very focused, a customer success story is a long form piece of content that tells the story of a customer who has had success with your products.
Your audience likes to feel that your site is speaking directly to them and their interests. By creating customer success pieces, you help your audience to connect to your brand through the positive experience of others. You also help to build audience trust, and create discussions about your products through content.
Incorporate the Trends
Finally, you always have to take time to stay aware of the trends in content strategy. As stated above, the value of a professional is that they understand these trends better than anyone, and they work to constantly update and tweak your content strategy based on industry changes.
For example, recent trends in tech and algorithms have completely changed how we can promote content, and which content to promote. Long-form posts have become more desirable. Webinars and live video are more popular than ever before. Voice search has completely shifted the language people use when interacting online. And, the value of authenticity in content is higher than ever.
Well good content is a serious investment, nothing is more effect at promoting organic traffic to your site and increasing your brands influence. Build a trusting audience and keep them coming back with a solid content strategy, working with the experts to see it succeed.
Jacob Reeleder is a writer, teacher, and social media expert, as well as Content Coordinator at Blue Moth Creative.