In today’s digital age, everyone has become a content creator, whether we know it or not. We are bloggers, influencers, social media mavens, writers, filmmakers, and so much more. With so much content buzzing around, from the podcast on your morning commute to the nighttime news, the call for content is endless. Content is literally available to our info-hungry eyes on a constant basis. The wealth of available content has left many wondering if it really even matters? What is digestible, and how is it even possible that my content will cut through the clutter and have a real impact?
The truth is that nowadays, content is the lifeblood of a company. Through content, brand identity is built through story, and through story, consumers (whether B2B or traditional), will connect and develop trust in your mission. Remember: trust is always earned. Great content positions you, as both a leader and an expert, bringing additional credibility to everything you do. Well-crafted content can also drive greater traffic to your website, and with strategic language, it can drive SEO, thus compelling a wider net of potential customers to listen to what it is you have to say. To find out how to make content work for you, while bringing trust and human connectivity to your brand, it is important to understand how effective content is defined today.
Pivot to Online Video
The future of content is video. Just look at YouTube, a platform that receives at least one billion visitors a month, or 30 million per day. People are including this with their traditional forms of media (newspapers, outdoor ads, print advertising, newsletters), while diving into the infinite stream of online video. Video can convey emotion and drive empathy in ways other formats have not and do not allow, reaching targeted audiences in impactful ways. Modern apps are also making it easier to create effective video content, with reduced production costs, and a lot less time. Technology means you don’t have to be Stephen Spielberg to produce compelling content for your audience.
Keep it Short
With the instant gratification of video streaming, delivery services like Amazon, and all the other ways our needs are being met in real-time, we are becoming more efficient by the day. This also means that our attention span is getting shorter and shorter, meaning consumers will move on a lot more quickly than first thought. In the digital space, the key is to keep it short and sweet, before your message goes stale.
Measure, Measure, Measure!
How do you know your content is effectively reaching people, and worth all of the time and money you put into it? Businesses traditionally play catch up, adapting their message to the never-ending emergence of platforms and opportunities available to get it out there. Quora, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, MailChimp, Pinterest, the list goes on, and we are doing everything we can to essentially feed the beast. The only way to ensure our results are in sync with our objectives is to measure. Measure the impact, measure the demographics of who is being reached, measure viewability, and measure the engagement. It is only through metrics, that we may make well-informed decisions about our content marketing efforts and how our resources are being distributed.
Content Research
Don’t know what to write about? There are so many tools out there to help you find your next great idea. A tool like Buzzsumo will help you generate a comprehensive list of articles on the web that have the most shares. Simply plug in the topic of your choosing and from there, you can see what the big websites in your niche are discussing, and what your audience responds to most. Don’t forget that there is a great deal of insight found in keyword research. With SEMrush, keyword analytics are broken down by organic search, paid search, backlinks, display advertising and more, so you can get ahead of the competition and drive real traffic.
Having a solid yet strategic content strategy delivers enhanced trust, credibility, thought leadership, search engine optimization, website traffic, and a strategic edge over the competition, proving that in any business, custom content is what really matters.
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