The Vicious Cycle Of Content Creation
Online should sit at the heart of your marketing strategy and content should be the pulse.
What do we know? Well we know that when we don’t know something we turn to the Internet… and if the internet cant give it to us within 3 (and that’s pushing it) refinements of search terms, we decide that it doesn’t exist or we are just not interested anymore.
According to GlobalWebIndex, on average people are spending 6 hours per day online – that is an overwhelming 25% of the average persons day that is being spent on the web.
If we break this down further – 28% of that is spent on social media equating to 1.72 hours per day. Now if we clearly understand what this means in the bigger picture of life and more specifically marketing, we can make some serious strides in the right direction.
People are constantly looking for stuff, products, services, advice and sometimes even partners (but that is a topic for another time and post) and we, who sell the “stuff” don’t know what to do, when or how to do it. If we start by grasping the exponential power of content (which is relevant, entertaining and SEO’d – which goes without saying) then we will be able to take pure and beneficial advantage of this online behaviour – a behaviour that already exists.
Now we just have to harness our power and intellect to ensure that we get our monies worth by taking advantage of this behaviour and driving people to our content. Easier said than done right? Well here is a simple way to start getting the thinking for your content right.
The best way to get a simple point across is to draw a picture and when the point is a process well a picture is the only way to go… so I reveal to you the…
The Vicious Circle of Content created by Raeesa Bagus
I call it the “vicious circle of content creation” (the reason is, it never stops, well should never if you want to continue to drive traffic and create leads from your online activities), in this we see a starting point which then it feeds into a reoccurring cycle within the bigger process.The cycle/ circle talks to a few points.
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Define the target audience:
You need to know who you are planning to talk to in order to know where to talk to them and what you want to say. This is vital and hence why it is the first step. Take time ensuring you know who the people are, what their behaviours and expectations are and what makes them tick in the direction of your brand. Only after you have this figured out can you move on.
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Define the platforms:
This becomes really easy after you have a target audience identified, loads of sites i.e.Pewinternet will guide you to choose the right platforms to disseminate your messaging. I cannot emphasise enough how crucial it is that you understand the functionality of the platforms you choose and know how to optimise them for the most effective and efficient comms.
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Content Schedule:
A content schedule is the substance of any online campaign. Drawing up a plan of when to post what content on what platforms and how many times, can give you a framework to ensure that you have frequent and relevant content on all your platforms constantly encouraging engagement and interaction. For more on creating a schedule and where to start, have a look at this great article on “Creating a killer publishing schedule”.
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Content creation:
This is the hard labour, up until this point it was about strategy and planning… but like all good things, there has to be the training before the six pack and the sweat before the race… and this is where the creation comes in. Ideally you want someone who has skills and experience in online writing, someone like a journalist or copywriter. Everyday you are on the front page of your newspaper, make sure that the front page story is getting the attention of the people you are targeting. Creation of content should be actioned to tie in with your content schedule. Make sure this happens.
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SEO and sharing:
Most people forget about the SEO and sharing part of the process. If this is not done effectively the rest was just a pure waste of time. After you have created and are ready to distribute/ publish/ post you need to put time into tailoring to ensure the reach is expansive. The content you created is relevant and needs to be able to be found by the little teeny weeny bots that crawl the web for content relevant to searches. If you have not already SEO’dthe crap out of your content, best you get to it. Otherwise people won’t find it, like it, or share it… and well if you have lost that then you may as well go back to sticking up posters on light poles and in the entertainment section of the Sunday Times. My point is that people are looking for what you have. So what do you have in place to make sure that you can be found?
In short, online is such a key part of your marketing strategy, but what we really need to come to terms with is that content creation should be the core of your online strategy because if the content is not being created and packaged in the right way… then you should seriously consider how you plan to continue to exist in the future.
If the fact the “google” is now a verb synonymous with searching for information on the web, hasn’t focused your efforts on content then I’m not sure what will. Let’s stop tying to be profound and look for truly amazing things to say all the time. Tell real stories, share real values and be authentic and most importantly be frequent because otherwise you will cease to exist… because that’s just how it goes down online.
In the words of Robert Rose -“ Marketing is telling the world you are a rock star, content marketing is showing the world you are one”
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Twitter: @raeesa_bagus
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