5 Useful Links about Content Creation That You can use Today
As a copywriter, it’s important to understand modern business needs and how the internet can help. I’ve been reading a lot about content creation and repurposing and have found the following articles helpful.
I’m still learning, so if you have any suggestions that you think I should read, please send them over!
- Kim Garst – Come up with 50 Content Ideas
http://bit.ly/1GgV7Ju
Kim Garst is one of the best known experts on all things social media. She tweets constantly and always knows what the next big thing is, whether that’s a platform, an app or a tool that you should be using to make life easier. She also knows when something is on its way out.
This article is brilliant, as it gives ideas for what to do when your mind goes blank and you have no idea what to write about. Point two is obvious but frequently overlooked – write the answer to your customers’ questions. Blogs don’t always need to be long and complicated, but they should always serve your reader. In fact, as Kim says, ask your audience what they want to know about, and tailor your blogs to that.
Another good idea is to look for trending topics and use them as the basis for your content creation. While this is not a solution if you prefer to write posts in advance, it’s a good way to show that you’re aware of what’s going on. If there’s a news story related to your industry, it would be good to put across the views from the inside, and could even lead to a series of posts.
I’m actually going to bookmark this and use the tips myself – even professional writers run out of ideas occasionally!
- Neil Patel/Hubspot – Making your Posts More Interesting
http://bit.ly/2cDsQ9u
Neil Patel is an online marketer and a highly-respected influencer. His blog on Hubspot is about why it’s important not just to write, but to write articles that are interesting and valuable to your readers, which should always be the priority.
He suggests always writing in the first person, as this is the most natural and immediate. This can be tricky if you’re writing about a business, so it might be a good idea to create a persona who writes all of the blog posts for your organisation, or to have them credited to senior staff depending on the topic (CEO, Head of HR etc.).
Neil also emphasises the importance of clarity, which is something I’ve talked about more than once. Don’t try to be clever and use long words, industry-specific jargon and convoluted sentences. Your audience will get bored and tune out.
- Gini Dietrich/Convince and Convert: Creating Shareable Content
While writing regularly and being consistent with your posting is important, ideally you don’t just want your blogs to sit on your site, you want them to be shared!
Gini Dietrich works in Marketing Communications, and is an author and podcaster. She wrote the above for Jay Baer’s website, and talks about why you should have a process in place to develop your content.
Some of her ideas for creating content include: reading the comments on your blog, and if you don’t have any, look at the comments section on other blogs and on social media. She also suggests going through your email “sent” folder and looking at sales messages and company information communications, and turn these into blogs.
There are 25 content creation suggestions here, so you’ve got no excuses!
Once you’ve created your content, you also need to think about repurposing it to get maximum exposure and to as many unique pairs of eyes as possible. Repurposing sounds daunting, but it’s easier than you think.
- 1st Content Digital – Getting More from Your Content
http://bit.ly/2bQoUMw
The big takeaway here is emphasising the importance of sharing your content in as many places as you can. Once you’ve published a blog post on your website, add links to it on all your social media platforms. Don’t forget that as well as making it part of a LinkedIn status, you can also republish it as a Pulse article. Your followers will use more than one platform and check them at various times, so by sharing you’re more likely to catch the attention of someone who missed it the first time around.
The other good tip here is to repost old content. If you’ve written something you’re particularly proud of or that is helpful to your target market, don’t post it once and forget about it; share it a month or so later. Content creation can be time-consuming, so save yourself from the stress of trying to come up with something new all the time! Evergreen content is the term for something that is always useful and relevant, but don’t hesitate to tweak here and there to make it more current.
- Foundr Magazine – Repurpose Your Content
http://bit.ly/2cxFeUd
Any piece of content can be repurposed into another format to be shared as something new, but the most common way to do it is to start with a blog post and turn it into other media to be posted across platforms. Foundr’s article shows how just one post can be used 12 times – pretty cool!
Don’t worry if not all of these apply to you – you know your market best so you can pick which types of content they’d prefer and focus on those. Busy entrepreneurs often like to listen to information in little chunks, so an audio download may suit them, whereas in a B2C industry customers may be found on more social sites and like to see your content as they’re scrolling.
Many people prefer visuals, so an infographic can be ideal, as it presents your ideas in a concise but appealing way. You can also highlight key points on a graphic to share on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
Take those key points and make a mini presentation and upload it to LinkedIn Slideshare, record yourself reading them out or use free software to create a simple video to show people your computer screen and talk them through what they can see.
There are endless possibilities for content creation ideas and lots of great resources to inspire you. Use these and you should never get stuck again!