In a society where people are considered time poor, have access to lots of different information through our wonderful fixation with technology and the world wide web, it’s no wonder that consumers are using content to help influence their every day life.
When referring to content, I am considering information that can come from many different sources:
- Reviews
- Social media
- Articles
- Competitors
- News
- Third party websites
One of the heaviest content machines now is social media – it drives much of what we see in the media every day (for the most part). Even those who don’t have social media are actually served content from it daily either through the news article that they read or hear, or through friends and family. We’ve also seen a new paid employment in “influencers” who seek to receive goods and services in return for a “mention” on an individuals blog or social site. I’ve read stories of influencers are are managing to travel the world all on the back of creating influential material on behalf of businesses that they’ve experienced. We know that the Kardashian trend is becoming a lot more wide spread and people are now building profiles purely for the purpose of individual achievements.
Businesses and social groups alike are using content to help influence consumers to consider or believe in what they have to offer, but how does this affect small business?
Many larger businesses have created full time positions for content managers as they recognise the impact that it can have on their business, but it’s not realistic for small businesses to do the same. What we need to consider is that content information is helping to present to consumers information that may aid their final decision and build affiliation with the company that is creating the content. Information can be guides, facts, humorous details, shared resources, anything that can help to place the business in the mind of the consumer.
We need to realise that this is starting to have a big affect on how consumers purchase – it is the new public relations and all businesses, no matter the size need to consider how to use content to help build relationships with customers.
How can I incorporate content in to my small business?
For small business, it’s important to recognise that this can be a very resource / time hungry exercise and it’s important to evaluate the impact that it can have on your business before you throw yourself in. Some possible things to consider:
- Social media seems like a quick fix but you need to ensure that you are managing it effectively to be able to create it as a content platform.
- Have you been collecting customer email addresses and not sure what to do with them – you could use this platform to delivery content directly to your audience.
- Create a blog page on your website – this will allow you to create articles (much like this one) which you can then share to people. Most websites offer plugins to social media and network platforms like LinkedIn which can remove duplication of effort but allow you to share your information much more widely. The blog also provides you with a nice home to keep your content
So I’ve got the platform, but what do I talk about?
It’s interesting when you start to delve in to the content that is being developed by organisations as you can see how wide content can take you in capturing people on their consumer journey.
My suggestion for content development is to first understand what you stand for, what is your core business and what do you want consumers to see in you. Some things to consider might be:
- I want to be recognised as an expert in my field
- I want to help educate consumers and customers about what is available to them
- I want to take customers on the journey with me
- I want to share my knowledge with my customers
- I want to build a relationship with my customers and their friends
- I want to help inform customers about things that they might not know
The key thing is that you need to be able to use information that you can access easily so that you can create timely blogs. I use my blog for the purpose of simply sharing experience to help education businesses and people. It’s not critical to what I do in my every day so my content is related to marketing, but broad and it’s easy to develop information from my observations and experience. If you are a busy small business owner who is wanting to delve in to this, my suggestion is that you develop a road map based on the decision that you’ve made on what your content needs to focus on (refer to the bullets above). From here establish:
- How often you want to provide content
- What channel are you going to use
- Are you writing it yourself or sharing information from others
This will help determine your content strategy, in it’s simplest form. It’s important that your content calendar also includes key dates and seasons / time of year, that are relevant to your audience. You might want to increase or decrease your content in some of those areas based on what consumers are doing and looking for. It all depends on what you are wanting your content to deliver.
Like with everything in marketing, your best place to start is with an objective and a plan. Content is becoming a very important part of business so if you are wanting to commence your own content journey, you might want to consider getting assistance from a content agency or consultant who can help you to not only develop the plan, but help write the content. Make sure that if you do this you check out their work first! I’ve had a number of blog drafts cross my desk which had grammatical, spelling and just simply inaccurate information that could prove to be detrimental. Consultants or agencies need to get your business and work with you, not dictate or assume! This is also important if you are going to be writing your own content. Once it’s out in the wonderful world of social and internet today, it’s exposed and can definitely pose a risk to your reputation and business if there is anything wrong.
So carefully consider what you are going to do. Once you’ve started on this journey, it’s going to be hard to turn back!
Good Luck!
The Marketing Elf
© May 2019
The Marketing Elf 