Marketing Secrets
Marketing Secrets
Building a Content Castle
Part 1: What are you going to write about?
No matter how large or small your business, content is king. You build your brand by how you engage with your customers, and you fortify that brand by the consistency you bring to that engagement. Content calendars are a lifesaver when you know you’ve got to do something, but you don’t know how much or toward what purpose.
There are three main questions to ask when tackling a content calendar:
- What are you going to write about?
- How are you going to publish your content?
- What do you want people to do with the information?
What are you going to write about?
Ideas
You’re an expert. You’ve got an amazing work culture. You’ve figured out a new solution to an old problem. Something big is happening in your company. You’ve got a new product or service coming out. You have a coupon code! There are hard-to-understand or just regular changes happening in your industry. You need to show how something works.
Name it, and you can make a post about it. Think about your business. What are your goals? What do you want to highlight? How can you show off your value proposition in a way that makes it thought-provoking and engaging?
Hopefully, you have some ideas just from reading that list of questions. Write them down now. Try for at least 30 things. I’ll wait.
Categories
Now, categorize them. Which ideas/topics might fit in a universe together. Try to get them as broad of a category as possible. In consulting, they call it mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive (MECE), where each idea belongs in a distinct category and all the categories cover all your topics. It’s not always perfect, but close is good. Let’s say we can break down 30 different ideas into 3 categories: Industry Insights, Products/Services, and People/Culture.
Share of Voice
You have 3 big categories that encapsulate all 30 topic ideas. How much of your brand voice do you want to dedicate to each of these things? Is it equal? Do you want to focus more on your industry insights than specific products and services? If you are a purpose-driven company that is constantly hiring new people, you might want to dedicate your voice to that category. Think about the content of the conversation you have with your customers and potential customers. What do you want them to see/think when they read your content?
As an example, think about your friend, Jemma, and what she posts on Facebook to tout her business and personal stuff. You know she’s got 3 adorable kiddos all going back to school virtually last year. She also has an Esty shop, Jemma’s Home Gems, where she sells handmade wreaths, candles, and soap. She’s a big advocate for Autism Speaks and Special Olympics. And, every now and then, she gets into the political spirit and encourages people to vote.
You can see that she balances her personal brand voice across 3 main areas and very little on politics. A business brand is no different. Decide what’s important for you and focus on those areas. It lets customers and potential customers know what you’re about and what to expect from your content.
Really spend time on this part. Understanding the universe of content you want to bring to your audience is important. Being able to compartmentalize and categorize your thoughts makes the process a strategy. While I love a good crapshoot, it can get tiresome and difficult to maintain.
Once you have your categorized list, move on to how you’re going to publish your content>>
Note: Also, think about keywords, hashtags, images, @ mentions, videos, and other items that will accompany your post and keep them with your content ideas.
2 Responses