They say, content is King! If that’s true, then strategy must be Queen.
Creating good content proves to be quite the challenge and a lot of entrepreneurs feel like they’re lost in the woods when it comes to the King of social media.
In today’s blog, we take closer look to good content strategy and how you can use your content to reach more people and converse your followers into customers.
You want to build your business and become successful. Right?
How being successful looks is up to you and you alone. We would call that your goal and the way that you are going to reach your goal is referred as your strategy.
Good strategy is reverse engineered from your goal and is supported by good tactics.
The same goes for your content strategy. First, you’ll have to decide on what you want to achieve with the use of your social media channels. When deciding this, keep your overall business goals in mind.
Now, usually the overall goal of an entrepreneur is to make a profit while impacting the world with their products, services and ideas.
With that in mind we can clearly state that social media is just a tool to deliver content and in no way is it the goal itself. It’s very important to keep this in mind and make sure that whatever you do with regards to your content strategy, that it’s always in line with your business goals.
The thing is, that good content is what converts followers into customers. You’re already having an impact on people’s lives and your bringing value to the table.
Content is king, and strategy is queen.
So, how do you come up with a solid content strategy?
It starts with filling in these 6 questions.
This is obviously important, you’ll have to know who you are targeting.
How does your target group look in terms of age, gender, location, income level, education level, marital or family status and occupation?
Be very clear about this. Make sure you know exactly who to target and who not. Saying no to a specific group of people means saying yes to the group that you can eventually do business with.
Creating content is cool and all, but what’s your solution? Even more important, to which problem?
Ever asked yourself how you can bring value to the table? Well, here’s your answer. Solve problems in your content and give it away for free. Even the seemingly smallest of solutions might be of enormous value to someone that might impact your business in a huge way.
So, don’t underestimate this part.
You’ve probably guessed it already, everyone is in the problem-solving business and everyone has the answers. Thousands of content creators and even more businesses are being specialized in exactly your niche.
Feels intimidating?
I understand, but they’re missing one thing. You!
That’s right, because you’re unique. I mean, just as unique as the rest of us but unique you are. Use that, be you, be your true unapologetic you and don’t filter it down just so it will fit into the mainstream.
Fuck that shit.
You have the solution, you decide how to deliver it.
Period!
How unique you will be also relying on the formats that you will focus on.
For example, you could go behind the screens and show your followers the real deal of what it’s like in your company. You can even go so far as to show your customers how their products are being made. Think of it like an open kitchen. Your customers will appreciate the transparency.
Other great examples are using “user generated content”, “infographics”, “factsheets”, “stories of people” and creating more “engagement” with your followers by asking questions.
Ideally you would use a combination of a few formats that work for you. Try a few out, give it some time, evaluate and change wherever necessary.
Obviously, there’s a lot to choose from and sometimes it’s hard to decide which channel(s) you’re going to use.
Start by checking out on which channel(s) your target group can be found. Snapchat and Instagram will likely be used by younger target groups. Are you focusing on B2B? Then I suggest you focus on LinkedIn.
Of course, then there’s Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest and so on. I don’t want to go too much into details, but let’s just say that there’s a channel for every target group and you probably want to combine 2 to max 3 channels at any given time.
A big part of your content strategy is time management.
Good content creation is not something that should be rushed, and it should be taken seriously. Therefor I suggest that you plan moments in which you actively work on creating your content.
Whether your blogging, vlogging or into photography/cinematography, it doesn’t matter. Of course, you will always have moments in which you don’t have any inspiration and you seem to hit a road block.
In that case I’d suggest you look back to question number 2. What problem are you solving? Work your way back from that point and ideas will start to flow again.
You also want to make sure that publish on a regular basis. Your followers will appreciate a clear structure and it will help building a stronger relationship with those followers and customers.
With Facebook you can prepare your content posts ahead. There are a few third-party tools that will allow you to do the same for Instagram as well.
This will help you publish on a regular basis.
And there you have it. Content strategy 1.0
Just a basic outline of where to start and how to start.
In the upcoming blogs we will dive deeper into this topic and we will also discuss how smart tactical points can strengthen your social media content strategy.
If you have any questions, please let me know. I would also appreciate it a lot if you’d comment on my blog and let me know any tips you might have.
See you next week ????