“Content Creation is not about writing blogs, shooting videos and recording podcasts- that’s content production.”

_Chinmay Swami_

 

Marketing has undergone a major transformation. With the mainstreaming and easily accessibility of the internet and social media, easily feasibility of technology, and the world becoming a more connected place, marketing is no longer restricted to traditional methods.

 

Information and communication technology has changed rapidly over the past 20 years, with a key development being the emergence of social media.

 

The transformation of technology and high-speed cheap internet has given rise to more people to connect anywhere at any time.

 

Social networks evolve from being a handy means for keeping in touch with friends and family to being used in ways that have a real impact on society.

 

The Influence of social media is being used in ways that shape politics, business, world culture, education, careers, innovation, and more. The number of social media users is skyrocketing.

 

People are getting to experience different cultures and interacting with strangers from all over the world. Social media has become an inseparable part of our everyday lives. It is always there from the moment we wake up until we fall asleep with our phone in hand.

 

An average user spends 2 hours 24 minutes per day on social media as of 2020. 50.1% of the time is usually taken up by social media.

 

Facebook being the most popular with people spending 2 hours 24 min on an average each day. Social media apps like snapchat, Instagram takes up at least 30 minutes per day on an average.

 

With people spending half of their time on social media it has become increasingly important to feed the right kind of content to the audience to make a bigger and long-lasting impact.

 

About Content Creation

Content creation is the ultimate inbound marketing practice. When you create content, you’re providing free and useful information to your audience, attracting potential customers to your website, and retaining existing customers through quality engagement.

 

Content marketing brings in 3X as many leads as traditional marketing and costs 62% less.It generates some major ROI for the companies.

 

Things to keep in mind while preparing a content strategy

  • Building a content strategy is more than considering what type of content you want to create.
  • You first need to know who you’re speaking to, how you want to speak to them, and where to find them. 
  • The key to creating successful inbound content is to make each reader feel like you’re speaking directly to them.
  • Content creation plays a major role in determining the interaction with the customers.
  • Companies should focus on content creation to maximize audience with will in return will make people aware and engage with the brand.

Why is Content Creation important?

Content marketing depends on quality content creation, and is a strategic approach that’s solely focused on creating and then distributing relevant, valuable and consistent content to attract and then retain clearly defined audiences-and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.

  • Content creation is important to maximize the engagement with the audience and the right content should be delivered to the readers or people interacting.

 

  • It is of vital importance as content marketing helps in name recognition as at the very least, the click through to view content, should provide with another opportunity to instill name recognition so that company/brand is at their top of mind when the customers are in need of the types of products and services the company has to offer.

 

  • It provides the reader benefit as pitching your services or products, you’re delivering information that makes your customers more intelligent.

 

  • Content can build relationships, when readers invest time in perusing your content the know, like, trust factor grows.  

 

  • They feel like they know you, hopefully they like you and if your content is quality, they will develop trust for you and your services. Good, consistent content can be so much more than a single blog post.

 

  • It can be reused as a book, an e-book, social media shares, images, videos, slideshows or infographics.

 

  • It will get more people to know the brand and develop a sense of trust and familiarity. It helps to establish, share and strengthen the brand and engagement.

 

How to create good content for maximizing Engagement?

 

First step in doing so is to identify your audience. After you’ve identified your goals, you then need to consider who the audience is that you want to reach.

 

Examples include:

  • Customers– End customers
  • Channel partners– Spread your message onwards to their customer base.
  • Analysts– To become recognized in your field
  • Journalists– To create an online buzz and get your brand out there
  • Influencers– To improve the reputation of your business.

 

In order to grow the base and engage:

 

  • Focus – Don’t be fooled into thinking you need to be on all social networks. If your business doesn’t lend itself to visual display, why have an ‘Instagram’ account?

 

Yes, it’s a huge player in the market, but perhaps not for your industry. Instead focus your efforts on a few social networks suited to your industry. One way to determine this is to assess your competitors’ efforts and where they’re present and see.

 

  • Take advantage – Hashtags, keywords, Twitter lists, LinkedIn Groups – all of these are great ways to help attract your audience’s attention. Spend some time researching and see how you can take advantage of each option.

 

If you can identify a relevant niche not yet served then consider creating a LinkedIn or Facebook group and adding connections/ thought leaders in that space to it.

 

  • Social Selling: people talk to people. They don’t like to feel they’re talking to a bot. To do this, there is a need to take advantage of sales people and give them training on how to use their social media accounts effectively, for building relationships and engaging with prospects.

 

With 57% of the buyers’ journey occurring before a sales rep is even contacted, building your employees online presence is a great way of helping influence buying decisions.

 

How do you engage with your audience?

 

Social media’s open 24 hours a day, so posting once a day likely won’t be enough to grab your audience’s attention.

 

  • Establishing a mix of good content, you can re-use, and perhaps post your blog content twice a day, each day, at different times, across 2 weeks.

 

  • You want to have as many people as possible see it, engage with it and share it with their audiences. Using social automation tools will enable you to schedule these in advance to go out at varying times.

 

  • Social media is called ‘social’ for a reason. It’s all about communicating with your audience and starting up conversations, and these relationships need to be constantly nurtured to keep them interested, whilst also encouraging engagement.

 

  • Influencing buyers – With 75% of B2B buyers using social media to research a vendor (IDC) and 57% of the buyer’s journey being done before a sales rep is contacted (CEB), the power of social media really has evolved.

 

Ian points out that even incremental decisions are being made, based on content shared through social media. ‘That wouldn’t have happened even 10 years ago’.

 

  • Transparency – The buyer and influencer dynamic has evolved – anyone now has the ability to find out everything about, you, your brand, your products, what others think of you.

It’s therefore more important than ever to portray yourself in the best way possible, across any mediums where potential customers may find you, in order to sway their buying decision.

 

How can different social media platforms be used in maximising the engagement?

 

  • Facebook

Facebook is by far the most popular social media venue, with 1.79 billion active members worldwide. With so many people on a common platform connecting and interacting from every corner of the world it is very easy to target customers and engage them, with a single click or repost or like or a comment the content would spread like a fire in no time.

 

  • Twitter

Twitter now has a user base of over 35 crore users across the globe. I tweet at least 3-4 times a day. Different hashtags can be used each time you tweet your original content. Can Try to stimulate conversations with your tweets – ask questions and for opinions for more engagement.

 

  • Instagram and Pinterest – The Visual Channels

These two channels are great for posting a cool blog post image. Find a relevant pinboard and post in your Instagram feed, once your blog post has been published.

 

 Two guidelines:

  1. Post to Instagram if your target audience is younger
  2. Post to Pinterest if your target audience is older and/or female

 

  • LinkedIn

Obviously, for professional services and B2B marketing, LinkedIn is a great place to post two types of content:

 

  1. Post content links on your profile
  2. Publish long-form posts on LinkedIn Publisher

 

Members of your team should also have profiles and should be posting. You can set up a schedule, and widen your reach, with multiple posters.

 

  • Run Your Analytics

You will not know which of your social media marketing strategies and platforms are working unless you run your analytics. If something is not working, then consider either dumping that platform or remodeling what you are doing. Better to focus on two platforms that are performing well than to try to cover all of the bases.

 

  • Time to Post

Knowing when and how to post on each platform is important. And trying new platforms in order to extend your audience reach is something that should certainly be explored and tested.

 

But in the end, all of the perfect channels, times, and strategies are useless without content that compels followers and visitors to share. Fortunately, research has provided some answers to the types of content that spread.

 

Conclusion:

The major purpose of this kind of Marketing using content creation is to somehow attract and retain buyers by continuously curating relevant and valuable content with an intention of enhancing consumer behavior.

 

It’s an ongoing process that’s best integrated into your overall marketing strategy, and focuses on owning the media, not just renting it.

 

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References:
  1. https://www.simplilearn.com/real-impact-social-media-article
  2. https://techjury.net/blog/time-spent-on-social-media/#gref
  3. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/content-creation
  4. https://www.cybercletch.com/7-reasons-content-creation-is-important/
  5. https://www.forbes.com/sites/ajagrawal/2016/02/08/10-reasons-why-content-matters/?sh=35e5a04a7182
  6. https://www.simplifie.com/marketing-blog/how-to-maximise-engagement-with-your-content-marketing
  7. https://www.socialmediatoday.com/social-networks/how-expand-your-audience-social-media

 

 

By Misha Singh