Just about any copywriter you meet would have, at one time or another, uttered the words - content is king

So you know how important content is and you understand the importance of social media in today’s marketing strategies but do you know how to use them to optimal effect?

Content and social media – a marriage made in heaven

I spied a post recently on Social Media Examiner called How Content and Social Media Equal Marketing Success which investigates the union between content and social media.

The video interview with Jo Puilizzi (author of Get Content, Get Customers) points out the importance of content and how it must be written in conjunction with your social media strategy.

Start at the beginning

Before any business dips its toe in the waters of social media, it has to identify the online ‘hang outs’ of its customers.

Then its has to start having conversations with them. This relationship building is the foundation to all social marketing:

• Talk to them
• Find out what they’re looking for
• Contribute to their conversations
• Provide great information.

Done effectively, your customers will absorb your information (eBooks, white papers etc.) and spread them to others.

The video is about 12 minutes long but is well worth a watch so grab a coffee and discover how to make your content marketing go further.

 

STOP – LOOK – LISTEN

Those three words were probably drilled into you when you were a child.

You would also do well to remember them when copywriting.

That might seem a strange thing to say but when creating sales and marketing content, many people just dive straight in. That’s because it’s usually one of those jobs that is squeezed in between other projects.

And there’s the problem – content creation shouldn’t be seen as one of those jobs you have to fit in now and then. It’s vital for your business from an SEO perspective and for getting your message out to your audience effectively.

Stop

Before you start to put pen to paper or finger to keyboard, stop and think about what you are doing and why. Every piece of copy must have a purpose so ask yourself:

• What is going to be the best platform for your message?
• What do you want to achieve from your copy?
• How do you want your audience to react?
• What do you want to tell your audience?
• What end result do you want to achieve?

Creating content is like creating a new product. You wouldn’t dream of making a new product without carrying out R&D first, so why just sit down and cobble together some half hearted sales copy?

Look

Although your content is important, so too is how it looks.

If it doesn’t have instant readability appeal, no one will read it. In which case there wasn’t a lot of point in writing it in the first place.

Using headings, subheadings, bullet points and images will make your content more attractive and accessible. A solid wall of text is a real turn off but a page with plenty of white space, bullet points and small chunks of text, is a far more interesting prospect.

Listen

You not only have to listen to the needs of your business and customers, you also need to listen to yourself.

Your content has to tell your reader what’s in it for them and represent the voice of your business.

Once you’ve written your content, read it out loud. This will help you make sure it flows, makes sense and will provoke an emotional response in your reader.

As you can see, content creation is much more than just stringing a few sentences together. A lot of thought, planning and shaping has to go into every piece of content you produce.

So remember - stop, look and listen before you publish.

 

What is content marketing?

It’s all about building your reputation as an expert online. That doesn’t mean posting loads of mediocre articles and blogs in the vain hope that someone will read them. Content marketing is about providing quality, informative and interesting information that will add value to your readers.

The 3 elements of content marketing

If you want to excel at content marketing there are 3 things you have to do:

• Create content that sells you
• Write content that’s optimised for the search engines to increase its longevity
• Repurpose your content and spread the word

Are you sitting there thinking – “What’s the point? It’s not as is anyone reads stuff like that anyway.”

If you think like that you’ll never get anywhere. Instead you have to think of your content as a huge loud speaker that will tell  the world how great you are, what an expert you are and that what you have to say is worth reading.

Once people start to see your content plastered all over the web they’ll think of you as a market leader, a giver of great information and will be more inclined to give you a call or drop you an email when they need your services.

In a nutshell - Content generation means you’ll get found

So what is content?

It can be anything: white papers, reports, articles, blogs, videos, FAQs, audio etc.

Creating content in a variety of forms will make sure you appeal to a lot of different audiences. Not everyone likes to get their information through reading, some prefer to listen or to watch – offering a range of formats will provide something for everyone.

Making your content great

1. Should it be promotional?

Nope – be subtle. If you are obviously selling something it’s going to come across as an advert rather than advice. Offering information positions you as an expert who is open and approachable. 

2. Be relevant

Make sure you know what your reader wants and give it to them.

3. Well-written

Engaging, well-written, interesting – get those 3 things right and you’re practically there. 

4. Relevant to your company

For arguments sake, let’s say you’re a copywriter. If you suddenly start writing about the latest engineering practices your audience is going to be left wandering what on earth’s going on. Make sure you write on topic within the realms of your expertise.

5. Shout about it

If you’re going to spend time creating content you have to promote it. Use everything you can — social media, PR, search engine optimisation. That way you’ll make it stand out so your audience can find it.

At the end of the day, if you want your content marketing to work make sure you:

• Write regularly
• Write well
• Write relevant material
• Promote it.

 

Copywriters are always having to come up with new ideas. Whether it’s for blog posts, client projects or for their own web copy, fresh and original content generation is a part of their daily life.

I’ve been working as a freelance copywriter for several years now and I would be love it if i could just sit at my desk in the morning and create an unlimited number of original ideas without any effort.

Wouldn’t that be great? Just think how easy it would make anyone’s life if they could simply produce idea after idea after idea. Never again would a project stump you, you’d write oodles of great blog posts, newsletter and email content would flow freely.

But the real world isn’t like that. In the real world we all suffer from writers’ block. How many times have you sat in front of your computer, stared at the blank screen only to realise your mind is equally as blank?

We’ve all been there – even me.

So how do you break the spell?

Well one way is to create a swipe file.

Idea generation – the swipe file

Now before you recoil in horror, a swipe file is not a means to plagiarism.

Your swipe file is a way of generating inspiration.

No doubt you get bombarded with emails and mail shots all trying to sell you something. Most of them you’ll bin or delete, but one or two may catch your eye. They are the ones to place in your swipe file.

If they caught your eye the chances are they also caught someone else’s.

Study it – what was it that made you read it? Was it the layout, headline, content, use of images?

This type of analysis will help you understand what techniques make people read something.

Make a note of them and gradually you’ll build up a reference library of great headlines, techniques etc., that will help you strengthen your own copy.

This ideas file (whether in physical form or held on your computer) will help trigger your creativity when the dreaded writer’s block strikes.

Remember though the material in your swipe file is there for inspiration and not to be copied.

Do you already have a swipe file? If so, what piece of marketing really caught your eye and why? Leave a comment and share it with us.

 

If you are an avid reader of marketing blogs you’re bound to have come across the old saying ‘content is king’.

Internet marketers across the globe have been telling us that if you want more organic traffic to our websites we need to generate more content—but not any old content, targeted content containing relevant keywords.

As a result many companies are now adding content to their sites, but it’s not always good content.

One of the easiest ways of getting loads of content is to use a copywriter. But there are loads out there so it pays to do your research and find a good professional copywriter and that doesn’t mean the cheapest one. As with most things in life you get what you pay for; if you pay peanuts that’s what you’ll get.

Of course good copywriters don’t come cheap so many companies some believe they’ve found the perfect solution to this. You think you’ve got the best of both worlds – shed loads of new content without the high price tag. If that’s you, you’ve probably done one of two things:

• Out sourced your content writing to an Indian company or elsewhere in the world where you can pick up loads of articles for next to nothing
• Decided to take the DIY approach and written it yourself

Big mistake!

Remember, what’s written on your website reflects you as a company. Content is not all about traffic – it’s also about reputation. Can you really afford to jeopardise yours through poor quality content?

Don’t value quantity over quality

Diluting good copywriting with the not so good could have a seriously detrimental effect on your rankings. 

A large part of your search engine optimisation strategy is link building. But people will only link to great content. By watering down the effectiveness of your content with sub-standard articles will have a knock on effect with your linkability. As the number of links you generate dwindles so will your rankings.

If you want to attracts links, your content must be entertaining, interesting and appealing.

But there is a more serious consequence – low quality content will reflect badly on your company’s image. Now for the science bit:

Great Content = Increased value + Positive effect on your company’s image

Poor quality content = Disappointed readers + Negative effect on your company’s image

Why am I telling you this?

For this simple reason - if you don’t invest in quality content for your website you’re going to do some serious long term damage to your reputation.

If you genuinely care about your image and reputation make an investment in a professional freelance copywriter who will work with you and be with you for the long haul.