Seven can be a lucky number, especially when playing craps in Vegas.
With every roll of the dice, you have a chance to win big or, in this case, crap out!
This action is similar to your content creation.
Every piece of content you create is like a roll of the dice. You don’t know if you’ll successfully hit your lucky number or simply fail by crapping out.
Often, I find some organizations blindly rolling the dice when creating content for consumers. They just close their eyes, roll the dice and hope for the best.
So, if you find yourself rolling the content creation dice…
Here are 7 ways to create great content
1. Tap Into Your Following
The best advice I can give when creating great content is to examine what your audience is talking about or asking. For instance, what common questions is your audience asking about your brand? What challenges or issues is your audience having?
By understanding these issues, you can create content that helps solve these problems.
If you offer customer services via Twitter, examine the types of questions asked on your timeline. See if there are reoccurring themes with these questions and create content that addresses these themes.
Additionally, your audience’s online behavior might be a key indicator of what content they like most. Look at the number of shares your content receives and start creating similar content your audience love to share.
2.Create A Day In The Life
Some may think Reality TV fries your brain cells but there is a reason it’s so popular: People are turned-off by polished programming.
They want to see the good, the bad, and the ugly.
By creating content that pulls back the curtain and exposes your brand, it will naturally resonate well with your audience.
Great content, simply put, gives them a chance to understand what transpires behind the scenes.
3. Tell Them How To Do It
Let’s be honest, how many of us read the directions to a product before using it? Great content detailing how to use your product or services will always win.
Showcasing the best ways to utilize your offering will generate happier customers as they can see how to maximize the use of your product.
4. Aggregate Other Content
Harness the power of other people’s content to stimulate ideas. The best way to do this is to consume as much information as possible. If done consistently, you’ll always have an opinion on interesting perspectives presented by other authors or bloggers.
A nice way to aggregate content is by subscribing to a blog’s RSS feed so you can view all your feeds in one place. I use Feedly.
5. Be Trendy
Aligning yourself with current trends is a nice way to create great content. Piggyback on topics buzzing via social media to increase the reach of your content. Naturally, trends tend to go viral and your content can be a part of that movement.
Here’s the caveat: Be sure your brand message is aligned with that trending social topic. If it’s not, that content can do more harm than good.
6. Q&A
If you listen to podcasts, you’ll notice the prevalence of interviews on this platform. No matter what podcast you enjoy, chances are high that it contains interviews from industry experts.
With this in mind, create content that asks questions from your company’s top executives.
Since most CEO interviews are seldom found online, this is a great opportunity to create great content by executing a Q&A with key leaders within your organization.
7. Use Your Calendar
Try to anticipate what your customers will be thinking about and doing when your content is released. Find ways to tie your business to the various holidays and seasons.
Final Thoughts
Creating great content starts with rolling the dice with the greatest odds of success. One way to increase success is to tap into your audience, pull back the curtain and show what’s behind the scenes, create tutorials, aggregate other content, piggyback on social trends, interview key executives, and create content based on seasons.
If done correctly, you won’t have to worry about the outcomes when “rolling the dice” as the odds will be in your favor!
Sources:
http://www.entrepreneur.com/slideshow/228033
