Individuals are so connected to all social media platforms that they gravitate towards all interesting, viral and newsworthy information. With this exposure comes an increased need for businesses to have good Content marketing. So this blog will give you and your company guidelines on how to implement a successful content marketing strategy.
For a closer look and an accurate definition. Content marketing is an approach focused on creating and delivering valuable information or content to gain or retain the interest of an audience (Content Marketing Institute 2018).
This is how it’s done:
Focus and purpose – It’s not a surprise that every company wants to become successful and known worldwide. The challenge of understanding what we should be communicating and how we should be communicating remains our biggest hurdle to success. (Barry, J. 2015, pp.14-15). When implementing a blog strategy into the business it is important to know that this will represent the brand image so each blog should have a purpose, this should be to let the audience know more about the business and industry. The content should trigger the Information-gap. We’re most curious when we know a little about. This supports the information gap theory of curiosity, developed by George Loewenstein in the early 90s Lehrer, J., Simon, M. and Valdez, A. (2018)
Captivating title and relevant images- For the content to be appealing there has to be some visual stimuli for the audience to remain interested in reading the whole blog, this will also help them visualise the information that you are trying to get across. Strategic images that help your readers, while enhancing the content are necessary. Such as the Huffington post on Five Tech Wonders
Unique content – A unique angle or approach would make the content refreshing for the reader as they won’t be getting repetitive content unique content will give the readers a reason to come back. A good example of this is Huffington post on Tech Advent Calendar
Solid Structure – The blog should flow, everything should merge coherently with the inclusion of an introduction, a point, explanation and conclusion. The structure of the content is often overlooked however, it is important to keep in mind the audience. For a company to post blogs the requirements are strict since the content represents the brand, also the judgements of those companies in the same industry are important. An example of a blog with a clear structure is.
A measurement – It is important to set out a plan for how consistent the content output will be, Inconsistent posts are not successful having a time frame is important which also gives the readers a sense of reliability, for example a weekly Friday blog will let the audience know when to expect the content. KPI’s and metrics should be used to analyse the performance of each blog and track its growth, this is essential to take note of in order to improve.
Call to action – Possibly the most important. After reading the blog the reader is ready to respond and engage. What is the main purpose of attracting the audience what do you want them to do? Get their email address, visit your company website, purchase a product, or register to attend an event? Patel, N. (2019)
For more advice on how to write a successful blog click here
Overcoming the risks?
Although content marketing provides many benefits to companies especially those in the technology sector there are many reasons people avoid them.
- Poor content: Poorly written content can reflect badly on your brand (Klusster. 2018).
- Time consuming: could be focusing on tasks that will be more beneficial.
- Risk of no one seeing the content: it is a risk that blogs won’t have a big following or are even read.
- Strong writing skills and creativity.
- Duplicate content: other companies/ individuals maybe talking about the same content sharing very similar information, especially if it is a popular topic. So keep content the unique with different approaches to keep it refreshing for the reader and avoid using popular general information easily access from other sources.
Effective blogs will gain influence as it attracts repeated followers. Generate great feedback which can help enhance the business. It is able to inspire others and attract new customers and create partnerships with similar companies. If the goal is to create more brand recognition Blogging can help you increase search engine optimization (SEO) efforts.
The significance of blogs in the technological and datacentre industry is highly underrated. It is a very important content marketing tool. Non-traditional information sources such as blogs help circulate information and influence consumers’ judgements by capturing their attention. (Hsu, C. & Lin, J.C. 2008).
To summarise content marketing is important and specifically blogging can generate many benefits to an individual or company, however the risks involved should be taken into account to make sure it becomes a strength rather than a drawback. A successful blog has numerous advantages and the initiative can be implemented fairly easily, so why not try?
References
Barry, J. 2015, Social content marketing for entrepreneurs, First edn, Business Expert Press, New York, New York, pp.14-15
Content Marketing Institute, 2018. What is Content Marketing? Available at: https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/what-is-content-marketing/
Hsu, C. & Lin, J.C. 2008, “Acceptance of blog usage: The roles of technology acceptance, social influence and knowledge sharing motivation”, Information & Management, vol. 45, no. 1, pp. 65-74.
Klusster. 2018. The Advantages and Disadvantages of Blogging. [online] Available at: https://www.klusster.com/portfolios/conscious-media-publishing/contents/2254.
Patel, N. 2019. Must-Have Ingredients of a Successful Blog Post. [online] Entrepreneur. Available at: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/233891.
Lehrer, J., Simon, M. and Valdez, A. (2018). The Itch of Curiosity. [online] WIRED. Available at: https://www.wired.com/2010/08/the-itch-of-curiosity/.