The content creation dream versus reality
You may have a great business model and a beautifully designed website, but what about the content within that site? Does it 'speak' to existing and potential customers? Does it represent what you do? Is it engaging and well written? Browse a range of websites within any industry and you will see that good content is hard to come by. What's even harder to come by is the ability to not only write great content but to use it effectively.
The content creation dream is to produce engaging well-written content on a regular basis. This content can then be regularly posted to your blog, and ideally, these will be shared through social media to improve your reach. In addition, you will also need to design or obtain great images to accompany your content. The idea is to post content to all social media accounts on a regular basis, with the ability to respond to people within seconds. Your Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, LinkedIn accounts could be buzzing with posts, shares and engaging responses.
Unfortunately, the reality is very different. You may find that you are among the thousands of companies who write blogs 'on the hop' when they remember or can grab five minutes to quickly write something that is just 'OK'. The likelihood is that you have an image free social media presence and that the latest feed is days, weeks or even months out of date.
So how do you bridge that gap between the dream and the reality? It may sound impossible but it can be done. You just need the know-how, support, and enthusiasm.
1 - Invest in content providers
Anyone can write content, but what about great content that engages your audience? That takes skill, experience, tenacity, and enthusiasm. Many businesses have turned to graduates or those looking for a bit of work on the side. Some even employ freelancers working on sites such as Fiverr where for as little as £5 you can get a whole range of content written for you. However, you might already know through trial and error that you not only end up with below par content, but you also send the wrong message to your those you are either working for or working with - that good content isn't a priority.
We believe that you need to get just one great content creator on board to work with you to provide great copy. Not only that, but they can delegate to other members of staff for smaller projects where in-depth knowledge of the business is key. By having someone who works on your team regularly you can ensure that there is a level of content quality control.
When employing a qualified content creator, you should ensure that they are familiar with your industry, as well as that of any clients you work with. It's essential that they can write intelligently about certain industries and specialist subjects.
By getting someone on board who you trust to provide content, you will add value to your business, improve your revenue and enhance your reputation.
If you are a small business without the budget to stretch to someone solely responsible for the content you should look at your existing team and use their industry know-how to enable them to work with a more generalized copywriter on an ad-hoc basis.
2. Every employee should try to produce content
However large or small your company, you should be mobilizing all of your employees so that they are able to create content for you.
By creating a culture of content within your company, concentrating on ensuring that your staff members regularly contribute content, you will build up a solid portfolio that can be used when presenting your skills to potential clients.
Remind your employees that not only are they diversifying their role, but they can also get their name attributed to published content. This not only boosts confidence, but it also makes people proud of their achievements, offers another level of job satisfaction and so encourages them to write or create even more content.
In asking your employees to be content creators, remind them that by being a published author they will have opportunities in the future with other high profile companies or publications.
3. Ensure that every employee WANTS to produce content
If you have allocated content creation to your existing employees, how do you ensure that this is a part of their role that they will value?
We recommend that you reward your authors, ensuring that any content that is written and published is attributed to them and that your clients are aware of who produced their content.
Make sure that you highlight their achievements within your team, in an email, or even in company meetings. Highlight the opportunities that were generated and the client feedback.
You could even create a friendly, competitive spirit in the workplace by seeing who can create the most socially shared content, or by monitoring leads generated from topic-specific posts. As a leader, you need to set an example and create content yourself. Ensure that you produce great content that is relevant and engaging.
4. Enable and train your employees
It's up to you to give your employees the confidence to produce content. You might have employees that want to create content, but because it's something they are new to they might not have the confidence. In this case, it's up to you to change this.
Remember, different people are good at different things. Content creation shouldn't just be limited to those in marketing roles. Anyone who is competent enough to work for you should be capable of producing content. It doesn't matter if they are in sales, customer services, accounts, marketing or HR; everyone in your organization already produces written content relevant to their own specific role, whether it's emails, memos, proposals or presentations. These people can just as easily produce great content for you - but with a twist, as they can offer their own unique perspective as a different buyer persona.
In order to make everyone feel able to produce content, come up with some guidelines so that you have clear and precise publishing standards. This can be a simple 'how-to' guide with information on tone, structure, acceptable messages, key phrases and so on, as this will ensure that their content is in keeping with your publishing standards. If you do have content creators with specific roles, they might be able to hold training sessions, and they can also take any content produced and amend it to the existing publishing standards that have been set.
Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Andy_Phillips/214259
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