Content, a very complex concept. Content can be defined as a state of peaceful happiness, a state of satisfaction. But this post isn’t about finding your inner peace but about how to fill your website, social media, conference, launch party or event with engaging content. Let’s start by defining engaging, it is something that occupies your full attention, and allows you to fully immerse yourself in the content. Now creating content is relatively easy, you find an idea, write a title, maybe 500 words, choose a picture, pop it online, you’re done right? Well, the challenge is creating content that breaks through the never-ending deluge and makes people want to read it, listen to it and see it. You need to focus on building a great content brand not just an efficient content machine. The question is how do you direct people to your content and then how do you keep them coming back? Below are the five keys to unlock the door to engaging content.
- Find your idea!
These are the key to any kind of content, these will help to block out all of the noise and allow you to hone in on what counts. The problem now is sourcing an idea that is relevant and the best way to do this is to get talking, asking and thinking with those around you. Many hands make light work and many hands will make your idea lightbulb light up! Bounce your ideas off each other and narrow them down to one concise and clear concept. If all of your ideas are completely run dry you can always turn to keyword search tools, that can help conjure up great content ideas, like Bottlenose, Soovle and Built Visible. Your audience is going to follow you for your content so ensure that you stay in your niche and create authentic and consistent content.
- Know your audience and create with them in mind!
These are the key players in your creation of content you need to think about who your content is for, why are you making it and what value does it add to your audience’s life. Everything you produce needs to be directed at them, through language, time of posting and marketing. Create everything with intention, why are you creating, who are you creating for and what is the goal of your content?
- Keep it simple, short and easy to follow
We live in a world that is getting busier day by day, people want things to be simple, get the message across and not waste any time getting there. For a blog post, this means don’t ramble on, use subheadings throughout to break it up and make it easily readable, keep a consistent voice throughout and don’t over complicate your ideas. Don’t rely purely on the written word, mix it up with multimedia and infographics, at your events display these infographics and allow people to explore this up and coming form of content. So you’ve carefully curated and created your content but, how are you going to present it, online, in person or a bit of both? The future is all about using multimedia, this means, audio, videos, pictures and infographics. Everyone takes in information in different ways to ensure that when you create media that it is accessible to everyone in your selected audience.
- Pack it full of keywords, and not just ones for SEO
Using keywords will get your online site more traffic but these are useful for much more than just Search Engine Optimisation. Keywords create consistency in your content and ensure that you remain on track with the message you are trying to portray. There is no better way to do this than by starting strong by using them to create a catchy title that will grab the attention of the audience.
- Use a call to action
This is the key to getting your audience engaged, keeping them engaged and start conversations about your content which will turn into shares. This is a great way to reach a wider audience. A call to action can be as simple as a question for your selected audience, it could be a challenge you set them or asking them to share your content online through social media. Always make sure that your form of content is sharable as social media is your gateway to sharing your content around the world.
We want your audience to be more than just content with your content, we want them to be engaged and inspired, so take these keys and go create!
