Optimal Content Marketing Requires a Good Deal of Social Listening

Social listening is a skill that all advocates of content marketing anywhere in the world need to master. As purveyors of information, it’s often tempting to forego listening to the audience and focus solely on producing certain types of content, but this can alienate your audiences instead of drawing them to you.

If you’re a company looking to improve your marketing strategy, working with a consulting firm that incorporates social listening into its mix of strategies, such as Joined-Up Marketing, can lead to truly impactful content marketing at base and in all your areas of business presence.

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Staying True to the Brand Benfits Companies

McDonalds’ Canada seems to be running one of the most successful content marketing strategies in the industry by playing the honesty card. Its website set up a section called “Our Food, Our Questions”, exclusive for the Q&A’s. Customers may ask any question about their food, and they will be answered immediately. It’s a convenient setup not only for the curious, but also for customers who want to know more about the food they are ordering online. Many food-related websites are only accessible through their Twitter and Facebook pages.

In McDonald’s Canada Q&A site, even tough interrogations from customers were entertained, according to FastCompany.com. The ‘no-dodging-of-questions’ policy was one of the campaign’s values which the customers welcomed.

Customers always appreciate integrity and candor from the companies they patronize. A Business News Daily article, had stated that the willingness of businesses to be transparent with information that their customers need to know will determine the direction that content marketing will take in the future. While it looks as though it is the nature of advertisers and marketers out there to bend the truth about their products and services as part of their creative license, the future of content marketing industry is geared towards becoming more creatively forthright and authentic. Customers value ease and convenience and companies learn to gain their trust by being offered high-quality and honest content. This kind of customer service approach keeps your customers and clients alike satisfied and happy to do business with you.

Three Types of Interesting Content for Your Site

It’s in the nature of people to gravitate towards anything out of the ordinary: celebrities, unexplained phenomena, strange news stories, and the like come to mind. They stick to whatever catches their eye the most, and stay there until their curiosity is satisfied. This, in a way, explains the importance of content marketing for your website.

If you wish to create some eye-catching content that can direct internet traffic to your favour, you’ll need to identify your audience first. Based on your knowledge of your target audience, you can then pique people’s interest by giving them business-relevant, user-relevant, and time-bound content.

Business-relevant content pertains to anything that you offer to your customers and/or business partners. New products, promotions, special offers, industry news, and such can generate interest, especially if your audience is loyal to your brand and industry. User-relevant content, on the other hand, simply refers to content that affects your audience directly. Tips, trivia, and anecdotes from famous people can easily turn heads because they relate to your audience at a more personal level.

Finally, time-bound content is sure to create interest despite its rather short lifespan. Ongoing events, birthdays, anniversaries, and trending news stories are just some things that attract attention, at least up until they run their course.

Writing Content for Startups

Online businesses - especially startups - rely on quality content now more than ever to attract customers to their product or services. In the age of wireless communication, all it takes is a few seconds to make a potential customer interested on your offerings, or they’ll go for something or somebody else. For a startup business, there are some pointers to keep in mind when writing your content marketing pieces.

What Your Audience Wants

A key to writing good promotional content is to visualize how your target audience will see your content. For instance, if your products or services are for a younger set of customers like teenagers, use words that they’ll understand to convey your ideas effectively. You can style the content around, say, regular teenager problems where a solution involves your goods or services.

No Chunks!

Like slabs of meat sliced into smaller cuts for easier consumption, online content works well when an article is divided into sections for easy readability. Be sure to add headings, as these allow your reader to easily scan and see what information they want to read.

Quality Control

If your articles have options to be shared over social media platforms, any mistakes and inconsistencies in the material can be mercilessly dissected, which can affect your online reputation, and ultimately, your bottom line. As such, your team should edit the material for consistency and accuracy of facts before posting. Remember, there’s no such thing as too much proofreading.