The Content Development Challenge!

Anyone who is involved with social media knows that keeping content relevant, engaging, fresh, and up-to-date for your organization can be a challenge. Factor in “effectiveness” as a measure of success, and the pressure is on. If your budget is limited, as it is for many small businesses and non-profit organizations, you can still compete. You just need to be smart about it. In a nutshell, here’s what we advise our clients, big and small:

1. Understand your fan base—who, what and why. Whether it’s Facebook, Pinterest, or LinkedIn, your fans have a purpose for following you. Are they looking to stay informed, or for the inside scoop or discounts? Are they looking for customer service and are you in a position to respond to them? Or are they simply giving their support to your brand or cause? If you understand your fan base, you can create content that meets their needs.

2. Ask yourself: what do you want your fans to do with your content? Like it, share it, comment on it, or act on it (make an inquiry, visit your website, etc)? With well-designed visuals and carefully crafted copy, you can create content in line with your business goals.

3. Be realistic about what it takes to compete (time and money). Content development has quickly become it’s own line item in marketing budgets. Read our recent blog posting, You’ve got to look good to compete with social,  to learn more about why.

4. You know this! Develop an editorial calendar to plan and organize your posts. As you do, consider:

• Key events for the organization (trade shows, fundraisers, etc.)
• Key calendar events for your audience
• The steps your customers go through in making a decision to purchase (or, if you are a non-profit, to get involved or give) and what content would support this process
• The creation of content that includes your key words —your content should help you to be found by the search engine

5. You also know this! Reuse your content across multiple platforms: networks, blogs, micro-blogs. Not only does this save you time and money, it reinforces the message at every touch point.

6. Post, watch, and learn. Over weeks and months of working with clients and their fans, we see patterns: what works and what doesn’t. We tweak our messaging based upon this information and the client’s business goals.

Need help with developing content for your social media sites? We’re working with a number of clients helping them to create and produce content that builds awareness, nurtures their community, and drives sales. Contact Carl or Doodie at HDG to find out more!