3 Challenges that Content Makers Can Easily Overcome in 2018

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1.     Go from Drips of Content to a Flow of Content across 12 months:

Make this the year that you create time for your business content to shine. Just as you make resolutions to improve your own personal health and well being, set achievable goals for great content making across the year.  Start out with a monthly time-line that plots towards your company objectives (eg new product launch in September) and also to industry hotpoints (such as the impact of GDPR in May 2018).

2.     Pull on the Customer Experience using Ever-Greater Content Creation Vehicles

All businesses (including sometimes our own - #redcheeks) need to create relevant content that draws on the customer experience to provide proof points that flow across all marketing mediums to generate leads and further customer engagement.  Take the humble written case study as an example. Relatively easy to pen, the resultant two pager still has its place with as a sales collateral piece, or for submission to magazines as a double page spread, but it can do so much more alongside.  You can:-

·       Create an infographic that defines 3 key data points in the customer journey

·       Run a Twitter poll on these data points to entice others to share their results and interact on social media

·       Create a slide share and upload

·       Enter the customer experience into Award Schemes, making sure the entry is based on the customer before and after experience and not on how great you think the product/company is!

·       Create a baseline storyboard for a mini-video – these do not have to be big budget productions, using inhouse software, filming on Apple devices is today relatively straightforward and acceptable quality for YouTube uploads.

·       Create a ‘How To’ webinar on one of the on-demand webinar services. We like GoToWebinar but there are lots of low-cost alternative options out there.

 

3.     Don’t Create a Content Mountain: Create Snackable Pieces that you can easily deliver upon.

We are not going to pretend that writing great content is for everyone. It’s daunting and ongoing and requires ongoing commitment to deliver. But, there’s a wealth of great materials out there and some excellent ‘how to’ blogs that will keep you on track. After delivering content for over 14 years, some advice we can impart is to re-purpose content and vary distribution vehicles rather than starting from scratch each time. We call it ‘Morphing Content with Panache’. Take a 2 minute edited video, for instance and finally everyone’s a winner - you have an enticing snackable download for prospect generation, and for social media via Vlogs and YouTube hosting, and a great home page opener. And for the customer, he gets his moment of glory that can be used for a lifetime in LinkedIn profiles and for peer perception as a visionary.  

And here’s the easy bit, once the hard work is done, help your snackable content to go places. Upload the expandable content onto YouTube, Vimeo, Vblog sites, use on auto signatures, newsletters, social media, banners, content syndication sites, guest blog experiences. The customer experience is your oyster.  Good luck in 2018 and let us know if you need a helping hand.

 

About the Author:

Sharon Munday is the owner and lead content maker for On Your Case Ltd and for the past ten years and has authored and presented extensively on all aspects of ‘Expandable Content’ across the European IT vendor circuit.  She is the proud owner of one crazy Weimaraner puppy; two beautiful children and one large Australian husband.