This post was created as a two-part series. Check out Part 1: Your Content Is Boring — Here’s How to Save It.
Creating share-worthy brand content isn’t easy. The tone must be spot-on, and it should encourage the audience to accept the brand as a credible, knowledgeable source.
Great writing alone won’t make your content stand out. The concept must be interesting to truly captivate an audience and shape the conversation.
In this socially driven world, you need to relate to your customer base before they’ll consider reading or sharing your content. Exceptional brand content entertains, educates, and even delights customers while representing its brand authentically.
Dove’s Real Beauty Sketches is a perfect example that meets all the criteria for exceptional content. It’s heartwarming and inspiring, and it portrays the brand as forward-thinking and genuine. Its complementary #WeAreBeautiful campaign helped spark a conversation around individual beauty and the brand.
Creating quality content involves strategic long-term planning to inspire an audience, but every piece of powerful content starts with a great idea.
Developing content that will engage your audience takes time, and it begins the moment you dream up a topic.
The ideation process for article topics looks different for everyone, but at Influence & Co., we have three key methods for finding inspiration:
Before any bright idea at Influence & Co. can become a full article, our account strategists must flesh out the topic for the client and choose a publication that aligns with his audience and strategy. Then, the account strategist presents the idea at a pitch meeting. These meetings include four people who provide specific insight on the topic based on their areas of expertise:
Fully developing a topic is critical because it lays the foundation for your entire article. Imagine what would happen if you tried to cook a gourmet dinner without checking to see if you had all the ingredients. It might turn out OK, but leaving out one ingredient could completely change the flavor or texture. If you don’t have a content team to pitch to, follow these three tips to develop a great topic:
While each article is an integral part of your content marketing strategy, you can’t overlook the big picture. Content marketing is not about crafting one fabulous article; you need to consistently produce valuable, compelling content before you’ll see results.
If a topic comes naturally to you and coincides with your strategy, it may seem like a great idea to open your computer and get to work. However, make sure you fully develop a topic before sitting down to write. Your articles will be tighter and easier to write, and developing thought-provoking, captivating content topics will become a regular occurrence. That’s how you move from one good article to a consistently successful content marketing strategy and a memorable brand.
I'm the president of Intero Digital's Content & PR Division. Intero Digital is a full-service digital marketing agency whose Content & PR Division helps businesses improve their lead generation, SEO, sales enablement, and thought leadership — all powered by content marketing and PR.