When it comes to making content that engages your audience and drives traffic to your website or services, knowing where to start can be overwhelming. Thankfully there are some proven techniques to help you consistently produce content that gives you the best chances of your audience interacting with and taking action from it.
Before making content, it really helps to know who you’re making it for. Taking the time to get to know your clients, and the people who you’d like to have as clients, can pay dividends. Once you know what makes a person tick, you’re in a much better position to present them with content that they’ll find genuinely interesting and want to engage with.
It’s tempting to do one thing and do it well, like writing blogs or sharing information on social media. While this can be an effective way to engage with your audience, it can also act as a self-imposed limitation. Try new platforms and forms of media, if you’ve seen some success from blog content that’s particularly info-heavy, that’s great - but don’t rule out using images, videos or even short quotes as an added option.
Accessing your own audience is a good start, but don’t overlook the importance of their network too. Think about ways to make your content not just good to read and leave a like on, but also make it an attractive proposition for sharing with their friends, family and colleagues. Offering expert information or breaking news may lead to your audience wanting to pass on your content to others. They might want to be helpful, or they might want to position themselves as somebody with early access to great insight.
Humans are natural storytellers, and we like to listen to stories just as much as we like to tell them. We relate to stories more easily than we do to raw data, it’s one of the reasons that books, movies and television series are so enticing to us. You’re much more likely to find yourself binge-watching the latest Netflix phenomenon than you are to find yourself binge-reading the latest statistics journal. Think about how you can bring this into the content you produce; make it relatable, try to evoke emotions.
Give your content a goal. What do you want the people engaging with your content to do? Once you have a clear understanding of your intentions, you can lead your audience towards the outcome you’re hoping for. Position your content as a question, provide a clear call to action, and give the audience options for how they can interact and engage with you.
There’s always more to learn when you’re on the path to improving your content, but these five points are a great place to start. If you embrace the basics you’ll be engaging your audience in no time.