Stopping The Scroll
What can you do to stop people from skimming past your content as they scroll through their social media platforms? That depends on what type of content you are creating.
- If you are producing written content then you need to spend some time searching for keywords and choose one that you can use as a headline because 80% of people read headlines and only 20% go on to read the actual content of the posts.
This means that you need to find a headline that will draw them into reading the rest of your post. There are tools like Headline Studio that will rank your headlines and suggest ways that it can be improved. You can test and tweak your headlines until you find the ones that are having the best results.
Headlines are not written in stone – you can always change them!
- When you are producing images to sell your products – you can find a ton of good quality customisable graphics on Canva.com. that can be created, downloaded, shared on social media or even printed.
Think about what content catches your attention and why and how that happens? Scrolling down Facebook images with bright or contrasting colours may be the first thing that gets your attention. You may be put off by photos that are blurry or of low quality and just scroll on by. Chances are your viewers will too.
Think about the audience you are trying to attract before you even start to create content. It is aways worthwhile to take a few steps back before you start.. One stunning image is better than 20 mediocre ones.
So how can you create something that is going to stop people in their tracks and give you the chance to gain their attention at least for a few seconds? If it really seems like too much of a challenge to you, then you have 2 choices – either make the effort to brush up on your graphic skills by purchasing a crash course in the subject or just outsource that part of your content creation to an expert
What Type of Content is Best?
Research Research Research!
To find out what is working well in your niche you need to check out the competition. There’s no need to re-invent the wheel – you shouldn’t copy their stuff but you can certainly get a lot of ideas from it and adapt them to your business and your personality. You can check out their keywords on tools like UberSuggest and the tags they are using on Youtube with vidIQ.
If you are tempted to spend too much time on the research set a time limit for that!
Content For Different Social Media Platforms
Sometimes you may find ideas for your blogs from other people’s videos or you can transcribe your own videos and turn them into blogs or podcasts. You can have a variety of content on different platforms according to their audiences and even your mood. You can let your hair down on TikTok and allow Instagram and Pinterest to bring out your creative side. As long as you are paying attention to the type of content that is popular on each of these social media platforms you can adapt your content to either be congruent with it or stand out from the rest.
The most important thing is to watch out for frequently asked questions and common problems and create content that solves them. Content that answers questions is the most successful type of content to attract traffic, lead and buyers.
Content should never be boring either to you or your audience. If you stick to the topics that excite or motivate you, your audience will pick up on your vibes.
Content For Your Websites
The content on your website should be designed to help your audience move one step further in their business or their lives. If it can take them from zero to hero so much the better but a long as it can put them on the path to success you are on a winning formula. Your website is the place where you have the chance to build your brand, nurture your followers, get the know like and trust factor, build your list and even retarget everyone who lands on your website The right content and keywords can get you ranked in Google – This will attract more viewers and give you the opportunity to convert them into buyers. It all depends on good quality content.
Testing and Tweaking Your Content
So how do you know if your content is effective? Results would be the obvious answer but sometimes it can take months for good content to rank on Google. In the meantime some bloggers give up thinking that if they don’t get fast results their content isn’t good. It’s easier and faster to test and tweak content on social media than on your blog. As well as blogs and social media posts and videos and live-streams, other content such as funnels and landing pages and sales pages can play a very important part in your business. You can create split tests for them. You can use google analytics for your blog content but that will be a slower process – although it is very motivating to see your statistics improving even when it is gradual.
Repurposing Content
When you are creating content keep in mind the difference between evergreen content and content that can be past it’s sell by date! Try not to limit your content unnecessarily e.g. If you have a post that says Happy Sunday remember that it can only be reposted on a Sunday so better to say Have a Great Day and you can repost that to your heart’s content.
You can repurpose old content – most people will have forgotten what you have posted a few months ago never mind a couple of years ago. Just check that the links and the CTAs are still working and that the information is up to date. Most of us don’t take advantage of all the content that we have created over the years – it’s just gathering dust somewhere in the depths of our computers and laptops and smartphones.
Syndicating Content
There is absolutely no sense in spending a lot of time and effort creating content if hardly anyone gets the chance to see it. I know that I am certainly guilty of this. I shudder to think of the many times that I have made posts and videos and blogs that I have only presented on one or two platforms. Syndication is a topic that I intend to put on my bucket list. It works best if you have a system, a list of places where you will share your content and even better if you can develop the habit of syndicating each and every piece of content as soon as you have completed it. Of course it is also helpful to have a plugin such as share-a-holic on your blogs and use schedulers to post content at the time and days that are most effective for the different platforms.
Why not write yourself a list of the places you are going to share your content and save it on your desktop as soon as you have finished reading this blog. That is what I am going to do and don’t forget to keep adding to it from time to time.
