Trying to build an online audience with a series of one-off articles is a lot like selling your small business brand name over and over again starting from scratch each time. Instead, you may find it much more efficient to establish a theme around your content and sell that overarching theme to your audience instead. Marketing ideas for small business often focus on branding and establishing a bond with the customer to create a lasting business relationship. That concept carries over to developing a strong theme around your content which creates a clear audience expectation of what they’re in for when they visit your business’s website and read your social media updates.
The key question here is what kind of content is your target audience looking for? It’s more important to understand what the audience wants as opposed to the content you want to create. For example, if you’re running a Realty business you could focus your online content around tips for buying a home as well as a place your audience can frequent to look at homes in the area your business is trying to sell. If your small business is a car repair shop you could build content themes around car maintenance tips, ways to tell if something is wrong with your vehicle, and seasonal care tips. If successfully implemented, the themes will appeal to your audience’s interests and entice them to follow you.
If you create content that brings in a lot of traffic or generates a lot of audience feedback, try following up on that content and see if it continues being successful. If people respond well to article you post on your product, launch a series of articles that expand upon the concepts established in the first one. Establishing one or more ongoing serialized content themes is a great way to continue giving your audience more of what they want.
You can also combine your serialized content style themes with releasing new content at regular intervals to play further off your audience expectations. If you release content as soon as it’s completed you may not be releasing it at a time when your audience is most likely to consume in. This is particularly important when sharing your content over social media because you can reach a much larger audience after lunch than you can at 2:00 a.m. You can stack the theme of a daily or weekly installment at a consistent time in the day to create a routine, regular interaction with your audience. For example, you could run a brief Q&A session on your social platforms for a half hour every morning or put out a daily poll at lunch time. Try getting feedback from your audience by posting a question every morning and responding to audience comments. Other concepts like a weekly “how-to” or “rant” blog are also easy to brand and establish a theme with.
Dan S is a former news journalist turned web developer and freelance writer. He has a penchant for all things tech and believes the person using the machine is the most important element.
