If you’ve ever wondered why your content generates nothing but crickets, this edition of Thursday Trends is for you! This week, we’ve gathered together some of the latest news and bad (and good) advice to help you improve your content strategy, get your audience talking about you, and trigger them to share or (even better) transform into a conversion. Read on to find out what you can do to fill your content marketing channels with lots of buzz all about you!
Uncomfortable Silences Got You Down? Generate Better Topics
Stuck on Content Marketing? Here’s How to Find the Best Topics for Your Audience via Forbes
Your latest content marketing marvels generated nothing but crickets and deafening silence across your publication channels, what gives? Well, it could be a topic problem, meaning you’re not generating content about topics that actual interest, excite, or trigger a response from your target audience. The simple fix to this problem, of course, is to post about topics that are of greater interest to your audience. But is this solution really that simple? How do you find out what topics interest your audience?
This Forbes article outlines seven smart strategies for determining what interests your audience and generating content marketing topics and ideas based on those findings. In addition to encouraging you to explore analytics and look inside your business, the article also suggests following your target market to their popular hang outs, plus so much more. Check out the full article to get all the genius ideas and end the curse of the crickets.
Why You Shouldn’t Believe Everything You Hear about Content Marketing
38 Experts Share the Worst Content Marketing Advice via Content Marketing Institute
Let me give you a piece of advice: not all advice is good advice. Nowadays, it seems like everyone in content marketing is out there spreading around helpful hints and useful tips and tricks on content marketing, content strategy, and publication, but how do you know what actually works and what doesn’t? Sometimes bad advice is obviously no good, but other times bad advice puts its hair in ringlets, slips into tap shoes, and dances around pretending to be good advice.
This article from Content Marketing Institute takes a crack at helping you discern the difference by pointing out some no-good, dirty, rotten content marketing advice currently masquerading as “helpful” in the world of content marketing.
Learn to Customize Content for Business Type
5 Ways to an Effective Toolkit for a Nonprofit via WriterAccess
In your business, what do you a package of marketing tools, materials, and strategies? You might call them branding guidelines or a toolkit, depending on the type of business.
If you’ve ever worked on a marketing project for a nonprofit, had them ask you to put together a “toolkit,” and turned up the next day with a hammer, screwdriver, and tape measure, then this article from WriterAccess is for you! This recent article explains what a toolkit is in a nonprofit, what it should include, and how you can make sure yours is customized to the type of nonprofit you’re working for. For example, Dogtopia’s needs will differ greatly from those of Aging Services. (P.S. This article offers takeaways that will be useful to for-profit business and writers, too!)
The If-You-Build-It-They-Will-Come Concept Doesn’t Ring True in Content Marketing
How to Use Social Listening for Marketing to Improve Your Content Strategy via Skyword Content Standard
Unfortunately, content marketing isn’t Field of Dreams. (So, we’re not going to meet Kevin Costner?) Just because you spend time creating content and then pop it onto the interwebs doesn’t mean your target market will automatically come flocking to you. So, how do you attract your audience, get them to consume content, and then stay to shop around for a while?
According to this article from Skyword Content Standard, it’s all about listening to what your audience actually wants. In their article, they explain how to practice active listening on your social media channels and use what you hear to improve your strategy.
Jennifer G is a full-time freelance writer and editor with a B.A. in creative writing from the University of Montana. She enjoys researching and writing creative content to engage readers and developing professional voices for clients across all industries. She specializes in medical, health, veterinary, and financial writing. Having worked nearly thirteen years in finance, Jennifer applies her experience in the banking industry (marketing, social media management, consumer and commercial lending, customer service, accounts, and bookkeeping) to her writing work within the industry.
