Techblog
Four Content Marketing Principles Every Small Business Should Live By
Content marketing can sound like something done by big companies backed by equally big budgets. The truth is small business can also connect with their customers using content marketing techniques. It's affordable and effective.
Content marketing is not complicated and even small businesses can benefit from content marketing, without breaking the bank. It boils down to sharing content that customers will find relevant and valuable. Bearing in mind that a badly shot video of kittens can garner as many views as a full-fledged video production with a media spend of thousands, what’s the secret?
That example shows that businesses should not fret about creating super high quality content to do great content marketing. Let the following four principles guide you in creating content that’s valuable, relevant, and doesn’t cost the earth.
1. Use video and images on social media to engage your customers
Did you know that 100 million hours of video are watched every day on Facebook, and Marketers who use video grow revenue 49% faster than non-video users?
What does this mean for you?
Leverage popular platforms such Facebook and Instagram, worry less about the aesthetic quality of your content and focus on delivering strong, simple messages to your customers.
With smartphones and social media platforms also came a flurry of apps. Take a pretty (flawless) picture with meitu, create a hipster-looking image with Canva, edit a video with iMovie, enhance your picture with Snapseed.
You can also use live video to share product updates, conduct live Q&A, or offer discounts – all sure-fire ways to connect with your customers. Most importantly you want to create content that makes your business stand out.
2. Know what’s trending
To give your customers something they will value, you need to know what they care about. To know what they care about, you need to know what’s trending. Sounds complicated? Not with a simple Google search.
Google is an amazing encyclopedia of information – use it well. Not sure which topics to focus on for your business? Hit trends.google.com to find out how a subject like “digital marketing” will fare over time. Running out of ideas to write about? Go to answerthepublic.com to see what people are searching for.
If your audience is largely on social media, search trending posts on Twitter, or discover the top posts by area (for example, Singapore) to know which influencers your audience is following, and what they are sharing.
3. Follow your customer and understand how they behave on each platform
We know the top social networks in Singapore: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn. Some businesses choose to focus on LinkedIn over Facebook, convinced that corporate clients are not on Facebook.
Fact is, your customer is on several platforms, but consumes information differently on each. Longer posts perform well on LinkedIn whereas with Facebook, videos have higher reach (and should always be accompanied by subtitles as viewers are likely watching without sound) while images drive higher engagement.
A blog post can be adapted for LinkedIn in the form of a long status post, on Facebook as a short video, and on Instagram as an image caption.
By creating evergreen content that stays relevant in spite of the passing of time (a topic like ‘10 ways to be more productive at work’ will probably be relevant 10 years later), you can adapt and share across several platforms, and maximize the initial effort spent on creating it.
4. Data is knowledge, knowledge is power
Content is all about value and relevance. To understand how to offer that, you need data.
If you want to know how people are consuming content, simply search for Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or YouTube statistics.
If you’re running a campaign, track everything. What do people view the most? What do people comment on the most? And what do people share the most? Knowing where your visitors come from and what content they engage in will help you shape your strategy moving forward.
Remember, you don’t have to have a huge budget for to do any of the above. Technology is on your side, so let these four principles be your guide to creating great content.
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Content marketing isn’t just for big business, SMEs can run successful campaigns too.
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Make sure your content is relevant to your audience.
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Learn what is trending and create content around these trends.
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Post content where your customers are and understand their behavior on different platforms.
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Use data to understand how your marketing efforts are working. Make changes based on this data.