You know you have a great brand, and you want others to know it too, but in an already overcrowded online environment, it can be hard to make your message stand out.
The competition gets fiercer every year, with more and more content being uploaded every day. How do you compete? How do you get people talking about your brand over your competitors’?
We’ve put together a handy guide detailing what you can do to get people talking about your brand.
Write what your audience wants, not what you want
In the era of ‘fake-news’, we’re becoming ever more cynical about what we see and read online. We’re now looking for deeper connections with the content we engage with, and content marketers need to start acting on this.
If you want to get people talking about your brand, sometimes you have to stop talking about your brand. People want to read content that interests them in some way or has relevance to their own lives and circumstances.
A study by Marketo found that consumers are frustrated with how brands engage with them, so ask what your content can do for your audience, not how it can drive sales.
If you’re saying something compelling, people will want to share it and talk about it. Listening to and acting on customer feedback is crucial to understanding what it is your audience wants.
Early adopters will be the first to start talking about your brand, so engage them in conversation and take on their suggestions – make them your brand ambassadors. This research and feedback will prove invaluable and will be useful for creating audience personas that better reflect your real audience.
Personality goes a long way
No matter the kind of business you have, you should avoid content that reads like an automated message – if it comes across as cold and impersonal it may alienate your readers.
You need to inject personality into your content, that way you can develop a relationship with your audience, who’ll then find it far easier to connect with your brand. Here are a few ways to achieve this:
1. Use humour
Many businesses avoid humour in their content, feeling it doesn’t fit with their brand personality. It’s also hard to strike the right balance with humour, and many businesses fear missing the mark. Having said that, it can be a great way to bond with your audience and create lasting relationships with them.
To establish brand personality you need to first understand the purpose of your business and the motivations of your customers. Only then can you know how and when to inject some humour into your content – a good copywriting agency can help you strike this difficult balance.
2. Tell stories
You can also add some personality to your content by telling stories. An interesting story or anecdote (something with relevance to your brand) that entertains or informs the reader will help to humanise your brand – and we all love to share stories.
3. Converse
Finally, take more of a conversational approach to your copywriting. Your content should read as if you’re talking directly to the reader. It doesn’t matter if the tone of your content is intended to be formal or informal – think about your website’s typical audience and tailor the character and wording of your content to them.
Amplify your content
Content marketing develops your brand identity through blog posts, videos, webinars and other material, but if nobody sees any of it they certainly won’t be talking about it.
Your amplification strategy starts with the content you’re producing (it has to be interesting in the first place), but in 2018 close consideration should be paid to the next stages:
1. Social media
Get your content out there, on all your social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest and so on). While social media shares and links are no longer the be-all and end-all of content amplification, they’re an essential first step to grabbing the attention of as many eyeballs as possible.
2. Influencer marketing
Identify influential people in your niche and target them. Influencers will often hold a great deal of sway over potential customers for your business, and if they’re willing to share and talk about your content, you’ll find a lot of the work being done for you.
Email them, connect with them over social media and, most importantly, share and engage with their work – build a mutually beneficial relationship.
3. Content amplification tools
No business should leave home without them. Whether it’s a social media scheduling app like Hootsuite or the email marketing tool MailChimp, to get as many people as possible talking about your brand content amplification tools have to be part of your arsenal.
If you want to get people talking about your brand, get in touch today and find out how a content creation agency such as WooContent can help you.