Content is one of the most important things a business can produce. You could have developed one of the most amazing products in the world, but with no content to explain what it is and who you are, it’s more likely than not that your existence and product will be ignored. There are different ways to create content that will increase brand awareness. It can range from social networks, to viral videos.
A lot of businesses don’t seem to realise that content can be the face of your brand. If only a handful of customers know you exist, the majority of your hard effort will bring poor results.
Content creation provides useful information for any potential customer, as well as establishing a relationship with existing customers. If a person feels that they are connected to a business, they’re more than likely to spend time and money on the brand.
Social Networks
Social networking is so incredibly useful. Some of the biggest companies use websites such as Twitter or Facebook to promote their brands.
But why?
With 645,750,000 active registered Twitter users, it isn’t any wonder why the majority of popular businesses have set up an account.
It’s so very easy to set up one of these accounts. It allows a business to establish themselves and their brand, all the while maintaining a personal relationship with customers.
It isn’t strange to be browsing Twitter to see #Justdoit, or #it’sinthegame. People that are fans of these brands will instantly know that I’m referring to Nike and EA.
What is a #?
When something is popular, it does something called trending. When something trends, it can be seen by every single user that is on Twitter. For a business, this can create brand recognition
Brand recognition is what can make people decide between two different brands that may be similar.
American Airlines celebrated their 30th anniversary by running a Twitter contest called, “Tweet to Win 30K Miles”. The Twitter contest was a smaller portion of the larger campaign, which was called Deal 30. Deal 30 involved 30 partner deals and promotions over the space of 30 weekdays. Users were encouraged to tweet #Deal30 and follow the twitter account @AAdvantage for a chance to win 30,000 AAdvantage travel miles.
Within one week, the site had gained nearly 18,000 clicks from Twitter. The @AAdvantage account had a 70% increase in followers. Retweets on Twitter increased by 43% and the Deal 30 microsite that had been set up gained more than 27,000 entries.
By starting a competition like this, other users on Twitter help to promote your business through the use of a #.
With Twitter, you are restricted with the amount of characters you are able to use. Facebook allows you to write more characters, making it easier to produce a more detailed post.
Facebook allows you to see how many people are actually looking at your product. By having this statistic you can see just how popular you are and how relevant your brand is at the time.
Facebook is an ideal place to show off products you may have. By uploading pictures people can see the product and discuss what their opinion is. Facebook also allows you to upload status’s. Putting up a status such as, “What do you think of product A”, or “Product B has finally arrived, who’s going to be picking one up?”, allows customers to be aware that the product exists. It can also provide vital information on which products are more popular than another.
One of the great things about social networking is the cost. There isn’t any. As long as you have a device that is able to connect to the internet, you can easily promote your brand through a free account.
Email Newsletters
Email newsletters may be an older form of promoting your brand, but as the saying goes, you don’t fix what isn’t broken.
An e-newsletter is simple. It’s like a magazine, but stripped down to just the most necessary information. As a rule of thumb, a standard newsletter should have one article and one advertisement. The majority of articles are under 180 words, with a constant theme and voice. It’s key that you cater the article to a specific audience. There’s no point trying to sell suncream to someone in the Arctic.
Doing your market research is going to be the difference between someone reading your newsletter, or simply deleting it. Time and effort should always be used to ensure the information put into an article is interesting and relevant.
It’s personal
If someone subscribes to your business’s newsletter, then they are inviting you into their inbox on a regular basis. The majority of advertisers take pride in using email as a marketing tool because it builds a one to one relationship that other other forms of content don’t quite match.
How to send newsletters
The normal approach when sending e-newsletter is to email recipients every weekday with an advertisement next to the editorial. One email a week should be purely dedicated to acting as an advertisement for your brand. Putting an internet link to the actual product makes it easier for people to see more detailed information.
Visit any website and one of the most prominent messages you will see on every page is a “sign up here” link. That’s because emails are one of the easiest ways to encourage subscribers to read the content that you’ve uploaded online. People are more likely to notice an unread message compared to an internet forum.
What should be in an email newsletter?
The information you put inside of an E-newsletter is vitally important. If the content is long and boring, then people aren’t going to waste their time reading it. If the content is too short, then people won’t take any of the information in. Ensuring that you only upload the best quality content is something you should consider before even writing a piece.
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How do you want your brand to be recognised?
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Do you want to be strictly professional, especially with regards to the language you use? Would you rather be friendly and conversational with your tone?
These decisions can attract completely different audiences. A person would expect different styles of writing for a brand which focuses on high end suits, compared to a skateboard wear store. Understanding who your audience is key.
Blogging
Businesses that blog are utilising one of the most important marketing tactics to gain more online visibility.
What is blogging?
When you create a blog post, you are creating a piece of content that has something to explain. This is then posted to your website where you keep all your different blog posts. What examples are their to give.
Well, you’re reading one now.
As I write this blog, I’m aiming to inform the reader about the variety of content types available and how they can helps to increase brand awareness.
It’s important that your blog focusses on a particular subject matter that is related to your business. There isn’t any point in talking about the ten latest shoe designs when your business actually sells designer shirts.
Online visibility
Online visibility explains itself. It’s all about being able to be seen on the internet. If you have a blog that is posted on a regular basis, then it’s more likely that people will notice and read it. This helps to increase the likelihood that your brand will appear in search engines or on social media. If you write good quality content, other businesses are likely to want to hire you to be a guest writer for their website.
Website traffic
Every business wants to increase the traffic they have on their website. If you have a numerous amount of pages then it’s highly unlikely that a person is going to waste their time going through every page until they find the correct one.
When you write a blog, you can insert links taking them to the relevant page. Say this is a blog about online shopping in the UK. Then I can write, check out my previous article about how people shop in the UK. This takes you the exact page where you can read about how UK shoppers search the web. People want to avoid wasting their time trawling page by page to find the relevant information. A simple link does the job with just a single click.
Social media
I know I’ve already talked about social media as a form of content, but I didn’t cover the sharing aspect.
If you create a blog that is especially informative and interesting, it’s more than likely that people are going to share it to their followers on whichever social network they’re on. A good blog can circulate throughout numerous social networks that can uncover a completely new audience that doesn’t know of your existence yet.
Video Content
A form of content that businesses seem to forget exists is video content. By 2017, video will account for 69% of all consumer internet traffic. By looking at the information, it’s hard to ignore the fact that this form of content is rapidly growing.
Online videos have become one of the key features for people to get their information and entertainment needs. It’s considerably more convenient for a person to have the information shown to them in a fluent way, compared to having to read everything.
The popular video streaming website YouTube receives more than one billion visitors every month. That’s more than any other website, other than Facebook. Statistics show over 20 million people in the uk alone are regular visitors. A video done well can attract a considerable amount of people. There aren’t many other forms of content that do the same.
What to put in a video
It’s important that the information in a video in naturally engaging. In the modern age of information overload, it’s key to offer content that is easy to digest. If you don’t, it won’t be of any surprise that a potential customer will simply move on. Video is a great way to explain what it is your brand does. If a picture paints 1,00 words, then a single minute of video is worth 1.8 million.
Isn’t video creation a complicated process?
Not in the slightest. Production costs over the years have fallen drastically. There is no longer a requirement to be a technical genius to produce a video. The smart phone application, Vine, allows users to create a six second maximum clip length. All the features required for the film editing stage are all available at the touch of a button. You can make your videos as slapstick or professional as possible.
A lot of modern smartphones come with the ability to create and upload video clips to social networking sites. These videos don’t have a time limit as well, so you can put a bit more detail then you may put on a vine.
It’s important to be creative. The video and the campaign strategy you create will be more memorable if you put as much creativity in as possible. Creativity wins over the cost of production every time. If you managed to get all this right, then your video may become viral, gaining hundreds and hundreds of views.
Something to remember is your style of video content. Some brands can get away with being funny, whilst other suit a more professional and authoritative tone. Before you start producing a video, you should spend the time to consider if the tone you are aiming for is appropriate.
The content
Content is king. It can literally be the bricks and mortar of any business. By creating a creative marketing strategy involving a different variety of content, then you can make your brand be something that is being talked about by word of mouth. By showing you have put the time and effort into your content, people will be more than likely to spend the majority of their time on your and your brand.