We have talked about content so many times so far, that you already clearly know that it is the lifeblood of every marketing strategy.
Naturally, the process of content creation is not a one-step process; the content writing stage is just one of the many complementary parts of what we nowadays call content marketing. Everything from content and keyword research, content development, to the very act of placing the content and marketing it using various channels is part of this all-consuming process.
So being a good copywriter that has the right skill set for creating engaging, value-adding content is great and all, but if you are to create something that will allow you to stand out from the crowd of competitors in your chosen industry, then you need to go beyond focusing solely on content creation, and immerse yourself in developing all other parts of the puzzle as well.
In other words, you first need to research your market: both the needs of your customers and the strategy of your competitors, before you can be sure that you offer them something of value. After finding out what you should be focusing on, you should articulate a way to say it – through the creation of a clear and focused content marketing strategy.
To do all of this, you need two things: people and tools.
Finding the right people is something that is up to you. What we can lend you a hand with, however, is choosing the right tools that will help you accomplish your goals. Mastering the features of the following tools will allow you to save time and effort, and always be sure that you deliver stellar content that clearly resonates with your audience’s needs.
So, let’s begin.
Before you pick up the pen (or sit at the keyboard) to write, you have to first decide the topic you will write on.
Not only that the topics you choose need to be well researched and informative, but they also need to fit your target audience’s interests.
That’s when thorough research of what is being published in your industry and what the customers are searching for can come in handy. Especially, if you are publishing more than one article per week.
Keyword research serves a double purpose: first it lets you work on SEO and climb the SERP ladder, and secondly, it allows you to pick up on people’s interests, based on what they search for when they get online.
BuzzSumo allows content creators to search for popular topics, and filter the results to show a more focused insight into what they are looking for. For example, if you need to find out the patterns and trends of how-to posts, you can easily do it by applying the appropriate filter.
You know that saying that everything in this world has already been invented?
Well, it is true. At least to a certain degree.
Seeing what other companies are doing can be a great source of ideas and best practices. Do not worry about not being original – there is nothing wrong with researching your competitors and using their approaches in a different context if you notice that a particular approach is functioning.
That is not to say that you should steal other people’s ideas. What you need to look for is the approach, for the “formula,” and then find a way to use it yourself, changing and tweaking it, and customizing it to your audience and your company.
While we’re on the subject of competitors, we need to introduce you to SEM Rush. SEM Rush is one of the most widely used keyword and competitor research tools in the world. The tool makes it easy to find results on your or your competitor’s best ranking keywords, just by asking for a URL. You can read a more in-depth review of SEM Rush by clicking here.
Let’s not forget to mention hashtags. When used right, hashtags can be a very powerful marketing tool to drive engagement and track brand mentions on various social media platforms. They also provide a logical grouping of content, so by using tools like Hashtagify.me you can find out topics of interest to your target audience, or follow the trending topics some of the top influencers in your niche are talking about.
AnswerThePublic is another great tool for coming up with content ideas that would be in high demand. When you type in a keyword in the tool’s search box, it will go through all the Google suggestions connected to the keyword, and then create a nicely organized map of the results, which you can use to generate topics for your upcoming posts.
Apart from using all of the above-mentioned tools to research your industry, you can also go to community discussions posted on Quora and Reddit and drink straight from the source of people’s interests and pain points.
Although a lot of people feel like behind the creation of content there’s just one person; the truth is completely different. Just like in the traditional publishing industry, where there are agents, and writers, and editors, and publishers, in the digital world, the creation of a piece of writing is empowered by a number of different people: from those who focus on content research, to the actual writers of the content, to people who make sure that the content is of the highest quality and is SEO optimized, and so on.
So, to be able to manage all these tasks efficiently, especially in the modern environment where companies have people working in geographically dispersed parts of the world, teams need various collaboration tools.
Allowing everyone to be always up to date with the status of the project, the people who are in charge of specific tasks and their progress, streamlines the communication and saves a lot of time and effort.
Trello is collaboration software that allows you to create boards of various projects, assign tasks to team members, and let them mark the progress on each of these tasks, ask questions in comments etc.
Asana is another collaboration software, very similar to Trello, that has all the functionalities, from grouping projects, to assigning them to different team members and adding deadlines. The app can also be integrated with third-party applications like Slack and Google Docs, so it makes collaboration very easy.
Slack is a communication app which is developed to streamline virtual communication and collaboration between team members. With a simple, intuitive interface, it allows provides file sharing, hosting virtual meetings, and instant messaging on a day-to-day basis.
When you are creating content, it is easy to get confused between versions, or your attachments to get lost in the endless stream of emails you send to your collaborators. To avoid this problem, a lot of marketers nowadays are using Google Drive, which allows storing various versions, suggesting, declining and accepting edits, adding comments and so on. Google Drive saves just one file, and it’s possible for you to see all the previous changes in the document, as well as who made them. You can also access your products from any device as long as you have internet.
After finding out the kind of content your audience wants, creating a plan on what to publish and when, and paving the road towards better collaboration with some of the project management apps, it is the time that you actually create the content.
During the creation process, you mostly depend on your creativity, but that does not mean that you are left entirely alone. There are, of course, a couple of tools that can make the process much easier and more efficient, while allowing you to achieve better results.
Grammarly is a fantastic proofreading tool, that goes beyond just hunting typos. The Grammarly pro version allows you to check for wordiness, repetitions and all kinds of mistakes in your content. You can choose the type of content you are writing – whether it is an article, dissertation, technical documentation and so on, and the tool will find the best words to use in the given context. Moreover, you can check for plagiarism, and make sure that the content you produce is 100% genuine.
Everyone in the writing world knows that editing takes a long time – sometimes even longer than the actual writing. Named by the famous novelist, this app streamlines your editing process by taking note of sentences that need to be paraphrased or mistakes that you need to check and work on.
Although we are mainly focusing on written content, we also have to mention infographics. Infographics are known to be the most shareable form of content – much more shareable than any type of written text. Creating valuable, informative and eye-catching infographics helps companies easily share the word about their brand to a wider audience. Photo editing software like Canva allows users to use a number of free templates and editing options to create compelling infographics in a matter of minutes.
Finally, having all the content written and ready to publish does not mean that your job is done. In order to always stay competitive and keep growing and progressing, you need to analyze the impact of your current content strategy, and notice places where you could use some improvement.
Google Analytics is a free tool that allows you to track the amount of traffic you get and its quality. You can find out how many people visit your page, how many of them leave, and how many linger longer – and on which posts. Knowing which posts are keeping people’s attention will allow you to understand better what your audience wants, and with it, equip you with the needed knowledge to answer their needs and pressing questions, thus increasing your value.
Content creation asks marketers to be able to delegate and coordinate different tasks effectively and efficiently. Content is the very essence of every marketing strategy so understanding what you can do better to create better content will ultimately lead to improving your brand and creating something that will resonate better with your audience and increase your value.
The process starts with researching the market, focusing both on your target audience and what they are searching for, and your competitors, and what they are trying to accomplish.
Then, it continues by creating a content strategy, a kind of a game plan, which you create beforehand, so you know the exact time to publish a particular piece of content and grab your customer’s attention.
During the development of this “game plan” you need to include everything you know about your audience: the times when they are online, their habits and interests. Keeping in mind seasons, and publishing seasonal content according to the seasonal changes is another approach worth exploring.
Finally, you have to make sure that your content flows nicely and it is error free, and of course that you constantly improve your offerings by assessing your current impact and spotting opportunities for growth.
All of this can be done using some of the tools that we mentioned above. Other than that, depending on your needs, you can use some time management apps as well, such as ToDoIst, which allows you to create a calendar of to-dos and track your productivity over time, and so on. In any case, we have to mention, that our lists are never final, and with new tools continuously coming out, no such list can be set in stone, so feel free to explore the available tools yourself, and find one(s) that work(s) the best for you and your content strategy.
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