When it comes to the online environment there’s no doubt that content is king. The pace at which people consume content every year is increasing at an incredible speed. As a matter of fact, a 2016 Smart Insights study has revealed that every 60 seconds, 3,3 million posts were created on Facebook in 2016, as opposed to 2,46 in 2014, while on Google 3,8 million searches were made versus 2,4 million in 2014.
In this content rich environment, people’s attention is decreasing more than ever. According to a Microsoft study, the average attention span dropped from 12 seconds in 2000 to 8 seconds in 2015. Basically, this fact increases the pressure on content creators to come up with strategies that provide consumers with more relevant and engaging content.
The benefits of a content strategy
As I’ve said earlier, there is an increasing pressure on content creators and brands to come up with strategies that engage users more and more. But is this the only incentive for them? Let’s have a look at the main benefits of a well made content strategy:
Creates connections
A good content strategy aims at creating a connection between the brand and consumers. This link is created when the content touches the emotional side of the person consuming it. As we all know, emotions play an important role in the consumer’s decision process. Based on the impact a brand has at the emotional level, it can transform customers into loyal ones or lose customers forever. Furthermore, a content strategy tailored to the user’s interests, empowers the brand, making it stand out in front of the competition as more relevant.
Educates the audience
When a brand has a coherent content strategy, the power it has over its customers is greatly enhanced. Obviously, it can’t dictate what the consumer will or won’t do, but it can shape it to a certain degree. Besides this, it can determine consumers to take a more powerful stance against the problems that affect the society they live in.
The foundation to your marketing strategy
A well implemented content strategy can prove invaluable to your whole communication efforts, as it represents the heart of your marketing strategy. Without it, the marketing actions would lack substance coherency, making it less relevant to clients. This in turn, also damages the brand.
Enhances your business results
Naturally, a great content strategy enhances the power of the brand and shapes to a certain degree consumer’s behaviour. As opposed to promotional campaigns, this process doesn’t occur instantly or in a very short period, but over a longer span of time, the outcome resulting organically, and not under the influence of incentives such as a low price.
Keep it relevant
In order for the content to be useful for readers, the strategy has to be tailored to the user’s interests, while not neglecting the brand’s objectives. Basically, the strategy must align and connect the targeted audience’s interests with the brand’s goals. This way, the content is consumed organically, without being forcefully pushed by the company.
Even though the content is ideally consumed organically, in today’s content rich environment, the communication efforts must be dubbed by an SEO strategy, in order for them to be as effective as possible.
Determine which channels are the best for you
New content floods the internet every second, and with people’s attention span shorter now than ever, it is extremely important for you to share your content exactly where your target is. This means that you don’t have to use every social media platform or every content distribution platform available, but just the ones that matter. For instance, one of the best channels for us to communicate with our audience is through our blog. This channel enables us to provide our audience with useful pieces of information about digital marketing and social media marketing, such as case studies, predictions and much more.
Establish which Performance indicators matter
When implementing a content strategy, you must decide which metric is best for you. This way you can assess how efficient and effective your content is. These indicators may differ based on your goals, and will also be used to adjust the strategy in real-time. For instance, if you want to increase your awareness, you can look out for the number of views or followers. On the other hand, if you want to enhance your connection to your audience, you can look out for the number of comments, shares, the time spent on the page etc.
A well made content strategy can deliver spectacular results to both large and small companies. If you haven’t got one yet, you definitely should look into it and create one. As with all things in the online environment, time is a crucial factor, so the faster you start, the better.
