Essential Elements of Small Business Content Marketing

In the past, the only businesses that were required to produce daily quality content were news, academic organizations, and entertainment companies. In today’s world of online branding and representation, all businesses are required to maintain professional, interesting content if they want to succeed and maintain contact with their market. Providing your audience and clients with relevant, regular content via social media platforms (including LinkedIn), blogs or professional articles, newsletters, and up-to-date websites strengthens your brand and builds your expert reputation.

First thing’s first: your business must produce quality content. Grammatical errors, too casual of a tone, and content that is run-of-the-mill can hurt your business more than having no online presence at all. If you’re not a strong writer, virtual assistants like myself who specialize in content creation can easily craft content that meets the criteria outlined below. Your business is better off handing the task over to a pro that knows how to curate content to meet the demands of an increasingly social market.

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The content you post on your website, blog, and social media needs to be original. Originality means that the content contains information that is unique to your company, industry, and brand and that it is written in a voice and style that appropriately matches the professional level and culture of those three elements. Whatever your industry and level of professionalism, it’s also important to share some amount of personal information about yourself or your company’s history to humanize your business and connect subjectively with your audience. Adding personal touches to your writing makes it more original and helps ensure that you won’t become lost in the sea of articles and sites on the web.

Originality is essential, but it won’t mean much if the content is not relevant to your target market. If the information you share isn’t relatable to your audience, they are less likely to engage and move on to the next article or site offering more specific information. In addition to traditional forms of market research, social media platforms like Facebook and Pinterest, as well as online stat tracking applications like Google Analytics, offer in-depth insight into your viewers’ interests, habits, and demographics. It’s important to incorporate this information, in addition to other market research available to your business, into the crafting of your content to ensure that it stays fresh. Additionally, always make sure that the information provided is appropriately matched to your organization’s image and mission statement. Part of relevancy is maintaining a consistent brand while making sure that your company evolves with its clients.

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Finally, studies have shown content is likelier to be consumed if it contains a visual component, whether that be a photo, illustration, or video. Many small businesses now include an introductory video on their home page or videos of tutorials or talks relating to their services somewhere on their site and on social media. Incorporating visual elements into your content is another item that can be tasked to a professional content manager.

At Jennie Lyon Virtual Assistant Services, we are now offering content creation packages. Whether you need a weekly blog post, ezine or social media posts, we have your content creation needs covered!