I am not talking about the latest fabric softener, but your online content. I was recently asked by a client: "I have been doing these posts on social media for a year, and I am struggling to come up with something new and creative. What do I do?".
My initial advice was don't panic. Remember that you may feel you have said it all before, but your clients and customers are unlikely to be as invested in your business as you are. As nice as it would be, they probably are not hanging off your every word / post. This means you have some leeway to re-imagine / reinvent your content.
Here are some of my top tips on keeping the content creation cogs turning:
1. Keep your past content. Just because you have talked about an offer / product or service before, doesn't mean you can't again. Your past content may help trigger some new ideas about how to talk about it. Add some new images / vidoes and there you go - fresh content.
2. Know what your audience have appreciated. If there is a particular blog that garnered lots of hits or received lots of clicks from your mailers, then take that content and give it an update. Refer people back to your previous blog and let them know what is new in this area.
3. Track what others are saying about you / your industry / product. Set up alerts so you know when people have posted content about you or the things you are interested in. These will help to keep the creative juices flowing.
4. It will depend on your industry, and you must know your audience and what they want, but generally visual content is what attract people to engage with you via social media. For example, if you are a restaurant and you have a new menu, take pictures of all of the items and maybe even the raw ingredients. They don't need to be perfect, but they should be authentic and tell your story.
5. Refer back to your website. You have spent the time and money building one, use your own content to inspire you.
6. Incorporate days of the month. Even if you don't refer to them directly they may give you some ideas about topics you could tackle. A great website is Days of the Year, it has more obscure days than you can shake a stick at!
7. Listen to what your customers say. Are there questions you are asked regularly? Perhaps you could create content that addresses some of those.
In summary, when it comes to content don't be afraid to rinse and repeat. It is very hard to come up with something that has never been said before, unless your product involves some cutting edge science of technology - so don't try to. Tackle your content in your own unique way and be consistent, that is what will keep people coming back.
