Creating engaging content has become a priority for businesses as it is one of the most effective ways to educate your audience, strengthen your brand and raise your ranking on Google. It’s important for building and maintaining your brand image, as behind every great brand is a wealth of valuable and relevant content that helps connect you with your audience.
LinkedIn is an amazing platform not only for job seekers but also for entrepreneurs, marketers & content creators. Its professional and user-friendly platform is the perfect place to engage with potential customers and partners. In this short guide we will discuss the advantages of adding LinkedIn as one of your content channels and 7 handy tips to power-up your content marketing whilst making the writing process more efficient and impactful.
Understanding the advantages that content can bring to your business.
Build trust with your audience
Good content will help you build trust and a relationship with your customers, as they read your content they will start to connect with your brand. For example, if they find your content educational and valuable, they will think the same about your brand.
Drive traffic to your website
Your latest LinkedIn articles and posts can also double up as traffic generators for your website. Social media is one of the top 3 ways to generate traffic for your website, you can easily reference other content on your website or include links for viewers to “learn more”. It only takes a minute to see how many visitors your website has received from any of your social media channels in Google Analytics, giving you a deeper insight on your customer journey and letting you know how effective your content has been.
Insightful content can greatly improve your ranking on Google (SEO)
Content should never just sit on one platform… don’t forget to maximise your content by repurposing it on every channel, including your website. Informative and helpful writing will not only be noticed by your customers, Google is constantly indexing every article on the internet in the hope of giving its users the most relevant and detailed answers to their questions.
Note if you spend a little time writing with your audience in mind and remember to share it on your website and Google Business profile as well as LinkedIn then you should start ranking on search for the topics you cover.
It allows you to get to know your customers and start meaningful conversations
Content delivered through social media such as LinkedIn allows for feedback, discussion and creates 2 way conversations that are not possible through other marketing channels. Giving you a deeper insight of your audience and their views, which can help to build a stronger marketing funnel and create highly targeted content in the future.
Learn how to build your brand on LinkedIn with these 7 handy tips:
Creating engaging content has become a priority for businesses as it is one of the most effective ways to educate your audience, strengthen your brand and raise your ranking on Google. It’s important for building and maintaining your brand image, as behind every great brand is a wealth of valuable and relevant content that helps connect you with your audience.
LinkedIn is an amazing platform not only for job seekers but also for entrepreneurs, marketers & content creators. Its professional and user-friendly platform is the perfect place to engage with potential customers and partners. In this short guide we will discuss the advantages of adding LinkedIn as one of your content channels and 7 handy tips to power-up your content marketing whilst making the writing process more efficient and impactful.
Understanding the advantages that content can bring to your business.
Build trust with your audience
Good content will help you build trust and a relationship with your customers, as they read your content they will start to connect with your brand. For example, if they find your content educational and valuable, they will think the same about your brand.
Drive traffic to your website
Your latest LinkedIn articles and posts can also double up as traffic generators for your website. Social media is one of the top 3 ways to generate traffic for your website, you can easily reference other content on your website or include links for viewers to “learn more”. It only takes a minute to see how many visitors your website has received from any of your social media channels in Google Analytics, giving you a deeper insight on your customer journey and letting you know how effective your content has been.
Insightful content can greatly improve your ranking on Google (SEO)
Content should never just sit on one platform… don’t forget to maximise your content by repurposing it on every channel, including your website. Informative and helpful writing will not only be noticed by your customers, Google is constantly indexing every article on the internet in the hope of giving its users the most relevant and detailed answers to their questions.
Note if you spend a little time writing with your audience in mind and remember to share it on your website and Google Business profile as well as LinkedIn then you should start ranking on search for the topics you cover.
It allows you to get to know your customers and start meaningful conversations
Content delivered through social media such as LinkedIn allows for feedback, discussion and creates 2 way conversations that are not possible through other marketing channels. Giving you a deeper insight of your audience and their views, which can help to build a stronger marketing funnel and create highly targeted content in the future.
Learn how to build your brand on LinkedIn with these 7 handy tips:
1. Create a buyer persona
To reach your audience effectively you need to know them inside out, where to find them and the conversation style that resonates with them and breaks through the noise on social media.
The key to successful content marketing is making each reader feel like you’re speaking directly to them by getting personal and making sure you know them well, know their challenges, pain points and fears, as well as their biggest fantasies and best possible outcome.
Always remember that you are marketing to humans that want to feel understood and inspired by your writing. In an ideal world we would know every single customer personally and have the time to connect with them individually. Unfortunately, that level of interaction is only feasible with the most high-end property and investment businesses.
Fortunately, you can achieve a similar connection with a much larger audience by defining your buyer persona. This outlines the type of person you want to reach with your content and provides a clear representation of your target audience. Creating your buyer persona takes research but the end picture is your ideal customer who will consume your content.
2. Tell stories – Share your success AND failures
There is no better way to connect with people than by telling stories. By exposing ourselves, we open-up to our audience and share our experiences which builds trust and creates an organic following on LinkedIn.
Give people a step-by-step account of how your business has formed and what allowed you to be where you are today. Avoid bragging and share lessons you have learned along the way, where you started and how your business has grown.
Also don’t forget to showcase your failures, write about the biggest challenges you have overcome and what you learned from them. Realise that sharing your story can help others and will enable your audience to get to know you and build a connection with you and your brand.
3. Consume more content
The more content you consume, the more content you will be able to create as it will naturally spark inspiration. Read more articles related to your industry, listen to podcasts, or read books that are relevant to your niche. For each podcast that you listen to there will be at least 5-10 different ideas for content and you will begin to see there are ideas for content everywhere.
www.getpocket.com is a great tool for storing and categorising content for later use. It works across all ofyour devices and makes it quick and easy to save any webpage or article so that you can recall it at any time as a reference point when writing new content for your audience.
4. Curate content from inspiring leaders
Build a list of content creators who provide valuable, succinct articles that will benefit your writing as well as your audience. Aim to spend at least 20 minutes each day engaging in their posts, leaving thoughtful comments, and adding these articles to your own database.
Then, save those comments in same place where you capture your ideas. When you are looking for inspiration you can quickly refer to these comments and use this to inspire you for your content. Create a new hook, and then break down your thoughts by expanding on each point and adding supporting information. Continuously think about your buyer persona throughout the creation process is the tone, length and purpose clearly defined and have you given them a clear call to action that is in line with your own goals.
This is a double win, as you are becoming that thought leader putting time and effort into engaging in other people’s posts, whilst repurposing that comment and reutilizing it for your own audience. If you created something in one format, try to think of all the other ways that you could reuse and consume that information that might be just as effective.
5. Give your point of view.
Once you have an engaged audience you might find yourself wanting to tell them about an inspiring product or service. It could be something that has benefited you personally or made your life easier at work. People are continuously looking for ways to enrich their life and it’s likely that you will naturally build a list of reccomendations for your niche.
The Bitesize Marketing Guides include countless reccomendations for tools to save you time. Nothing mentioned in the guides is sponsored in any way, they simply stand out as effective tools to boost productivity that are worth sharing! Canva, Trello, Pocket, Google My Business, HubSpot and all the tools that help small businesses to grow and are worth sharing.
Start by picking a product or service and write what you like/dislike about it. This can be anything from podcasts, books, articles. Make sure you focus it on your audience. Rather than saying “I recently listened to”, start off with a quote from the specific content that will be inspiring, or the biggest takeaway that will bring value to your audience.
6. Capture your ideas
Make sure you have a means of tracking the ideas you have, whether it’s as simple as using pen and paper or the notes app, Trello, Evernote or Notion. These are free apps you can use on your phone to jot down ideas to come back to later when you require content. Everyone has their own way of retaining information and these can evolve over time so don’t be afraid to try new methods to find your own style.
7. Always ask yourself “So what?”
Social media is cleverly designed to keep us engaged with an endless stream of media and the “noise” created is making it more difficult than ever for content creators to be heard. The best way to build a trusted audience is to validate each piece of content before it goes public.
Simply ask yourself “So what?”. Try to understand the value that you are providing and if the content provides new, insightful, or detailed information that goes above and beyond what’s easily accessible to your audience. It’s more than likely that the topic has been covered before but what makes yours unique.
For example, the concepts in this article are not revolutionary and can surely be found elsewhere online. However, they are carefully pieced together to support small business owners and offer valuable, practical advice. Each article focuses on a pain-point faced by marketers / business owners and is supported by references with the aim of building a content hub you’ll return to regularly for inspiration.