Tag Archives: content

Can you get more from less?

So much stuff that we write doesn’t get read. Emails, blog posts, posts of all kinds. We just don’t have time to read everything. There’s so much coming at us today from all angles.

Brevity rules

If you can say it in 300 words or less, you’re winning.

If you can say it in 100, the chances of what you write being seen and read increases by a big margin.

Add a call to action – eg. come and say hi on Facebook – and this post is long enough. I’ve made a point, given a tip and asked you, the reader, to do something to get you into action.

Do you actually need much more than this?

(And this one’s over 100, even in this short format.)

What would I do if I was a retailer today

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The post-coronavirus world is starting to take shape. Here in Australia, shops are reopening and cafes and bars are now allowing 50 people inside. There is still the danger of a resurgence of the virus but we have no incoming travellers without a quarantine period and this seems to be doing its job well.

Retailers have been hit hard these last ten weeks. Here are a few of my ideas for them to boost their businesses and use free online platforms and tools to get it done.

The steps for retailers in the post-Corona world

Firstly, their Social Media profiles need to be put to work. Posts should be daily with offers for new customers and special offers for existing customers. All profiles should be checked over to make sure contact details and ‘about’ sections are up to date and on point.

Facebook Messenger is the ideal way to deliver offers online with high engagement levels – 80% open and 40% click-through rates – and I would be working to build my own chatbot to automate customer service as a minimum.

I would hire a comedic writer to create funny blog posts with a true sense of humour to increase the attention on my posts. Two funny posts on top of the offers content would work well. The funny writing should also be used to email my existing customers once a week to keep them engaged and updated.

I would use Instagram/Facebook Stories and TikTok to create video content every day. All of the attention is on video right now and I would use it to attract new followers and highlight the daily offer.

Every Saturday and Sunday would be ‘bring a friend’ day and there would be a voucher for everyone who turns up for them to use on another visit based on liking the Facebook page and subscribing to the chatbot.

And finally, I would say my prayers every night and be thankful that I’m still in business while many have already gone.

Share your best stuff

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There is fear around when it comes to sharing your ’secrets’. The stuff you do that gets results. The best stuff you have to offer.

I often hear from clients, “oh, there’s no way we can put that out there.”

My reply is always a challenge to this.

It comes down to time.

I’ve spent four years now creating content about my subject, Social Media. If someone took the time to watch my hundreds of videos on Facebook and YouTube, my daily LinkedIn posts and articles, and signed up for my weekly-ish email, they wouldn’t need to work with me because everything I know is in this content.

It’s all out there because I want potential clients to see the best from me.

The tips I’ve shared, the advice I’ve given and the stories I’ve told about experiences with clients is out there and it’s all free.

And the reason why it doesn’t cause me any problems is that my work is saving my clients that magic ingredient we all have not enough of – time.

The content is giving people a taste and I want this taste to be something they want more of.

I want them to get a practical tip, work on it themselves and get success from it. I’m then ‘top-of-mind’ as the person that helped them out and solved a problem for them.

And when they want more help, the chances of them coming to me are much, much greater.

They don’t have time to do it themselves and the work we do saves them lots of it. They also don’t have time to review everything that’s out there already from me.

When they see a post and it’s something really helpful and useful, rather than something I’ve just dialled in to make sure I’m showing up, it will be remembered.

And then when they need more, they’ll pick up the phone.

How to kickstart the process of generating great content ideas

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“I just can’t do this. I haven’t got anything to say”.

I’ve heard this come out of many mouths when I’ve talked to them about social media. It can seem a very daunting task to put your thoughts out there, into the public sphere, and all of your fears about making mistakes and ‘looking bad’ do tend to rise to the surface. It’s a very common excuse, though – one of quite a few on this list but you’ll be pleased to know that it’s also very easy to overcome.

The value in using social tools as a business comes from demonstrating to readers/viewers that you know your stuff as the starting point. There is information in your head that you might think of as mundane and not of much interest to others, but this is the stuff that people will learn from and connect with. You’ve got to think about what kind of information will be useful to the reader, however dull it might seem to you. Whatever your trade or profession, there is information that you have in your head that might be hugely useful to others so think about how you can make this knowledge start to work for you.

Another angle that always reads well is your own personal experience. If you were to think back through the experiences that have defined your career and then document the path your career has taken through the years, you could come up with some interesting details. Think of the people who have had the biggest impression on your career and also the biggest changes in your sector through the years, plus how you and those around you have adapted. Try commenting on where you feel your industry is heading in line with the overall macroeconomic picture and the turbulent times we live in today – there is a lot of data available at places like this and this so think about how best you can turn this into useful information for your followers.

Once you’re delivering some good work and getting more comfortable with putting your thoughts online, it could then be interesting to start to ask for input from your readers and approach a few more controversial topics with an eye on encouraging some debate. Ask readers for their opinions and encourage comments to build some engagement, being sure to reply to all comments to let readers know you are listening. You don’t need to start any fires – they can be damaging and very, very tricky to put out when they get going – but think about hot topics in the press/media that have relevance to your subject area and decide on an angle to take that will polarise opinion and get the reactions you’re looking for.

If you’re still struggling after reading this far, give me a shout and i’ll see what I can do to help you.

The top 5 reasons for not producing content when you know you should be

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You business has social media profiles in all the right places – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc – and they all look great. Your beautifully crafted logo looks fabulous on all of the profiles and your team are in a larger background picture having a few drinks in the sun at last year’s Christmas party… but apart from this, it’s eerily quiet on those pages – because there’s nothing else there!

You’re not producing content and you know you should be. Your biggest competitor has just run a campaign on Facebook that has even had your staff taking notice and they seem to be flying with every other post talking about new business coming in from all angles. They’re taking business that you know you should be getting and this is getting you and your senior team very, very frustrated.

So why aren’t you getting these profiles moving, filling them with things that your customers and clients would be interested in? Maybe one or two (or all) of these excuses might sound familiar:

1 – I don’t know where to start – the beginning is the right place and you’re beyond this as you have the profiles set up. You need to think about what your objectives are from using these tools and then construct a plan that will get you there as quickly as possible.

2 – I haven’t got time – It takes time to create content but this is time well spent. You can also get your team to help out and have some fun in the process. Once you know what you’re doing and get on with it, the process speeds up significantly

3 – I don’t know how – There are mountains of blog posts out there that will help you to learn about this subject, plus a wide away of people who can do everything from hold your hand through the first baby steps, right through to writing content for you. Dedicate a bit of time to learning and you will be up to speed in no time.

4 – I don’t know what to say – Finding your voice and developing a style will take some time but there is a huge amount out there already to give you ideas, inspiration and topics to work on. I find it easiest to write/comment about things I know and my own experiences. The words tend to flow much more easily this way.

5 – I can do it later – Of course you can! It’ll go on the to-do list along with everything else you know you should be doing. Take the bull by the horns on this one and get started today with a couple of tweets and sharing of someone else’s content that you’ve enjoyed and would be useful for your followers, such as this post 🙂

Take the plunge and get started and the results will come in time. You’ll also need some help to get your strategy aligned to your business objectives – this is where I come in so give me a shout when you have seen enough business disappearing in front of your eyes and we can get to work.

What’s the style that’s going to make you successful?

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Spend half an hour on Twitter (or less) and you will be able to identify the way people operate and how you would define them to someone else. It could be video content – lots of it – or it could be the way they interact and respond to the comments of their followers and start a debate on a daily basis. It could be their stunning photography or it could be their longer posts that tell amazingly detailed stories.

So what makes a style successful? It’s really down to you to find what feels comfortable and delivers the best results. Experiment with a few things before deciding that you’re going to be doing all of your work on video, for instance, especially if you’ve never done anything to camera in your life. That $1,000 Canon SLR might get a lot of attention from your creative friends but it might be gathering dust pretty fast if your videos don’t hit the mark.

Once you have put some content together and are sharing it on a regular basis, you should listen to the opinions of others you trust and take their feedback on board. It might mean that some time spent trying out another style is worth a try but it might also mean that you’re pointing in exactly the right direction, so don’t be afraid to ask in the first place.

When you find the style that fits you best, it’s time to build on these strengths and take some bold and confident steps. Aim your writing towards controversial subjects or take on more ambitious projects if you are creating video content. Use templates to build infographics into your work or create some some graphics to go at the beginning and end of your video to enhance the style you are developing and also help to build your brand with your audience.

Whatever it is that you’ve begun to deliver, create a plan to help keep you motivated and ensure you know where you’re going. But above all else, keep delivering, be ambitious and work as hard as you can and the success will come.

More in, more out when it comes to content

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I’ve read almost double the amount of books in 2016 as I did the year before. This reading has covered a very wide range of topics and has been fiction and non-fiction titles, autobiographies, ‘how to’ books, novels and more.

It’s done me the world of good and encourages more thought and the formation of new ideas of my own. I don’t have a TV but I watch a lot of video online and read all sorts of content – specifically in the marketing/technology area that’s my line of work but also in other areas that are of interest to me everyday – and this also helps to develop new ways of thinking and new things to say.

Something as simple as reading from a source that you have never visited before, or watching a different show to your usual choices on TV can also help. The broader the range of sources – reading/watching/taking in as much as you can from everywhere – will fill your brain with inspiration and this can lead you anywhere.

I’m always looking for new sources of inspiration, too. What have you read or seen this year that’s really rocked you and made you think?

Making a noise is only half the battle

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Many businesses have kicked off their social media activity and then struggled to make the impact that everyone keeps telling them they should be. They are sharing pictures of their plush offices or the Friday morning bacon rolls on a very regular basis, also posting the ‘deal of the week’ or the odd bit of industry-specific information here and there, then waiting for the phone to ring with new sales and enquiries from customers and clients.

The reality is that it takes a lot more than this to make the right kind of impact and the work is in not only creating content and shouting loudly about it, but building communities around this content and growing loyalty and trust in those who follow you and your brand.

Think about car alarms. If you’re in a city centre, there is hardly a day goes by when you don’t hear one going off. When was the last time you actually stopped what you were doing and said, “Wow, listen to that car alarm! I’m going to go and find out where it is and see what’s going on”? When they were first developed, the sound of one blasting would often cause a commotion with a crowd gathering around the car to see what the problem was, but after a while, as people got used to the sound and frequency of alarms going off, they began to be ignored.

The noise generated by social media is now starting to work in the same way. Most businesses have their website, Facebook page and Twitter account and a great deal of fuss is made about the content that is created in the early days of their online presence. But as time goes by and the level of contact and engagement with followers on a regular basis dwindles, so do the interest of followers and the impact of the page decreases. That key marketing message you want to share to your followers six months down the line of creating your pages becomes just another car alarm and falls on deaf ears.

Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, whose ideas have shaped the way we interact online as businesses and consumers, wrote ‘The Impact Equation’ back in 2012 and its key premise still holds true today, perhaps even more so – we need to be thinking about a mix of things to make people truly care about what we have to say when communicating with them online. A good idea will get us so far, but add an audience that trusts you and a following that can help spread our ideas and we are much more likely to make the kind of impact that gets results.

Take this idea to your own digital marketing efforts and think about where you are right now. Are you engaging with those who follow you and building their trust in your products and services over and over again? Are you regularly communicating your ideas to your followers or only when you have time? And do you have followers who actually read your content rather than just pass it by in their bulging news feed? If you feel you are hitting the right spot on all of these points with your target audience, well done and keep it going! But if you would like some help in getting better results than you are today, let’s talk about how I can help.

Picking the right tools and platforms for you and your business

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The pressure to start using social media to promote yourself and your goods and services is coming from all angles. If you aren’t posting pictures on Instagram, are you going to miss out? If you don’t have 10,000 Twitter followers, are you going to be less successful than other competitors who do? How do you decide which platforms and tools are best for you and which ones will give you the best results for your time and effort?

The first thing to assess is where you live online for your personal profiles. If you are a happy Facebook user who is comfortable with the way that it works and you post a solid stream of updates there on a fairly regular basis, it might make sense for you to add a business page to Facebook and use it to build your business profile. If you have never used Twitter, don’t really understand how it works and find it hard to write short posts, jumping into Twitter for your business may not really make sense. Best to stay where you are comfortable while you are starting out and then try more things later when you are more confident.

Next, consider what kind of content you are going to be producing as this will have a big effect on the tools you use to deliver great results. If you’re an accountant, it’s unlikely that you will produce a lot of photos of your work and it is much more likely that you will be writing a lot of ‘how to’-type posts. In this case, jumping straight onto Instagram and creating a profile there may not be the wisest move to make and a WordPress blog supported by a Twitter account to enable sharing with your followers may make much more sense.

It would also pay huge dividends to look at your competitors and other key players in your sector and identify what is working really well for them. Using infographics to share highly factual and statistic-heavy chunks of information could mean that Instagram is worth a try but it might also be relevant to look at using infographics with lots of colour and images as one-off posts to give some variety to your written posts and draw in some new followers on a Facebook page. The competitor review is a key step in working out what is the best approach to take with the kind of people you are looking to engage with and will help you come up with a great plan. Results tend to be much stronger when you go to places where people are already engaged and then use similar tactics yourself than try to convert people to something new.

The key here is to avoid opening accounts on every platform in a rush to cover all bases and then use one account over all of the others and leave the rest to die a very slow and painful death. The other accounts will look very sad and empty when your customers or clients look you up online before deciding to do business with you and the impression you want to create is quite the opposite – regular, recent posts showcasing your products, knowledge, skills and services that encourage followers to learn more and start to engage with you and your brand.

Get inspired

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Time on the internet can be seen by many people as a real negative. Many hours can be frittered away watching youtube clips or shopping for your next pair of shoes. I spend a lot of my day online and I do like to get away from it for a while but I also like to use it in my own time to get inspired.

I read a lot of content and I also watch a lot of video, especially interviews and discussions on subjects that I am interested in. I subscribe to a few podcasts and listen to them weekly. I take in as much as I can as I want to fill my brain with inspirational content and encourage myself to develop new ideas and think about the things I already do in a different way – and listening to how other people achieve their own success is a great starting point.

One thing that I do often is favourite things that catch my eye on Twitter to read later on or save into other readers such as Pocket. 30 minutes spent looking back at this list of favourites will always spring a few pleasant surprises.

It also makes a lot of sense to learn from people who have found success using their own methods. It may not mean that the same methods will work for you but why not take the tried and tested route and see what results you get? You can adapt things along the way and find fixes that fit but it can be a great way to kick start a new routine or break a bad habit, for instance.

As long as the content is truly inspirational and you are able to take away at least one method or tip from it, it will definitely be time well spent.

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Ian Mountford is a Strategy Coach providing motivation and guidance to entrepreneurs, wannabe or fully-fledged. He draws from his own experience of building businesses from the ground up and spending many years helping clients to consistently achieve their goals and aspirations. Ian works with clients face-to-face and internationally.

Brevity rules

Stop making noise

The steps for retailers in the post-Corona world