January 09, 2017

Is Anyone Talking About Your Company Online?

Try this easy experiment: Head to Google News, and type your company’s name into the search engine. Observe what comes up in Google’s listings. You should also try this for your competitors, and compare the results to see how your company is doing.

If you have to look past the first page for your company, stop. There’s little point in continuing, as this means your company isn’t generating a substantial amount of buzz online. As such, some work needs to be done to get your brand on track to join the digital conversations taking place in your industry.

Don’t be dismayed, though. The task of building brand awareness is a bit like starting a fire, in that you only need a spark to catch and spread consumer interest. Content marketing can be that spark for your company. If you create a content marketing strategy with legs, it will generate recurring brand awareness continually.

Brand awareness, for that matter, is now a top objective for content marketing professionals. In a recent study from the Content Marketing Institute (CMI), 79 percent of respondents claimed they would make brand awareness a priority over the next 12 months.

Here are some things that you should consider as you strive to improve your company’s digital brand awareness:

Focus on consistency: Once you start generating content, production should then flow consistently. It won’t look good from a customer’s perspective if the last document your brand published was from 2013. Determine a publishing schedule that works for your organization (it can be once per week, or multiple times), and start producing documents on a regular basis. Also, make sure you post them across a variety of channels, including your own website and social accounts. But do try to expand outside of your company’s ecosystem to build credibility. Also attempt to get your brand’s name in online magazines and other sources important to your readers, so that they start to view you as a trusted resource in your industry.

Produce a variety of assets: Chances are likely you have one preferred medium that you like to utilize above all others. Maybe you’re a wizard with filming, so video is your chosen communications tool. Or, maybe your specialty is writing blogs. Both video and the written word can be powerful, but they shouldn’t be used exclusively or you will miss engaging consumers that don’t share those media preferences (maybe they surf the Internet for audio podcasts). Balance your production, and try to create a healthy mix of audio, video, text and images on a regular basis. This way, you can connect with customers across media types. 

Make sure your content is interesting: While traveling this past holiday season, I picked up an airplane magazine on a flight and browsed through it. I stopped on a letter from an editorial director, which was a glowing recount of his childhood and his mother’s cooking. At the end of the letter, I was confused and had to go back to read it again. Although it was well-written, it seemed to be missing something—a sales pitch. Yet, even my re-read turned up no mention of the airline or any of its sponsors. It was a genuine article! The person who wrote it obviously cared deeply about his subject, as well as his readers--keeping the story short and punchy. Do you know what I did? I shared the article with my family and friends. The moral: When you create articles that delight your readers, they will want to share what your company has to say. Keep in mind that not every asset you deliver should sell a product or include a call to action.  

Try to rank for specific verticals: Another thing to consider is what your customers are looking for online. What problems are they trying to resolve when they conduct a search on Google? Collect and analyze the data coming into your business daily to answer this question, and then focus on creating content that will rank for the topic. For example, imagine a company that creates smart accessories for farms. This type of business should try to rank alongside search terms like “farm IT products” and “smart farming.” This is a bit like fishing; the hope is that a customer will enter a search query for one of those terms, and your brand’s content will pop up.

Working with a dedicated content vendor is the easiest way to generate buzz for your brand. The Content Boost team will work with your marketing department to create pointed, targeted content on a consistent basis that you can use to generate brand awareness online.

So don’t wait to start building a content marketing plan! To learn more about Content Boost, click here.  






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