Are you a leader or a follower?
If you’re not sure, just check your website and social media.
After all, that’s what your customers are doing — and it’s easy for them to tell whether you’re an authority in your field or if you’re the type to piggyback on the expertise of others.
Any company’s Facebook page or Twitter account can be filled with links to tips, resources and articles created by others — and there’s a place for that, to be sure — but those practices don’t really show that you’re knowledgeable in your industry.
Ideally, you want a mix of your own content (to show that you’re an expert) and a few curated links from others (to show that you can appreciate the value of others’ work, too).
There are two simple content marketing rules that successful businesses abide by:
Rule No. 1: Create meaningful, valuable, unique content that improves your customers’ or visitors’ lives in a measurable way. Always ask how what you’re sharing will make someone else’s day better. Maybe you’re sharing a tip to save them time. Maybe you’re helping people make decisions by sharing an aspect of your business that they otherwise wouldn’t know. Whatever it is, unique is good.
Rule No. 2: Share the great work of others — but sprinkle in your own content, too. It’s a great idea to share valuable tips you’ve learned from others in your field – giving them credit of course. But if all your visitors see is content that’s shared from elsewhere, they have little reason to trust you. Using and reusing the work of others does not make your social accounts look or feel special. It doesn’t take any skill to copy, paste and share posts by experts like Mari Smith or Jon Loomer. It doesn’t take skill to curate content via an RSS feed, and anyone can post visuals that others created that were found on Pinterest.
What sets businesses apart — what makes them look more professional — is when they share their own thoughts, opinions and insights via quality articles, unique visuals and custom messaging.
Many businesses don’t do that because, quite frankly, it’s not easy.
That’s why content offers such a huge opportunity to stand out. Unique content can put your business miles of the competition.
If you’re ready to get started producing content that’s unique to your website and social media accounts, Bellingham PR and Communiations is here to cheer you on!
And if you’re not confident in your abilities to consistently deliver excellent content and visuals, Bellingham PR and Communications is here to help. It pays to partner with someone who can deliver consistent and unique-to-you content. Our copywriters are experts in Bellingham and Whatcom County, and can craft just the write content for your website and marketing materials.
