Summer is the season of opportunity for content publishers. Many sites are slowing down and publishing less. Content aggregators have smaller pickings, too. Which makes it easier to stand out with good content and to gain or build momentum by keeping a regular schedule.
Many of the spring marketing campaigns are all wrapped up, and teams are starting to plan for the fall. Which means Websites, landing pages, and the production of new content for many brands is being temporarily put on hold.
Now is the time to
Re-energize your content
Here are 5 Es to help you
Enthusiasm
You're in it for the long haul, or not at all.
This requires a significant level of enthusiasm for your topic. You cannot give 110% if you're not in love with what you're doing, and 100% isn't enough these days. If you don't love your work enough to provide a consistently excellent stream of content, hire someone who does.
Change your topic. Or find another line of work.
Expertise
This really should go without saying, but a quick scan of virtually any topic vertical will demonstrate that a lot of so-called experts don't understand their topics, or have trouble relating what they know.
Read, research -- never stop learning. Learn to use Google Reader, LinkedIn and other networks to scan for content ideas, and follow people in your field. Almost as importantly, follow people in allied fields.
Their perspectives can be illuminating.
Empathy
Know your readers' needs. To a great extent, this about contextualizing your area of specialty. The is no authority beyond your reader's context. Read your archived content with an eye to relevance and improving it for clarity.
Expand upon some of the loose threads to help your readers catch up with you. Look for opportunities to answer more questions, too.
Eclecticism
It's important to be in tune the zeitgeist of your field. The old saying of "zig when the others zag" assume you've covered your zaggy bases.
The unexpected is what delights. Do you have a Liberal Arts degree? Use it. Nothing in your field arose from a vacuum. Feel free to relate the essential and nonessential -- to approach your topic with humor, wonder, and curiosity.
Last night on The Bean Cast show, Saul Colt used references to Beyonce' that were pertinent, fun, and thus made his points memorable.
Epiphanies
Both yours and the readers. Content creation isn't strictly a mechanical process. Where is your original insight -- the synthesis which only you can offer, the product of your thought or experience?
What the world needs is more key ideas, not keywords. If this isn't your goal, the best you can hope for is the highest degree of mediocrity.
[image by Leo Reynolds]
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I’d like to nominate “evaluate” as an additional “e” word. Everyday busyness leaves little time to step back, look at the big picture and make high-level judgments about whether content is supporting an organization’s larger goals and whether it’s setting the right tone for a business’s reputation. I think most of us understand that the attempt to maintain a regular flow of content can sometimes hit the frantic level for individuals and teams that have big to-do lists. A consequence is that content can be hastily developed and distributed in order to check the “I got out new content” box. Before you know it, a focused content strategy can morph into one where content simply fills space without much attention to purpose or audience. Using slow periods to evaluate and, if necessary, to refocus content direction seems like a good use of extra time to me.
Posted by: Diane Rose | July 12, 2011 at 10:16 AM
and it is a phenomenal choice, Diane. Organizations still need to be setting the pace, and a tone, of their output.
The reason why hasty content is alluring resides in the fact that it is often rewarded (on the surface) by "buzz" and momentary attention. It's not just the poor grammar and spelling... solid thinking takes time to form and back up.
Posted by: Valeria Maltoni | July 12, 2011 at 08:36 PM