We’re sorry to be the ones to have to tell you the cold, hard, unvarnished truth, but truth it is: your content just isn’t good enough.
You may be writing your heart out every single day.
You may have found your brand’s ideal voice – whether it’s witty, professional, warm, sarcastic, or something else entirely.
You may be researching topics late into the night, and then spending hours crafting the perfect headlines to grab people’s attention.
Heck, you may even have taken a course or two on how to write blogs, learning all the nitty-gritty about how to structure your sentences to make them more effective.
But even after all that, we’re here to tell you. Your content still isn’t good enough.
Why’s that, you may ask?
Well, let’s take a step back for a moment. What’s the purpose of content?
Of course, everyone knows the answer to that, right? To inform, to help, to build trust and credibility and authority, to convert….right?
Nope.
The main purpose of content is to be read.
OK, now you’re rolling your eyes, but it’s true, isn’t it? If your content is never read, it’ll never have a chance to inform, or build authority, or convert.
So now that we’ve established that, let’s go back to the original question – why isn’t your content good enough?
Because if you write it and then do nothing to promote it, no one will ever read it.
It’s not that your content isn’t good enough, it’s simply that content alone isn’t good enough to achieve all the lofty goals we set for it.
You have to help it along.
And how can you do that?
Here’s how to make your content work for you:
1. Make it naturally engaging. This is where all those blog-writing classes and hours spent researching topics come in handy. You do need to focus attention on making your content engaging. Why? Because steps 2, 3, and 4 won’t work unless it is! You’ve got to ensure that the topic you choose is interesting, relevant, and useful for your audience in order to have any hope of motivating them to read it themselves and then share it with others. And unless your post is read and shared, it’s useless. Make it easy to share, too, by adding social share buttons to your blog.
2. Share it via social. Once you’ve written that stellar content, you’ve simply got to promote it on social media. Facebook likes links to content better than memes now anyway, so you might as well take advantage of it. Push those posts out over every social platform you have a presence on, whether it’s Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, or any of the myriad others. And don’t just post a link without comment, or even preface it with a tired “here’s our new blog post.” Add an intriguing comment or question, or an excerpt from the blog – anything to catch people’s interest and get them to click.
3. Email it to your subscribers. The single best way to get a blog post in front of readers is to email it to them. People can forget about a website; they can miss a social post; but if it’s in their personal email inbox, they’re sure to see it. Your job is to make sure they open that email, by using the right subject line. And while you’re at it, go ahead and ask them outright to forward the blog post to others, or to share it on social media. You’d be surprised at what people will do if you just ask them nicely.
4. Share it with other industry experts. Finally, broaden your content’s audience by contacting other industry experts to see if they’d like to share your content with their own audiences. We’re not talking guest blogging in this instance – just shoot a friendly email to a few authorities in your field asking them if they’d like to see your blog post, since you think it might interest their audience. (It’s best not to include a link or attachment if you’ve never emailed them before.) If they say yes, go ahead and send them the link, and ask them to share it on their own social media channels, or even link to it in their own blog. A recommendation like that from an established authority will go a long way towards garnering interest in your content.
Producing content in an isolated bubble isn’t good enough.
Producing content and then actively sharing and promoting it is the secret to making your content accomplish its intended tasks.
So…let’s practice what we preach. Would you please share this post with anyone you think might find it interesting? Thank you!
You may be writing your heart out every single day.
You may have found your brand’s ideal voice – whether it’s witty, professional, warm, sarcastic, or something else entirely.
You may be researching topics late into the night, and then spending hours crafting the perfect headlines to grab people’s attention.
Heck, you may even have taken a course or two on how to write blogs, learning all the nitty-gritty about how to structure your sentences to make them more effective.
But even after all that, we’re here to tell you. Your content still isn’t good enough.
Why’s that, you may ask?
Well, let’s take a step back for a moment. What’s the purpose of content?
Of course, everyone knows the answer to that, right? To inform, to help, to build trust and credibility and authority, to convert….right?
Nope.
The main purpose of content is to be read.
OK, now you’re rolling your eyes, but it’s true, isn’t it? If your content is never read, it’ll never have a chance to inform, or build authority, or convert.
So now that we’ve established that, let’s go back to the original question – why isn’t your content good enough?
Because if you write it and then do nothing to promote it, no one will ever read it.
It’s not that your content isn’t good enough, it’s simply that content alone isn’t good enough to achieve all the lofty goals we set for it.
You have to help it along.
And how can you do that?
Here’s how to make your content work for you:
1. Make it naturally engaging. This is where all those blog-writing classes and hours spent researching topics come in handy. You do need to focus attention on making your content engaging. Why? Because steps 2, 3, and 4 won’t work unless it is! You’ve got to ensure that the topic you choose is interesting, relevant, and useful for your audience in order to have any hope of motivating them to read it themselves and then share it with others. And unless your post is read and shared, it’s useless. Make it easy to share, too, by adding social share buttons to your blog.
2. Share it via social. Once you’ve written that stellar content, you’ve simply got to promote it on social media. Facebook likes links to content better than memes now anyway, so you might as well take advantage of it. Push those posts out over every social platform you have a presence on, whether it’s Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, or any of the myriad others. And don’t just post a link without comment, or even preface it with a tired “here’s our new blog post.” Add an intriguing comment or question, or an excerpt from the blog – anything to catch people’s interest and get them to click.
3. Email it to your subscribers. The single best way to get a blog post in front of readers is to email it to them. People can forget about a website; they can miss a social post; but if it’s in their personal email inbox, they’re sure to see it. Your job is to make sure they open that email, by using the right subject line. And while you’re at it, go ahead and ask them outright to forward the blog post to others, or to share it on social media. You’d be surprised at what people will do if you just ask them nicely.
4. Share it with other industry experts. Finally, broaden your content’s audience by contacting other industry experts to see if they’d like to share your content with their own audiences. We’re not talking guest blogging in this instance – just shoot a friendly email to a few authorities in your field asking them if they’d like to see your blog post, since you think it might interest their audience. (It’s best not to include a link or attachment if you’ve never emailed them before.) If they say yes, go ahead and send them the link, and ask them to share it on their own social media channels, or even link to it in their own blog. A recommendation like that from an established authority will go a long way towards garnering interest in your content.
Producing content in an isolated bubble isn’t good enough.
Producing content and then actively sharing and promoting it is the secret to making your content accomplish its intended tasks.
So…let’s practice what we preach. Would you please share this post with anyone you think might find it interesting? Thank you!
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