Content marketing is a highly prevalent trend in the digital marketing space that allows marketers to build authority among their followers and create long-lasting relationships. Building your online presence strategically and consistently is the key to content marketing success says Julia McCoy with Search Engine Journal. That strategy can include, but is not limited to email marketing, blogging and social media. 

Here are a few of variables to keep in mind when writing brand content so that it reaches its full potential and achieves your strategic goals.

You’re talking to humans

View your audience members as people rather than consumers. For example if you’re a pediatrician, your audience is going to be heavily saturated with parents. Think about what matters to them: their kids of course, but also topics like parenting tips, time saving techniques for families and how to build child’s responsibility over time.

In order to begin generating appealing content, consider your followers’ habits. Some questions to ask yourself are:

• What social media platform are they most likely using?
• What do they eat?
• What posts are they most likely to share with their community?

The answers to these questions will help inform your style of writing. For example, Instagram posts should be primarily visual and have a clever caption, whereas LinkedIn posts should be professional and informative.

“To build a solid foundation for your business, you must first identify your typical customer and tailor your marketing pitch accordingly.” By taking time to understand your target audience you can create “personas” to write to. This helps focus your writing so you’re not trying to appeal to too many demographics at once – this ends up being confusing and generic.  

Ensure you are reaching all members of your targeted audience by crafting content that specifically applies to them and their interests. Once you’ve created some of these “personas,” you’re ready to put pen to paper.

Think outside the box

While it is best to speak to themes that you’re already familiar with, don’t feel limited to writing solely about your industry. In fact, incorporating posts about your life outside of work will help your audience relate to you on a personal level. Bonus points if you can relate seemingly irrelevant stories back to your business values.

Maybe you’re the coach of your daughter’s soccer team– what did 20 five-year-olds teach you about collaboration? Not only will anecdotes like these make people laugh, but they also make you relatable. Now you’re gaining the trust of your followers, and trust leads to influence.

Encourage engagement

Have you ever met someone that just seemed too happy, about everything? It makes that person seem suspicious. While it is important to maintain an overall positive tone in your content, it is to your benefit to post things that are interesting, not just the things that make you look good. In fact, a recent from the Association for Psychological Science study actually shows that posting high-arousal content leads to more social transmission (likes, shares, comments, etc.) than purely positive content.

Let’s break it down.

Positive emotions, such as contentment and amusement, have different effects. For instance, when you see an article that says the national employment rate is up by three points, you might think to yourself, “Oh, cool”. This is contentment.

But when you see a picture of a kitten sitting on top of a golden retriever, your reaction is a little different. That’s amusement.

Now which of those two posts are you more likely to share with your significant other?

My point exactly.

Be you

All in all, the best piece of advice is to speak on your passion. If you’re excited about something and can convey that passion into your content, your audience will pick up on it. What separates humans from any other species is our intuition. We have the ability to sense when others are being genuine and that makes us like them. You can offer the best product in the world, but if your consumers don’t like you they will constantly be searching for alternatives.

If you’re likeable, you create sustained relationships. The result? When you roll out your next product or service, you already have loyal fans to jump on the bandwagon.