Businesses today look for the best ways to reach potential customers online. The interruptive forms of advertising, such as “pop-up” ads, are no longer seen as effective. Consumers are more apt to close an ad after giving it the briefest of glances. For this reason, brands are turning to content marketing as the best way to draw in customers.
Content marketing is not about writing descriptions of your products, giving them a title and posting them across the Web to any site that will have them. It is to provide valuable information to consumers, which is relevant to your brand. In doing so, you are presenting yourself as an expert and a business that can meet a person’s needs.
One of the keys to a successful content strategy is to incorporate it, hand-in-hand, with your social media strategy. Once you produce content, social networking channels are the best way to share it with your audience.
A challenge that companies face in this strategy is producing enough content that is going to encourage the audience to interact and engage. A way to keep unique content coming is to encourage your followers to create content for you.
There are apps available that will make it easier to invite your audience to make and share content
that is related to your brand:
Put It to a Vote
Using voting apps, create a topic that your followers can vote on. For instance, a T-shirt design or the name of a new menu item. Voting not only gets people to cast a vote for their favorite, but it also starts a conversation within the comments. You gain valuable insight from the people who support your brand.
Choose a topic, ask your followers to vote and see how far the conversation goes.
Personalize the Experience
You can use engagement apps to provide your followers with a more individualized experience. For example, if you are a clothing brand, you can send each user suggestions for clothing pieces that match their style profile.
Find ways to make the fan feel as if you have singled them out for a new product or service. This level of service is something that they will be quick to share among their own social networks.
Invite Fans to Submit Content
When you invite your followers to create something for your brand, it contributes to that sense of community that you are trying to build. It makes your fans like an important part of your business.
Ask them to submit videos, stories and photos for you to post on your site and share on social media.
Throw Down a Challenge
People like to test their knowledge against others, so putting up a quiz is a good way to engage with your followers. Ask people to submit their own questions that will be informative for the audience while relating to your brand.
For example, if you are a travel company, you can post questions that relate to your favorite destinations. These types of posts see a lot of engagement on social media because they are fun and interesting.
Encouraging your audience to take an active role in your content marketing doesn’t just make things simpler for your brand, it also creates a connection with your followers that cannot be created in other ways.
People want to feel like the things they have to say matter to you. Bringing them in as a part of your content creation leads to stronger bonds with your customer.
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