What Your Digital Content is Missing and What it Could Cost You

If a company writes a blog post and no one reads it, does it really exist? In the digital age, the amount of content your company produces for websites, blogs and social media are not nearly as important as the impact it creates in terms of views, traffic and shares. The degree to which your content has an impact will depend on a number of factors including its relevance, its originality and whether or not it is compelling for your target audience. If your blog traffic is stagnant and your social media blasts aren’t making the rounds online, what might your content be missing? Here are a few elements you need to keep in mind to create impactful content. Ensure It’s Relevant and Timely Simply put, content needs to be relevant for your target audience and be available at the right time. For example, the last thing people probably want to read about in May is a deal on shovels or tips on how to prepare for winter. People are probably more concerned about planting their garden or planning their summer vacations and you likely won’t get many readers, traffic or sales from your winter-themed posts. Make sure to do research and determine what specifically your users are interested in at different times of year and where they are looking for that information so you can be ready with the right content at the right time in the right place. The Long and Short of it There is much debate as to the optimal length for online content. Some will tell you to never go over 500 words while others strongly support the need for extensive and detailed content. But the truth is, you need a mixture of both. Make it Sharable If you are hoping to get your content shared amongst your audience, there are a few things to consider when developing this content. These include a compelling title, the type of content you choose, the way it is organized, where and when you publish, images and calls-to-action. You can find more information on these topics here. However, if you are not designing your content strategy to fit your specific audience, none of these things will help increase the reach of your content. If you give your audience what they want, they will end up doing to leg work for you. Be Emotional People need to be intrigued and entertained. Fractl explains that while an emotional response to your content is a good thing, some emotions are better then others at encouraging your audience to share. The top five shareable content emotions are amusement, interest, surprise, happiness and delight. Take advantage of these findings and bump up your audience’s interest and willingness to share. What Bad Content Could Cost You When you ignore these valuable lessons you may be missing out on more than just entertaining your audience. Having less engaging content means you will: Be less likely to have content shared on social media Have decreased online visibility Have lower brand awareness Have reduced sales Companies and marketers who miss these details and concepts in their digital content are less likely to have their content read and less likely to have it shared on social media. Take the time to get to know your audience and figure out what content they would be most interested in reading. Those who can do this well will be rewarded with more online visibility and brand awareness, which can translate into increased sales.