When it comes to content marketing, there are topics that are thought of as easy to promote and others that are harder to promote. Smartphones are an example of a topic that might be thought of as easy to promote while pest control is on the harder end of the spectrum.
So if you're forced to work on a topic deemed difficult, or one where there aren't many examples to build upon or inspiration to be had, how do you deal with it?
Well, you have to get creative. Those who can take a "tough" or "boring" topic and make it interesting will be able to take that experience and be even better at creating content for popular and easy topics down the road.
To get started, you just have to ask yourself one simple question:
How Can I Make This Fun and Interesting?
If you've already been sitting at your computer asking yourself, "How can I create fun and interesting content that promotes pest control?" and come up with nothing, you may not be digging deep enough for ideas.
Oftentimes, we get stuck doing things a certain way, which prevents us from seeing the answers right in front of us. For content writers, this generally means getting out of your comfort zone of simple ideas and looking for ways to make something completely different.
Here are three simple steps to making that happen:
- Find a way to connect people to your topic
- Use current events/popular culture to create a fun angle
- Utilize images and video
Finding Ways to Connect People to Your Topic
The success of your content boils down to how you're able to connect your audience with the topic at hand. It doesn't matter how big your budget is or how popular the topic; if you can't bridge a connection that compels your audience to share or any kind of action, you've failed.
Thinking about pest control, it's actually not hard to get people to connect to it. It's likely everyone has dealt with some kind of bug or rodent problem in their home in the past, so we can all relate to the need for pest control.
But our content doesn't need to actually promote pest control directly, it simply has to relate to it. With that in mind, you could create a list called The 10 Scariest Bugs You Wouldn't Want to Find in Your Home.
With pictures, detailed descriptions, origins, and other information, you can create something people will want to share.
When trying to connect your audience with your topic, think long and hard about this example and how you can apply it to your own work.
Using Current Events or Popular Culture to Create Fun Angles
Current events and popular culture always strike a cord with people. If you can utilize them to get your message across, you'll have a better shot at drawing people in with your content.
Sticking with our pest control example, what would be a simple way to connect something from popular culture with our "boring" topic?
Well, superheroes are now ingrained in our popular culture, so that's a good place to start. You could have fun with an article called How Batman Deals With Rodents in Wayne Manor.
As an exercise, try to come up with a similar example and then execute it. Share it on as many sites as possible, reach out to blogs that link to offbeat content, and put some promotional dollars behind it on sites like Facebook and StumbleUpon.
Use Images and Video to Make Your Content More Compelling
Images and video are extremely powerful tools in your fight for compelling content. They keep people engaged, supplement your written content, and help increase a visitor's time on your site.
When creating content like how-tos and lists, be sure each item has a dedicated image. These not only help break up content for better reading, but will make your content more enjoyable overall.
Videos also help break up content, but their main purpose is to help you explain something in a more visual and interesting way than just written text.
For instance, The 10 Scariest Bugs You Wouldn't Want to Find in Your Home post we talked about in the first section could become even better with videos to supplement your pictures, descriptions, and other information.
Take a look at how you're creating content today and look for ways to better incorporate images and video.
Final Note: Work on Improving Quality, Not Producing More and More Content
One of the biggest problems with content today is that there's just so much of it out there. In order to stand out from the crowd, you need to stop thinking about producing more content and think about improving the quality instead.
This has been said time and time again, so I realize you might think that statement is worthless. Hear me out with this one simple tip: Put more time into your content. If you're just producing content to see what sticks, how are you supposed to add value to your users' experience?
Instead of thinking about ways you can cut corners to do more, start thinking about ways you can add more value to your content. If this means talking with your boss or client about a revised strategy, create a proposal and schedule a meeting to discuss it.
With as much competition as there is online, the only way you're going to stand out is by constantly out doing them with high quality content.
This post was originally published on Wikimotive's company blog.
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