What Is Content?
By: Britt Burrows
Tags: Content, Small Business, Business Owner, Small Business Marketing, Content Marketing

Content — it’s everywhere. You’ve heard the word in a number of contexts but what does it mean and how can you use it to grow your business?

Simply put content is anything you can create that is meant to be consumed by other people. It’s an extremely broad definition because content itself is a very broad thing.

Content can be pretty much anything. It can be something small like a photo, graphic, comment on a social post, a Tweet, or an email. It can also be something larger like a YouTube video, a blog post like this one, an infographic, a book, a whitepaper and more. The point of content is to convey a message to the masses in whatever medium best suits the message, the business and the consumer.

You may be thinking, “why do I need to worry about content?” Content is important to a business because it can attract and engage prospective customers while educating them on your product or service or informing them of vital details about your business. Think about how many new products or businesses because you saw a Facebook or Instagram post or even through an interaction a friend had with a Facebook or Instagram post. Most people can think of at least one, probably more if you give it a minute. That discovery is hard to cultivate without the use of content.

Content doesn’t have to be complicated. No one is expecting you to produce movie quality YouTube videos but some social or blogs posts and email blasts will get the message out there and enable that discovery your business needs.

HOW DO I GET STARTED CREATING CONTENT?

The first step in creating content is to establish a goal. Do you want to teach people more about your product? Do you want to make prospective customers laugh? Do you want to show off your new location? The goal can be something lofty or something small. It’s always important to know why you are creating content. Creating content just to create content isn’t usually an effective strategy — we’ve all see that in practice and it’s not pretty.

While thinking about a goal you also have to think about where you want that content to live and what medium it should be. Think about where your customers are. If you have the means you can choose to create video content that can be spread across social as well. You can also choose written or visual content that can be used and published in a variety of spaces. It’s all about your means and who the target audience is.

When you’re creating content it’s like you are playing one of those farming games — you’ve got to think about those kinds of games as grid, square by square by square, you choose what you’re going to do with each square and each square makes up the whole. Each square is a different type of content that works with the others while working independently. Each piece of content should stand on its own while reflecting one unifying message or goal.

Too often businesses and business owners are under the impression that less is more — less is more when it comes to calling someone or sending them an email every day. That isn’t true at all. What is more important when it comes to creating content is putting it up in all different areas, all different sites, so that people who need you can find you. Additionally it’s about quality. You can feel confident emailing people every day if you have something of quality to give them.

Say you decide to create one new video per month — what are you going to do with that video? How are you going to make use of it so that it’s not just video? How can you turn it into a blog post, social posts, messages through Facebook messenger or even a text message? Just creating a piece of content isn’t enough — you have to have a plan on how you are going to get it in front of the right people.

FINAL THOUGHTS

There are a lot of different things you can do with one piece of content. Stay tuned for the next few blog posts to learn more about creating an effective content strategy and how it can work together to get your business out there to more people.

Read more on how to get your business found online at BryanCaplan.com