Content is a loaded topic. Have you thought about it lately? There is so much content out there! Social media content, video content, services content, sales content, web content; I could go on forever. All types of content lead back to the point that content is a form of communicating a topic or idea. We are all creating content almost every single day! Sometimes I find that we forget what the word actually means because we use it so often.
We’ve all been there. You know...when a potential client says “Thanks for your time but I’m going with the other person because they’re cheaper.” Anyone in the creative industry (and beyond) has heard this a time or two and had to fight an eye roll or hide their facial expression. While the price is always a factor in any purchase decision it shouldn’t be the ONLY factor. If you’re on the client end of a proposal review, consider the following 5 factors the next time you’re making your decision.
I listened to “Over Here” by partynextdoor 15 times in a row the other day. When first arriving on the scene, partynextdoor’s sound (and affiliation) was regularly compared to The Weeknd, but the careful ear strongly disagrees. In light of the comparisons, I find myself listening in situations that I could also apply to moods and mindsets that would be fulfilled by the falsetto croons and spacey production of Yung Abel.
During a recent discussion with my friend Pat, it was pointed out that we compare artists because of the feeling or emotions that their music inspires in us. Sounds and lyrical content trigger similar responses causing us to say one artist sounds comparable to another, but in actuality, we should be saying “feels like” rather than “sounds like”. We categorize artists into a genre, but the genre itself is based on the idea of an anticipated range of emotions, lyrics, and sounds. We tend to listen to these artists that we, in an almost innate fashion, try to relate to others.
So what makes people favor the moods of music that they do? Do they choose to listen because they want to experience a particular reaction?
Let’s look at this idea from two different perspectives. When we feel a certain way, we tend to resort to a specific genre of music. We want to relate to what the song is saying and know that someone else might understand us. This is why we put artists into categories so that we can go to a genre and know these artists are going to embody the emotions that we may already be experiencing. You don’t go to a club and expect to hear depressing music.
Aside from capturing and empowering an existing emotion, our genres of choice can completely change our emotional state, helping to get us from one end of a spectrum to the other, more desirable end. You’ve been feeling sad and no longer want to feel that way, so you listen to a more upbeat genre to change the way that you feel. You are wanting to avoid an emotion and change your current state of mind. How many times have you skipped a sad song because you knew it was going to entail a flood of associated emotions and memories?
The significant difference is between the initial and desired emotion. The way we feel as a response to the music becomes a matter of control. Music is a relationship of the mind and it’s relative emotional responses via sonic design/lyrical content. Music is a powerful influence. However, there is no Yin without Yang. Our emotions fuel the empowerment of music by acting as its receptors and its creators. Understand a bit of the music, understand a bit of yourself.
- Mel
There are few things I love more than branding and digital marketing, except when they come together, of course! Last year, I joined Babe Crafted in February for a Tampa Bay Startup Week panel called “The Do’s and Don’ts of Your Digital Brand.” We discussed all the things including what you should and shouldn’t be doing online to make sure that your brand is unique, your message consistent, and your content relates to your audience. Since many of you don’t reside in the Tampa area, I decided to give you a summary of what I suggested to others starting out with their online strategy. Here are my expert do and don’t tips for your digital brand!
How often have you asked yourself a similar version of this question? More often than not, the answer is yes. When it comes to growing brand visibility, from Instagram to Tik Tok, the possibilities are quite endless to get in front of your target audience. Pinterest in particular can be a bit more time-consuming than Instagram or Facebook but with a few strategic hours and Tailwind, you can be driving higher traffic and increased sales.
Identify the parts that make you better or different than your potential and existing competitors and focus on them. Do you have great customer service? Do you have great client or customer education information? Take photos of the person behind it and applaud them publicly or create videos that highlight your knowledge. Encourage happy customers to leave reviews so that others who look you up have trust in you before they’ve ever met you.
Take time once a month or once a quarter to analyze what DIDN’T work not only in digital marketing but on your business as a whole and find ways to fix it. Your brand shines from the inside out so chances are if you can see it behind the scenes from the inside others are DEFINITELY seeing it on the outside. Involve staff in this process so that they can better understand the issues and assist in fixing it moving forward.
Just because something may work on social media for your competitor or a similar business doesn’t mean it’s going to work for you. A brand should take on the identity of it’s owner to a certain point and that should also be reflected to others. If you’re a super silly person and don’t take yourself too seriously, let that personality shine through.
Sometimes it’s best to leave it to the professionals. Just because you have great ideas in your head doesn’t mean you know how to best execute them. Having the right group of trained professionals around you can often times grow your brand faster than you ever would have without them.
In order for any existing or potential customer to identify any of the past 4 items, they have to find you. This ties in to investing in a good marketing team. The right team should 100% include a good SEO and SEM strategist. Ask for any kind of certifications or reviews on the person you’re about to hire or ask what types of metrics they’ve produced.
Why are you doing what you’re doing? What’s your reason for waking up every morning and running your business? What made you start in the first place? Figure out the answers on all of these questions and have strong answers. If you do this your brand and brand image will always shine through as this will be your “guiding light”.
Want to grow your business online? Schedule a meeting or phone call and lets discuss your business' digital marketing needs!
Fun fact about me, I’m extremely detailed and get way too excited over the opportunity to make any kind of list or plan. When the idea of batchwork started appearing in my life I thought, “How and how soon can I implement this?”
I originally heard of batchwork from Jenna Kutcher and her podcast Goal Digger. If you haven’t heard of her or her podcast I highly recommend, you can check out the batchwork podcast here. She refers to it as “highly focused, topic specific forms of working.” The idea is to get as granular as possible until the work you’re doing is all in the same arena such as writing captions, writing blogs, sending invoices, etc. so that you’re only focused on ONE thing before you move to the next. I’ll admit, for the longest time I would be thinking day to day on Instagram captions, blog content and what needed to be done for client work. We don’t realize how much time we waste bouncing around from task to task. Since implementing this method I feel like I have soooo much more time. Makes sense right?
Since discovering this process I’ve recognized there’s so many other ways you can implement it. Errands to run, house chores, client work, the list is endless. For the purpose of this blog I’ll be mainly focusing on it’s use in your professional life. Ready to get to (batch) work? Here’s how you can start implementing it.
Step 1: Assign main topics or categories
These are the top level topics, clients, or items. For instance if you’re batchworking by client work your main topic would be each client. If you’re batchworking your blog or Instagram content your main topics would be the 3-5 categories you focus on in your business or content. If you haven’t determined those yet, this is a great way to start strategizing and creating those focuses!
For instance your main topics may look something like this:
Client A
TBD subtopics
Client B
TBD subtopics
Client C
TBD subtopics
Or if you’re doing blogging and Instagram content this:
Topic A-”Foodie”
TBD subtopic
Topic B-”Fashion”
TBD subtopic
Topic C-”Workouts”
TBD subtopic
Step 2: Create buckets or subtopics in each basket
Not to sound redundant, but these would be the next step down from the main category. As mentioned, if your main category is a client these categories would be the areas in which you’re working with a client. If you do blogging, social media, and website content those are your buckets or subtopics. If you’re doing Instagram content this is where you create a “topic” or thought under each main category that will inspire more of a long form conversation or caption.
Referring to our original example, if you’re doing client work your subtopics may look something like this:
Client A
Blogging
Website Pages
Client B
Blogging
Website Pages
Client C
Blogging
Website Pages
Or for the blog and Instagram content example this:
Topic A-”Foodie”
Favorite Sandwiches
Places I’ve Eaten Recently
Favorite Foodie Cities
Topic B-”Fashion”
Jeans I’m Loving
Business Casual Outfits
My Favorite Dresses for Weddings
Topic C-”Workouts”
Travel Workouts
At Home Workouts
Bodyweight Workouts
Step 3: Create ideas, thoughts, or results within each bucket that are the action items you’ll actually be completing.
If you’re working on blog or Instagram content, this is where the actual “batchwork” part comes in. Set a timer, choose a main topic and the accompanying subtopics and start writing. If you’re doing client work, think of the topics or specific tasks under each subtopic that you’ll need to be completing.
Referring to our original example, if you’re doing client work your subtopics may look something like this:
Client A
Blogging
Blog topic 1
Blog topic 2
Caption topic 1
Caption topic 2
Website Pages
Web page 1
Web page 2
Client B
Blogging
Blog topic 1
Blog topic 2
Caption topic 1
Caption topic 2
Website Pages
Web page 1
Web page 2
Client C
Blogging
Blog topic 1
Blog topic 2
Caption topic 1
Caption topic 2
Website Pages
Web page 1
Web page 2
Or for the blog and Instagram content example this:
Topic A-”Foodie”
Favorite Sandwiches
Here is where you start writing out the captions or ideas. If you’re too this point this is where I suggest choosing “Topic A” and working through the captions or content within that main heading and then moving on to topic B.
Places I’ve Eaten Recently
For myself, I have 4 main categories and try to do three subtopics for each main category and ONE of those subtopics as a caption and a blog. I’ll include a screenshot of this at the end of this article.
Favorite Foodie Cities
More captions and content
Topic B-”Fashion”
Jeans I’m Loving
More captions and content
Business Casual Outfits
More captions and content
My Favorite Dresses for Weddings
More captions and content
Topic C-”Workouts”
Travel Workouts
More captions and content
At Home Workouts
More captions and content
Bodyweight Workouts
More captions and content
Step 4: Determine your plan of attack and get as highly specific as possible. The more alike the items you are working on are, the better. I recommend starting with a subtopic group and focusing your attention there first. Remove all distractions such as extra tabs, your cellphone.
What I love about this process is you can make it as highly detailed or as vague as you need it to be for you to make it work. I personally follow both levels of processes, both for client and personal business. I recently planned out my January blog and Instagram content and grabbed some screenshots midway through the process as a better example.
I recently had the pleasure of leading a digital marketing and branding workshop here in Tampa for other women business owners. During the workshop we discussed digital marketing strategy, how to brand yourself and your business, and how to measure the results of your marketing efforts. During the workshop I encouraged those who attended to heavily engage; no question was too big or small.
As questions began to be asked and answered and specific points were dove into I noticed something significant. Every time a point or example became clear or hit home, faces brightened, heads nodded, and notes began being taken. As the workshop went on I started to get excited every time I saw this happen because it meant what I was sharing not only made sense but also was useful to the audience.
After thinking about this more I determined this is very similar to the engagement we look for online in brands. We look to measure the likes and the shares for sake of KPI’s but these engagement measures are also a way for brands to understand that the content and information they are sharing is relevant and useful to their audience. These items also tell a brand whether or not they may need to adjust their digital strategy and redirect their content. If content is constantly falling short, there’s probably a reason. To some social engagement may not matter, but to the brand that's creating the content it’s the difference between hitting the nail on the head and missing the mark which always translates to sales made or lost.
To learn more about the types of content that gets engagement for your brand contact me at Mel@MarketingWMel.com!
You want to go on vacation but driving seems like a horribly long way to get there. You know where you want to go, how many people you’ll have, and the dates of your trip. You hop on Google and look up “How To Fly A Plane.” You spend a couple of weeks researching, taking notes, and learning more about being a pilot. The time comes for your trip and you go find the nearest plane and hop on board in the pilot seat.
This story sounds crazy right? I don’t know ANYONE who would ever do this so why should your digital marketing efforts be any different? I was recently grabbing drinks with a friend who is a successful real estate professional and we were having a great conversation about our work and passion. We started discussing how it’s frustrating sometimes to be in a profession where people think that they can do your job and don’t always value your knowledge or abilities.
Yes, there are people who pride themselves as “people who do social media” that really have no idea how to do anything other than making posts but that’s not who I’m talking about. Most digital marketing professionals will have a wide array of knowledge that extends past social media and possess marketing knowledge they’ve acquired over many years through many channels. They will not only know what you should be doing but WHY you should be doing it and HOW it should be measured. Digital marketing is something that should not just be “done,” but to truly be effective should be done WELL. It’s okay to ask for help. If you have a limited budget there are many resources to help you such as local BDC’s.
Think twice before you Google, it’s just as easy to search for “Digital Marketing Agency” as it is “How To Do Marketing” :)
