Smart Business Show – How to create content that flies

Yesterday at the RDS the Smart Business Show 2015 got under way. The Smart Business Show’s aim is to connect you with the most innovative companies in Ireland, whilst also allowing you to discover smarter ways of doing business. During the 2 day conference you can visit lots of different stands, attend various workshops and see various keynote speakers.

The Irish Internet Association got Greg Fry a social media trainer and personal brand expert to give a brilliant workshop entitled How to create content that flies.

Greg’s workshop was designed to get you thinking about how to engage with existing and potential clients through Content Marketing and Social Media, as well as how best to turn a content consumer into a business customer.

You will probably be wondering what Content Marketing is and according to the Content Marking Institute it is defined as follows.  “Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”

Greg also gave us the following Content Marketing stats.

• Marketers who have prioritized blogging are 13 times more likely to enjoy positive ROI. (HubSpot State of Inbound, 2014).
• Articles with images get 94% more views than those without. (NewsCred) •? B2B companies that blog generate 67% more leads than those without blogs. (Social Fresh)
• Blogging increases web traffic by 55% for brands. (Rocket Post)
• 62% of marketers use video in their content marketing. (NewsCred)
• 73% of consumers get frustrated by irrelevant web content. (Source: HubSpot)

Examples of Content Marketing include the following.

• Infographics
• Short Videos
• Podcasts
• Case studies
• E-Books
• Visual content
• Guides and How to posts
• Product reviews
• Interviews

Greg mentioned that when it comes to writing a blog your articles need the following.

• Great titles
• Great looking visuals
• Great content ideas such as top 10 type posts

When it comes to the title of your blog post, it has to hold the reader’s attention and also explain what the content of the blog post. Images help break up the text and also entice the reader in. Shorter paragraphs and bullet points also works very well in blogs.

Greg gave the following blog writing tips.

• Create a Headline that grabs your readers attention
• Write a great first paragraph, which should hold the reader’s attention, explain what the post is about and describe what value the post offers the reader
• Use bullet points & numbering to make your posts easy to follow
• Use images to make your post stand out and if you can add any video do
• Research your posts carefully and proof read carefully
• Write your blogs on a regular basis and if you decide to update your blog every 2 weeks do that
• Invite comments and encourage readers to get involved
• Use your blog to demonstrate your expertise and listen to your readers and client’s needs
• If a customer emails you with an interesting question or even leaves a question on your blog and ask yourself would this make a valuable blog post for my readers
• Always think SEO when writing your posts.

When it comes to sharing your blog posts, have share buttons at the top and bottom of your blog posts so that readers can easily share them via their social media accounts. Always try and post your blogs to third party sites and consider guest writing blogs or contributing to business and community blogs.

Content Marketing and blogs are great ways of sharing your knowledge to current and also prospective clients and Greg’s workshop showed how they can be great business tools to help retain customers and gain new ones. If you aren’t already using Content Marketing or blogs then its time you started and there is no better time than now.