August 2022

CTA : ISP – We can help announce your community, build trust, credibility and authority

Start Conversations, Then Automate Them

Building your business brand online takes consistent time and effort. Creating massively interesting and compelling content can help you build your blog, brand, and a thriving community. Content is a means to an end, don’t get so caught up on content that you miss the bigger picture.

Why do you create content anyways? Your number one content strategy should always be built around people. Create content that speaks to your tribe, keeps them coming back, keeps them sharing it. This creates a snowball effect and leverages the power of your existing followers, to attract more followers, and over time you will have a solid community, that is thriving and having conversations about you or your business, even when you are not initiating and leading the conversations.

Your number one content strategy should always be built around people. Click To Tweet

Is Content Really King?

In your efforts to learn more about online branding and digital marketing, you may have heard that “content is king” at least a thousand times, ( ok, maybe more! ) While this is mostly true, since search engines like to see fresh and relevant content to send visitors to your website, that is not where it ends. If you take the time to step back and look at the forest, and just for a moment, stop focusing on the trees, you will see something much bigger unfolding: Content is simply a means to an end, NOT the main goal.

There is an underlying reason for creating all this juicy content, you are selling yourself by sharing your knowledge and expertise. The fruit (profit) from this (content) comes from the forest (or community) that you nurture and strengthen over time. When you are creating content treat each of your topics or categories as branches from a highly focused content tree. That tree will allow for more fruit to grow and help you start and nurture your own community.

The goal of your content should be to inform, educate, or entertain, and thus build a relationship with your readers. Over time, the content opens doors of opportunity and can help you to create a positive environment that encourages others to share, learn, and grow. All this sharing, learning, and growing is happening around your business, this helps you build your credibility and influence over time.

The goal of your content should be to inform, educate, or entertain, and thus build a relationship with your readers. Click To Tweet

How Facebook Has Capitalized on This

The main reason that Facebook is so popular is because it has created a huge online community who all share content and interact with each other daily. Each Facebook user has hundreds of friends who log on and consistently to post pictures, videos, live streaming, memes, news, jokes and more. Facebook has been successful in creating a share- friendly ecosystem that nurtures people’s need to belong, by providing social rewards for their sharing of content.

Facebook has a giant user base; thus, it has become a breeding ground for paid advertisements and a major source of traffic for key brand. Many brands and businesses are using Facebook to build their list, drive traffic to their blog, sign people up for webinars, and more. They know that taking even just a teeny tiny slice of this huge community, and directing their attention to their business, will help them reach their target market where they already are. This process feels natural, and finds people in a setting they are already comfortable in, so it is a win-win-win for you, your tribe, and Facebook.

Take Facebook & Google Out Of The Equation

Your content is the “sugar” that attracts people to your business, and the goal is to leverage content to keep people coming back to your blog and subscribing to your newsletter. Your goal is to find your audience where they are already at, redirect them to your site, and create a community that encourages user generated content, discussions, and sharing. When you create a community, you are slowly taking Google, Facebook and other social media channels out of the equation. Thus, eliminating distractions and “competition,” resulting in a more loyal and engaged audience. These are the 4 main ways that you can use content to build a community around your brand and business.

Leverage Your Branding & Content To Create A Thriving Community Click To Tweet

Your Goal is Emotionally Intelligent User Content

As a long-term approach, once you start seeing that your community is starting to take shape, once you give them a comfortable place where they can talk more openly about the topics that interest them, they are very likely consistently return there. People love to interact in a safe environment where they feel they belong, and their ideas and opinions are valued.

Creating a user forum or a smaller social media community of your own niche on your own site should be the goal of your content creation efforts. When you build your own community, members will start new topic discussions and there will be a constant flow of ideas and fresh content with very little effort from your part. Those conversations can help you come up with new content ideas, and help you discover unmet needs that you weren’t previously aware of, but that you can now cater to.

In interacting with the community, members will create an emotional connection with other users and this can start new relationships, partnerships, or provide additional resources. Having a safe place to share, will make viewers frequent your community consistently to see what others have posted or shared while they were away.

By starting your own community, you create social proof, authority, trust, influence and a loyal following without relying as much on search engines or social channels. As Facebook and other mainstream social media networks get more crowded and create more clutter, people are always looking for more comfortable places and tight niche communities that feel more private and safe. When you can provide this for your target market, it will help you build a sustainable brand and business.

By starting your own community, you create social proof, authority, trust, influence and a loyal following without relying as much on search engines or social channels. Click To Tweet

Make it a point to stop and listen before speaking!

There’s a tried and true saying that reads ” there is a reason why we have one mouth and two ears.” It is because we need to listen twice as much as we talk, and more importantly, we need to tune in to our audience before we begin to talk, and engage with them. Getting clarity on who our specific audience is and what type of content we need to create for them is key. It’s important to remember to focus on delivering value and connecting effectively to create continual business growth. Being in business means that we have a specific problem we are trying to help others solve, but listening first makes us better helpers, and better solution providers.

Being in business means that we have a specific problem we are trying to help others solve, but listening first makes us better helpers, and better solution providers. Click To Tweet

First and foremost, it is important to discover who your target market is, why, and where they hang out. Then focus on learning more about their pain points, questions, and possible objections they could have to your products or services. Listening before you suggest a solution will ensure that you’re not just taking shots in the dark, but that you are genuinely interested in helping them. The very best way to do this is to show interest in them as individuals, have compassion and fully understand the problems they are having, and why they are so invasive in their lives. Over time, intuitively, you will come to know the most common reasons why people are interested in the solution you provide. The best way to develop this “knowing” on what they want is to truly listen without judgment, and without trying to get something from them right away.

When researching your audience, you want to do it from the perspective of a friend, someone who actually cares, and isn't just trying to get something from them. Click To Tweet

Find your target market in their environment

Get up close and personal with your audience, and blend in with their environment, where they are already at. Get to know them, here are some questions that could help you research your target market with more curiosity.

What language do they use to describe their problem?
What frustrations are they are experiencing?
What do they need advice on or help with?
What human need are they looking to meet?
How invasive is the problem they are having?
What is their urgency to solve the problem?
Which things have they already tried and failed at?
How long have they had this problem?

Tune in to what they are not saying

When researching your audience, you want to do it from the perspective of a friend, someone who actually cares, and isn’t just trying to get something from them. This approach will give you space to learn what their hot buttons are and to talk to them directly. Remember that your marketing efforts need to be tailored and directed towards your specific audience and not just sound like a canned sales letter that came from a how-to template.

When you listen close enough you will also hear the things that they are not saying directly. What they are NOT saying is very important to listen for. They may not express their direct need, but through their behavior and language you could discover things about them that they didn’t even know about themselves! This kind of information will help you stand out from the crowd and make your content seem more credible and trustworthy. This is also how you can uncover needs that people didn’t even know they had, giving you a competitive edge over people who just sell and don’t listen first.

The more you listen, the more you grow

The more time that you spend listening, the easier it will be to create content, products, and services, catered specifically to their specific needs. Listening will give you more content ideas and make it easier to find topics to cover, that really speak to them. You will discover certain patterns and trends over time, and learn easier, faster, and better ways to serve them. It is imperative to not stop listening, as most people do once they already have a following. Forgetting to listen, and getting too product or service oriented is a big mistake. By not listening, engaging, and conversing, you will see less engagement from your followers, as well as take more time to build trust, relationships, and sales.

The more time that you spend listening, the easier it will be to create content, products, and services, catered specifically to their specific needs. Click To Tweet

Here is a list of the top ways you can listen to your audience. This will vary widely by industry but overall these resources and ideas will be easy to find online and are completely free for you to use.

Where do they hang out?

Google Hangouts
industry specific forums
YouTube videos / channels
Places they go to for fun
Places they shop
LinkedIn Groups related to your topic / industry
Facebook groups and events
Twitter lists
Meet-Ups

Who is already influencing them?

Friends
Books
Podcasts
Competitors
Colleagues
Events
Movies

For this particular phase of researching your market, forums are a great resource because people feel more open sharing with other people in their same field or with their same interests. Often forums feel like more tight communities than other mainstream social media networks.

Often forums feel like more tight communities than other mainstream social media networks. Click To Tweet

Finding your client in their natural environment and simply stopping to listen will enable you to deliver greater value and connect with them easier and on a deeper level. Knowing what inspires them and how to get them to take action is golden. This will help you easily grow a sustainable business that is focused on innovation and profitability, through staying attentive and flexible.

Archives for August 2022