Digital content for your business and website demands more today than ever before. Taking your content higher means starting with the relevant core material. Next comes sculpting information, even the mundane, into a viable and vivacious piece of work.
A piece of work worth consuming, sharing, and if you're lucky, (or skilled, perhaps) even gets talked about. Ahhh, reaching the holy grail of the ever elusive and ever important level called engagement. According to seeker of all website data, Andy Crestodina from Orbit Media, user interaction signals are very important.
Create Content With Engagement in Mind
Engagement, you see, is sometimes a squishy measurement. And often, is masked behind those glamorous yet sometimes less meaningful vanity metrics we can't help but love. And yet, there's evidence those vanity and social interactivity metrics are indeed more meaningful than folks knew. Google does, in fact, look at social signals.
It doesn't really matter, though, because you're not doing social media as part of your content marketing plan for metrics anyway but, for building business relationships and gaining business.
And yet, there's evidence those vanity and social interactivity metrics are indeed more meaningful than folks knew. Google does, in fact, look at social signals. #contentmarketing Click To Tweet
Your Content Has a Bigger Job
In the same way, the content you create encompasses a bigger job than merely existing on your site. Taking a boomerang approach to your content entails sending it far and wide. It becomes an invitation for visitors to check out your site and business.
Yikes. You get that your content needs to travel but, you haven't thought of exactly how you will give it wings and move it beyond the bare nakedness of the mere written word.
Now don't get me wrong revolutionaries and evolutionaries of the content movement, because it all hinges on, and begins with, a solid understanding and ability for writing at the core of it all.
Don't stress too much because every time you write, your writing improves! So, in this post, I'm going to give you a sack full of tools and tips to top off your content, taking it beyond the initial task of writing.
The secret with any of these tools, from pencil to software, is to experiment and find your fit. #contentcreation Click To Tweet
Simplify and Visualize
You're no doubt aware of the benefits of adding visuals to enhance and strengthen your digital content creations. You've been told to do create content with interactive media. Then, adopt the mentality of looking at yourself as a media house, a publishing house, one and all.
What's a business creator to do? Overwhelm creeps in like a sticky fog and it feels like you don't have enough days left in life. First, relax. You can borrow my personal guiding ABC's...the core mission for my digital business:
Always Be Creating!This stems from my 3 words strategy for this year and, at this point, it's a good time to review progress, evaluate ongoing plans, and ramp it up through year's end.
But, I want you to do something different. I want you to NOT beat yourself up at this point but, instead, consider going about your next projects with an attitude of having fun.
Create Content with Mixed Media
Looking at content creation and producing mixed media to stock up your digital publishing house as a fun thing to do takes the stress out of the work (you and I know) it takes.
Start with tiny steps to build your skills and you may surprise yourself as you progress. I know I can do things now I never dreamed possible. Surprising myself is part of the fun!
Oh yeah, my three words. You may want to borrow them, to help keep you on track and in motion to reach your content creation goals and add to your site content assets.
Love. Focus. Execute. Yep. That's my treasured three for this year. If you go about business from a place of love, maintain a clear focus, and execute on ideas and plans, you're actively on your way to success.
Technology is Your Friend
I know. I still don't always believe it but, when it comes to digital content, technology is your bestie. You may as well get comfy.
Keep saying to yourself, "it's going to be fun."
Learning IS fun but, computer stuff can be frustrating and, well, can ruin your day. But, don't let it. If I can do this stuff, so can you.
Writing, creating, and producing mixed content types can be fun instead of hard.
But, you may want to be hard on yourself, editing furiously and iterating up as you go.
Create at the place where your audience and your message connect.
Visuals with Oophm for Your Audience
Design visuals with audience experience at the forefront. Make the audience more important than the message and deliver it in a way they want to consume it. Create clarity.
Ann Smarty smartly advises in this post about SlideShare presentations, that words are only there to support your visuals and not the other way around, for example. While she, too, addresses an audience-centric appeal in creating your presentations, Ann also points out the significance of understanding the medium you are creating with, as well.
I love how Ann offers key guidelines and then ends by suggesting you break any and all rules as you create. She's the rebel we all need to be.
Infographic on In to Create Content
Infographics with Piktochart are easy to create using their user-friendly interface and offer of free tier pricing to get you going.
Besides the magic of Canva, Piktochart was one of the first tools I ever used. Here's one of my earliest creations, showing you just how simple a design can look, yet tell a story.
Infographics are a great way to distill key concepts or highlight complex information from a blog post in a more memorable format. Outlining information by adding icons, charts, and graphs, and other visual cues add impact to your messages.
Step-by-step guides and how-to maps and blueprints are easy to illustrate using infographics and make useful lead magnet possibilities, too.
Another one of my earliest Piktochart infographics is from a blog post (made as a post visual, highlighting quotes from Ann Handley's book, Everybody Writes) and was later repurposed into one of my most popular SlideShares! Yay.
Wow. Got it? A blog post to an infographic and post visual to a SlideShare presentation. Traveling content, finding wings.
Visme Electrifies Info to Life
For a spin on a simple infographic, Visme allows you to add animations for effects and twists at every turn in your visual presentation. Movement in your designs draws attention and focus as interactive elements appear.
I love this learning video by Visme. It gives you a solid refresher for organizing your thoughts and information into a compelling story or other cohesive formats.
Organization and flow are keys to making a memorable visual experience for viewers and planning ahead will make actual production time go smoother. Your extra effort ahead of time will make your presentations effortless when shown.
The Visme Interface to Create Content
The Visme interface continues to improve since I first discovered it. But, going for a "back-to-basics" styling for an informational story/timeline format works just as well. This example shows a variation, adding pizzazz to a historical outline making the facts more interesting.
The example (below) infographic stands on its own as a content asset. For a financial services business, from banking to loan companies to stock traders, this is industry perfect. Not only is it informational and educational, while telling a historical story with a timeline. It also connects with viewers' lives. It simplifies and condenses in a visually appealing way, a long study and background for easier consumption.
You can get even more specific, say if you're a stock trader, by adding an additional block to your design, saying something like this, to subtlety promote trading:
Historically, investing in stocks has handily outperformed investing in bonds, Treasury Bills, gold or cash over the long term. ~investopedia.com
Visme's intuitive software allows you to add all the bells and whistles you can imagine. It helps you turn dry and sometimes boring, data-heavy information into an easier to digest and remember format.
If you want data, research, charts, and diagrams modified to appeal to the senses, Visme has your back.
Visme's intuitive software allows you to add all the bells and whistles you can imagine. It helps you turn dry and sometimes boring, data-heavy information into an easier to digest and remember format. #infographics Click To Tweet
InfoDrawings by Henneke: World Traveling Content
In a recent post about using visual variations to boomerang your content, I mentioned Enchanting Marketing and Henneke's InfoDrawings featuring her hand-drawn character and alter ego, Henrietta.
But, sit down, because...Since that post, Henneke has taken her content offering higher yet. By turning her blog's companionable artwork and exclusive writing tips to support her readers and students into a physical product, Henneke is connecting once more with people worldwide!
Henneke's "Henrietta Mug Series" available through Zazzle is taking flight, inspiring writing and delivering magic all over the world:)
Gill Andrews created this piece of visual content to celebrate her "magic Henrietta mug" and I challenged myself (well, Henneke started it, really! haha) to a selfie challenge to help share Henneke's writing inspirations and her NEW mugs. I'm not saying we (who participated in the launch fun) are a factor in her fame. But, Henrietta has been seen on Inc.com, HubSpot, Orbit Media, and MarketingProf's, among others.
In this post, Henneke shares her journey from picking up a pencil to how Henrietta became the star she is today if you want to try your artist's hand.
Experiment with These Tools
Psst. The secret with any of these tools, from pencil to software, is to experiment and find your fit. If you follow the link above for Gill, for example, she shares how she created her original video using a simple tech solution and ingenuity. She gives kudos to me for pushing her creativity and I love that...a great result for all I say!
Inspiring and thriving. Like Lisa's blog and Henneke's character, if your content does that, you are on the right track.
But, there's no doubt that adding visual appeal and using content repurposing, to meet people in a comfortable way, and on their terms, works.
Are You Exploring Tools?
Every tool is a stepping stone to discovering something new to create content at higher levels of extraordinary. Each skill you gain is helping your content go higher and find wings, grow your audience, and increase traffic to your site.
Are you testing and experimenting with tools like these too? We'd love to hear what you think of anything so far in this boomerang your content series. So let us know below in the comments.
And, stay tuned for my next tools and tips post for more content creation ideas and software scoops. Plus, I'll be sharing Ryan Biddulph's two cents from paradise (lol) about creating eBooks for your business. So many great content avenues, so little time!