Do you sense you waste a lot of time online creating content which nobody wants or sees?
1. At the WiRE conference a couple of weeks ago, serially successful businesswoman Julie Dodsworth gave her recipe for growth: doing things slightly better than your competition and giving your customers what she calls 'little wows'. These could be unexpected free gifts, small shows of appreciation which can be physical or digital. So rather than putting up run-of-the-mill content which few people see...might it not be worth experimenting with 'little wows' and seeing what happens?
Here's an example of an interesting 'little wow"site in Wales: http://www.impact.wales/sketch-notes/ Distinctive - and not expensive to create...
2. If you create original content online you will part of the 1% of web users who do. Rather than the 9% who merely comment and the 90% who lurk... And unless you have especially vindictive friends and customers, remember people online like the homemade and the 'I'm-learning-on-the-job'.
3. New to all this? Then create a niche customer profile - and this could be just one person - what do they like? Where do they hang out? What media do they consume? What is a typical day in the life of? and create some content for that person. Ask them what they think of it... and react to that. Create some more content that drills down further into what your typical customer is interested in... You could end up with something incredibly useful like this: https://www.janetmurray.co.uk/category/podcast/
4. Follow trends is less important than finding niche content that really works for your customers or supporters. So while you doing Facebook Live every other day, looking rough as old boots, may register lots of views for your Slummy Mummy cooking club... these may not turn into customers for that online cookery course you're promoting.... You may more usefully batch produce more considered videos for You Tube - or indeed Facebook, or both - depending on where your tribe hangout.
5.Where you start to notice a good reaction to niche content, it may be worth paying for some targetted Facebook ads to build your reach. If you wanted to reach mums 25-40 within a 10 mile radius of Carmarthen, you could specify that...You can do something similar on Twitter, Amazon and Linked In, but it's worth remembering that for a lot of folk, Facebook is the internet.
6.Your niche content can be something that differentiates you from your competitors, or, as is fashionable to say, create your brand. Being consistent and repetitive with this content, which expresses what you stand for in a vivid and distinctive way, can help your business or cause stand out.
And by the way, FYI in no way endorses Slummy Mummy's interest in cannibalism...
ps Julie Dodsworth is here https://juliedodsworth.com/ and WiRE is here: https://www.wireuk.org/ More stories