Content is King

In today’s fast-paced media landscape, it’s immediately understood by any business that a powerful first impression makes a key difference. Having a strong visual identity and a concise mission statement is a paramount concern. After this initial moment of recognition, however, your business has to have a solid platform to stand on. Stated another way: people aren’t going to be in love with your business just because you have a slick logo and a unique homepage.

Potential customers want to learn what you do, and what you stand for. By creating entertaining and informative content, others will make positive associations with your brand.

What is content, then? Simply put, “content” includes any text, images, or video used to provide information. In addition to text on your website covering “the basics” (nature of your business, mission statement, contact information, etc.), text articles such as blogs, press releases, and event reminders are essential. Images break up the monotony, providing a pop of color, an informative graphic, or even a humorous distraction. Video, of course, can be the ultimate tool for concise, powerful engagement.

On that note, remember: social media is extremely important in this era. With so many people logging on more than once a day, it’s a platform through which you’ll want to make your voice heard. Be sure that the content you’re posting is entertaining, interesting, or useful–and if it can be all of these things simultaneously, even better.

Post things that users are going to want to share. If you use social media as a tool for engagement and sharing, you will gain more traffic and positive brand awareness.

Once you gain potential customer’s interest, you’ll want to continue reinforcing their confidence in your brand. To do this, you will need to regularly produce relevant and interesting content. A website that appropriately displays great content has the potential to generate a lot more traffic than one that has bad or very little content. It’s a good idea to establish a regular schedule for posting; that way, you’ll always have something ready to go.

Having great content will also improve your search engine optimization (SEO). If your content is well-written and is focused towards your target demographics, it will be more successful online. Post on your website and on social media, making sure to integrate across platforms via the use of hyperlinks and hashtags.

Any business with momentum must have both style and substance. Having your visual identity in order is a necessary first step, but remember: when it comes to long-term customer retention and positive awareness, content is king.