Creating content that lasts

Cornerstone content – blogs, videos and podcasts

I am a big believer in focussing time and energy on content that lasts. Traditional social media posts are great but the time and energy you put in to creating content that last a few hours should reflect the effect and longevity it should have, i.e. not a lot!

Instead, I highly recommend you build a content marketing strategy around cornerstone content. This is content that has a lot of value for your business. It is likely to take more time and effort at the outset and for any big additions, but the long term reward will make it worthwhile. Furthermore, you can use this content to help create other content, easily – repurpose and reusing it wherever you can.

Let’s explore this a bit further.

Content and longevity

I have a couple blog post that I wrote 2-3 years ago – Creating content with your kids and What to say in a Live video? – that still rank well on Google searches and they continue to bring fresh traffic to my website.

I also have blog posts that I still regularly use in response to queries, via email and in comments on Facebook.

I have blog posts that correspond with my monthly topic and I can advertise and repurpose for email marketing and social media, as well as resources for my membership.

So many small business owners focus on ‘creating new’ …all of the time. Whilst content creation is a consistent job in most businesses, it’s important to be strategic about the time and energy you are putting in.

This is why I advocate ensuring the effort (or money) spent should directly correspond with the longevity and value of the content created.

Types of cornerstone content

I think there are three main types of cornerstone content that is popular at the moment. I do not recommend that you have to do all three but consider what would work best for you and your business. However, there are ways to use one to help with the other two. They are interconnected.

If you aren’t writing a blog, have professional videos or recording podcasts, then start with just one. Choosing one should be a strategic choice with clear reasons, goals and benefits analysed and researched. At the very least, ask yourself:

• What can you commit to now and in the future?
• What is going to resonate best with your audience?
• What is realistic?
• What will help you reach your business goals? …more sales? …more leads? …best visibility?
• What will you enjoy doing?
• What do you feel you want to invest time and money in to?

To help with your decision, let’s explore some of the benefits and things to think about for each different type of content medium – blogs, video and podcasts…

Blogs

Blogging still remains one of the best SEO tools for most small businesses. It’s a wonderful opportunity to add regular, keyword rich content to your website, whilst also allowing you to offer valuable content to your website visitors, clients and potential customers.

Here are some things to think about:

• Blogging is based primarily on writing – is this something you enjoy doing? Do you have a flair for writing and feel you can communicate well this way?
• Blogging has great longevity if you choose topics wisely – thinking about your business does it lend itself to advice, tips, insights, etc.?
• As mentioned, blogs are great for SEO, however, what keyword strings and types of organic traffic do you need?
• Is your website up to scratch? It’s great to start a blog and use it to attract new audiences and draw in more website visits (and longer visits too!)…but will your readers be disappointed or confused if they decide to explore your website further?
• Do you have a strategy for distributing your blog content? I often say to people “no one will read your blog, if they don’t know it’s there!” Blog content is excellent for sharing via social media and in your email marketing – will you be able to do that effectively?
• Can you think of topics that will work well for repurposing? For example, can you write blog posts that can also answer frequently asked question you get sent in emails or be turned in to a resource down the line. Consider this from the outset.

Video

So much of social media now revolves around video, let alone YouTube still being the biggest platform – it’s really a video-based search engine.

Creating a channel and producing regular video content is time consuming and can be costly if you decide to invest in getting professional support. However, video has great longevity and lots of other benefits, that can’t be beaten. They can be reused and repurposed in so many different ways, as well as accessed via many different platforms and in different formats.

Here are some things to think about:

• Are you confident in front of the camera? If you don’t want to be on camera what video styles are you going to use instead?
• Having a presence on YouTube can be very powerful for many brands, but you need to be creating content regularly (or batching videos and then scheduling them to be released regularly) – do you have the commitment to do this?
• Videos are great to give insight to your business – what do you have that you can talk about and share that will engage your ideal clients?
• Videos are really ‘consumable’ – adhoc lives, however, are really different to professional one – are you ready to invest in this? Or do you have the time to take good quality videos and edit them…including adding the all important subtitles or captions?
• As with blogs, you can’t just create video and expect SEO magic or higher engagement, it is up to you to promote your video, embed them in your website and/or emails and share them through your social media channels. Consider how you can best do this.
• If you start creating videos, you want your ‘ideal viewers’ to keep wanting more (as well as converting to customers) so what topics will they want to hear and see more about?

Podcast

If you are a confident speaker and feel you have lots to share, then a podcast can be excellent. You need very little expensive equipment and can commit to just a specific series of episodes, rather that a weekly commitment, for example.

Here are some things to think about when creating a podcast:

• A podcast offers a very different form of personal connection from video or blogs, as it’s you talking it adds a more personal touch to your brand and your business – do you feel comfortable doing this?
• Very similar to blogs and videos, what sort of topics can you cover that will enhance your expertise and authority in your area and for your business – what’s going to make your ideal client tune in or ‘sit up and listen’?
• Podcasting is a great alternative if you don’t fancy being on camera, but it still takes skill to speak clearly and to ensure what you are talking about is engaging – how can you ensure this happens?
• Although equipment may not be too expensive, you still need the skills with editing, adding intros and outros and uploading to relevant channels. Are you willing to take training or learn to do this? Do you have the money to invest in someone else doing this for you if not?
• If you are going to have guests on your podcast, is your network broad enough and relevant enough to do this for a number of episodes? Consider also the ‘admin’ of organising and co-ordinating your guests.
• Audio content is definitely on the rise, its engaging and can have good conversion – if you put in the time and effort consider what you can do to gain sponsorship and even paid advertising. What format will lend itself to this in the future?
• And finally, as with the others, remember you need to ‘market’ your podcast – consider how you are going to share excerpts or good episodes via social media, potentially add them to your website to increase traffic, and distribute to your mailing list.

Considering which cornerstone content is best for your business

As mentioned above, if you are doing your marketing yourself, trying to create all three on a regular basis is very difficult. However, what’s wonderful about modern digital content marketing, is that you can ‘marry’ up these three, with simple repurposing tricks. For example, if you create a monthly video, there is no reason why you can’t transcribe what you say; summarise the content; or simply add a ‘time stamp’ or show notes, and embed the video on a ‘traditional blog post’, adding the video not only to your YouTube channel but also your website.

You can do very similar with every podcast episode…and, if you are happy to do so, you can also consider videoing yourself whilst recording your podcast. It may not be the most exciting video, but can work well if you have guests who are happy to be on video too.

Finally, if you have been blogging for a while, you can look at turning those blogs into podcasts or videos. You can use this content to update those old posts – with the addition of the different multimedia.

Reusing cornerstone content

The other benefit of content that has longevity is that as well as working hard for your business for longer, it can also be repurposed and reused.

Here are some examples:

• For blogs
  • Segment blog posts in to social media captions, i.e. 5 top tips become 5 posts
  • Update old posts to make new ones
  • Add a ‘Part 2’ to old posts
  • Take sections of blog posts to include in emails, such as top tips
  • Create brochures, downloads or an ebook from a collection of blog posts or post content

• For videos
  • Trim longer videos for social media ‘snippets’
  • Segment different video sections together, i.e. interviews with the same question but different answers from different people or a collection of testimonials
  • Transcribe videos to make a blog post or summarise video content
  • Place video on your social media and YouTube for further reach
  • Embed videos into your email signature or email marketing
  • Collate videos into online courses or introductions

• For podcasts
  • Transcribe content to make a blog post or summarise them
  • Use certain segments or episodes in online courses or as a lead magnet
  • Collate select episode on relevant topics into a series as a special package
  • Take snippets from past episodes to create a ‘best of’ show
  • Add segments as audio files on your website – especially those relevant to a certain service or product you offer, or on your about page so people get more of a ‘flavour of you’
  • Include links to past episodes in relevant emails, especially to potential customers wanting to know more about something in the episode’s content.

Strategic cornerstone content

Whatever marketing tactics you choose….whichever cornerstone content you focus on…it should be backed up by a strategy which is moving you towards your business goals. That is what marketing is about after all.

Want to learn more about all of the different content types, get help with evaluating different platforms and tactics and put together a content strategy? Come and join The Content Club today.