Content marketing has been around for a long while and while it is absolutely necessary, it’s shouldn’t be the lynchpin for your strategy. What you need is a solid relationship with your audience and clients. THat means not only talking about things that matter to them AND to your brand, but building relationships.
Relationships are based on Trust.
Just as you wouldn’t let some weirdo you met online meet you at your house for a first date, you have got to take the time to build out that trust factor for your audience. Even if you are an absolute expert in your subject matter, the truth is no one cares about how much you know until they know how much you care. So the question is: How does one build that like, know and trust factor with an audience?
There are 3 main ways to build that foundation. The first is to establish credibility. Do you have experience with what your talking about? Can it be demonstrated with case studies or before and after pics or some proof? The second is to be vulnerable. No brand can survive a sterile, everything-is-perfect attitude anymore. Taking a stand about social issues, or a charity cause, or even just admitting you ordered the wrong thing from your office order is basically required in 2021.
The third thing you must do to build that required trust is to be consistent. Don’t over commit to posting more than you’re able, and don’t commit to too many platforms at one time. If your people love Instagram, then great! Use that as your primary medium and move to pushing content other places using 3rd party apps or an assistant for better deliverability. Best to own posting every Tuesday than to try 5x a week and fail at it all the time. Long term the algorithms love consistency.
Building that like/know/trust factor can take time, but in a year you’ll be super glad you started today. It’s the type of long term, solid strategy that if you adopt from day one (or whatever today is for you) then you’ll see it pay exponential dividends in the years to come.