Content Marketing Archives - Page 4 of 6

The Role of Organic Content in the New Consumer Buying Journey

Posted on January 17, 2019January 23, 2020 by Mindstream Media Group

Over the past few years, there has been much ado about the evolution of the consumer buying journey. In the past, the buying journey was perceived as a linear process that followed this basic structure:

That traditional model has been turned on its head thanks to the increasing role the internet and digital media play in the buying process. Consumers can now become aware of a need to buy something, research products and services to fill those needs and make purchases at any time on their phones, computers and other connected devices. This has led many marketers to wonder if the consumer buying journey (i.e., marketing funnel) as we know it is dead.

“Forget everything you know about the marketing funnel. Today, people are no longer following a linear path from awareness to consideration to purchase. They are narrowing and broadening their consideration set in unique and unpredictable moments. People turn to their devices to get immediate answers. And every time they do, they are expressing intent and reshaping the traditional marketing funnel along the way.”

– Think with Google

The new buying journey(s)

I would argue the journey has changed but the flow is still similar. With consumers having more control of the buying process than ever before, they can now tailor buying journeys to fit their needs. So rather than having one generic consumer buying journey, we now have a bunch of individual buying journeys for each consumer and purchase. Today’s consumers can build their own journey which means they expect to get the specific information they need when they need it.

What does this mean for marketers?

Simply put, it means marketers need to be able to provide the specific information individual consumers need anywhere at any time. So, rather than building strategies around a singular consumer buying journey, marketers need to think about Susie’s process for buying a new smartphone or Johnny’s approach to booking a flight.

This new dynamic presents a significant opportunity (or challenge depending on how you look at it) for brands whose businesses depend on guiding consumers through the journey and turning them into customers.

Guiding consumers through the journey

Paid media like display, search and social ads can be effective at guiding consumers through the journey. But marketers who rely solely on paid media are leaving a lot of opportunities to connect with consumers on the table. Leveraging owned media – content that brands create and control on owned platforms like websites, blogs and social channels – is essential for reaching consumers with the messages they need to convert as well.

Organic content like blog posts, product webpages, social media posts, infographics and video are extremely effective at delivering the information consumers need throughout the buying journey. And, unlike some paid media, organic content is not meant to be overly salesy, reducing the chance that consumers will be put off by the messaging. Instead, organic content is meant to assist, inform and entertain consumers.

Here are just a few ways you can use organic content to help your brand connect with consumers:

Make consumers aware of a need to make a purchase
Explain how your products and services address that need
Answer questions about your products and services to help consumers make purchase decisions
Provide new customers the information they need to use your products and services

Understanding what consumers need at each stage of their buying journey

While buying journeys vary based on the consumer and the actual purchase, there are still common themes at each stage of the journey – both in terms of the messaging consumers need to move towards a purchase and the goals and objectives for marketers.

To give you an idea of these common themes, let’s take a look at a specific purchase – buying a new car. While each consumer approaches car buying differently, there are some common behaviors that provide marketers with clues of what kind of messages they need to provide. Let’s take a look at each stage of the buying journey to examine:

The consumers’ situation and what information they need to move towards a purchase
Your goals and objectives for helping consumers progress through the journey
Some common buying behaviors of consumers in that stage

Awareness

Situation

Consumers are not aware of their need to buy a car or are just beginning their search and don’t have specific makes and models in mind.

Marketing Goal

Turn unaware consumers into better-informed shoppers that are actively looking to buy specific makes and models.

Content Objectives

Make the consumer aware of their need for a new car.
Generate awareness for your brand, as well as specific makes and models.
Grab consumers’ attention and help them connect with your brand.

Common buying behaviors

Consideration

Situation

Shoppers are actively researching purchases and evaluating options.

Marketing Goal

Turn shoppers into buyers by helping them understand how specific makes and models fit their needs.

Content Objectives

Make consumers aware of how a vehicle’s features and benefits address their needs.
Provide seamless paths for consumers to get from a content piece to the next step in the buying journey.

Common buying behaviors

Sources:

Facebook, “Understanding the Auto-Buying Journey of the Connected Consumer,” December 2018
Ipsos/Google, “Digital’s Influence on In-Market Auto Consideration,” Aug 2018

Decision

Situation

Buyers have narrowed down their options and are ready to buy.

Marketing Goal

Give buyers the information they need to complete purchases and become customers.

Content Objectives

Provide information that leads to seamless buying experiences.
Promote future sales by establishing trust and credibility.

Common buying behaviors

Sources:

Facebook, “Understanding the Auto-Buying Journey of the Connected Consumer,” December 2018

Loyalty

Situation

Customers are evaluating their new car.

Marketing Goal

Turn one-time buyers into loyal customers that will promote the features and benefits of their car to friends and family.

Content Objectives

Create content that provides additional detail into interesting features of the vehicle.
Offer helpful tips on how to use and maintain the vehicle.

Common buying behaviors

Sources:

Facebook, “Understanding the Auto-Buying Journey of the Connected Consumer,” December 2018

Now that you know a little more about what type of messages consumers need at each stage of the journey, make sure to subscribe to our blog. In our upcoming posts, we’ll explain what types of organic content are most effective at delivering the right messages at each stage of the consumer buying journey.

10 Things You Need to Know About Writing Awesome Blog Titles

Posted on December 14, 2018January 28, 2020 by Mindstream Media Group

The takeaway: It takes a lot of effort to create compelling blog content for your brand. To make sure those efforts don’t go to waste, your blog titles need to be as compelling as the content itself. This post provides 10 tips for creating awesome blog titles that people will actually read.

For brands, blogging can be one of the most effective ways to communicate with target audiences. Recently, we provided a few tips to help you identify blog topics audiences will actually want to read. But even posts with the most engaging topics can go unread if you don’t inspire audiences to read them. Whether they’re scrolling through social media or conducting related searches, people are far more likely to click on blog posts with compelling, attention-grabbing titles.

10 tips for writing compelling blog titles

No. 1: Start with a working title

Before you write each blog post, create a working title that describes the topic you’re writing about. Your working title is just a starting point but you should pick something that could work as a final version in a pinch.

For example, here’s the working title for this post: “How to Write Catchy Blog Titles That People Want to Read.” It’s not the worst title in the world, but there’s a lot of room for improvement. After I finished writing the post, I used the tips below to refine my working title into a more optimized and polished final version.

No. 2: Write several titles for each post

Whatever you may think of the quality of Upworthy’s content, it’s extremely effective at driving traffic from – and engagement on – social media. Upworthy is famous (infamous?) for its attention-grabbing headlines that pique readers’ curiosity and capture their attention.

Upworthy’s headlines help drive nearly 3 million unique visitors per month to their site, and their writers spend a lot of time coming up with titles. The site’s editors explained how they come up with their popular headlines in an atrociously-designed presentation that looks like someone threw a bunch of outdated memes on an equally outdated PowerPoint template. (Here’s the entire deck if you want to flip through and feel better about the last presentation you created.)

The main takeaway for writing headlines is repetition is key. Upworthy’s writers create 25 title options for each blog. That’s probably more options than you’ll need, but coming up with several options for each post is definitely a worthwhile exercise.

No. 3: Optimize blog titles for search engines

As you build out your list of title options, you’ll want to include the specific words and phrases your audiences are searching for related to the topic. Incorporating the specific words and phrases (i.e., keywords) people use to find content about your topic allows you to optimize your title for search engine results.

To find keywords for your title, head to Google’s Keyword Planner (or a similar tool) and enter phrases related to your topic. The Keyword Planner will then provide the average monthly search volume for each phrase, along with a list of keyword ideas for you to choose from.

Choose a keyword that has decent monthly search volume and can be naturally woven into your title. For maximum SEO value, try to place your focus keyword toward the front of the title and incorporate it throughout your post.

No. 4: Include words that capture readers’ attention

As you refine your blog title, incorporate words that stand out in search results and social media feeds, pique readers’ interest and inspire them to click through to your post.

No. 5: Write for your target audience

The types of words in the last tip are all meant to generate a response from your audience. To make sure your blog titles inspire the right response from the right people, imagine you’re talking directly to a member of your audience as you write out your list of options.

Focus on their interests, needs and wants
Encourage them to take specific actions to address their needs and wants
Explain why reading your blog post would be valuable to them

No. 6: Include punctuation

Adding punctuation to your blog titles can be an effective way to grab readers’ attention while providing additional detail on the topic. Not every blog title warrants punctuation, but here are a few effective ways to incorporate marks into your headlines:

No. 7: Add numbers

Structuring your blog post as a list will not only make it easy to write a solid title, this format is also ideal for how online readers typically consume online content. Readers can easily jump into a list, scan the piece for any points that seem appealing or relevant to them and move on.

Average social shares by content type

No. 8: Test going negative

While I don’t recommend doing this all the time, using negative headlines can be an effective way to capture readers’ attention. When done correctly, negative headlines should evoke a little consternation from your audience that they might be doing something wrong. Don’t go too overboard though or you’ll fall into the trap mentioned in our next tip.

No. 9: Avoid click-bait headlines

“A consumer is not a moron. She’s your wife. Don’t insult her intelligence, and don’t shock her.”

David Ogilvy

This quote from copywriting legend David Ogilvy may be more than half a century old and the terminology a bit archaic but the lesson behind it is still valuable: don’t try to mislead or trick your audiences. At best, deceptive blog titles (i.e., click-bait headlines) oversimplify and overpromise; at worst, they insult readers’ intelligence.

Unfortunately, click-bait headlines are effective at driving traffic so many publishers use them regularly. While this tactic might work for publishers who are just trying to drive as much traffic as possible to boost ad revenue, it’s less effective for brands. As a brand marketer, your goal should be to write blog titles that attract quality visitors who find your content helpful, engage with your brand and convert into customers.

No. 10: Use tools to perfect your blog title

Once you have a list of title options, there are tools you can use to further optimize the title. For example, CoSchedule’s headline analyzer tool will score your title based on its overall structure, grammar and readability. The tool will also help you identify ways to improve the title like adding more uncommon, emotional or power words.

Contact Mindstream Media Group today to learn about our Content Marketing solution!

How to Identify Blog Topics People Will Actually Want To Read

Posted on November 27, 2018January 30, 2020 by Mindstream Media Group

The takeaway: There are more than 3 million blog posts published on the internet every day. With that volume, it’s important to develop blog topics that your audiences will actually want to read. This post will help you come up with blog topics that engage target audiences and drive traffic to your website.

Blogging has become a powerful tool in many brands’ marketing repertoire. Publishing blog posts on a regular basis can be an effective way for brands to share their story, answer their customers’ questions, engage with their target audiences and drive traffic to their website.

At first glance, it would appear the more blogs a brand creates, the more traffic their website receives. According to a study by HubSpot, companies that publish more than 16 blog posts per month receive almost 3.5 times more traffic than those that published less than four posts a month.

But that doesn’t mean your brand can churn out subpar blog posts and expect to drive boatloads of traffic to your site. In the blogging world, competition is too fierce for mediocrity. Brands, agencies, publishers and individuals publish more than 3 million blog posts each day. With that congested of a landscape, you need to make sure your brand is publishing high-quality posts that cut through the clutter, grab people’s attention and actually drive traffic to your site.

Creating posts that drive traffic is a complicated process that starts with a basic – albeit demanding – first step: identifying topics that people actually give a damn about. In this post, we’ll cover some of the steps required to get inside your target audiences’ heads to find out what topics they need, want and care to read about.

Create a list of general blog topics

Get the process started by using ideas and thoughts off the top of your head. Once you have a solid base of ideas, continue to refine and polish your list to identify the topics that your target audiences are most likely to read.

Step No. 1: Brainstorm

Like any other brainstorm, this process should happen organically. List out all of the topics you can think of related to your brand and its products and services. There’s no such thing as a bad idea here, the important thing is to just get all your ideas written out.

Step No. 2: Develop buyer personas

Next, beef up your original list by researching your target audiences to find out what kind of content they want to see from your brand. If you haven’t already, this is a great time to create buyer personas (i.e., generalized representations of your brand’s ideal customers). If you need help building these out, here’s a helpful guide to get you started.

Buyer personas will help you answer key questions that will generate ideas for your list of blog topics.

What questions do your customers have about your products and services?
What are the major pain points and challenges of your target audience?
How do your products and services address your target audiences’ pain points and challenges?

Step No. 3: Conduct industry research

Find out what topics other brands in your industry are writing about by reading relevant blogs and publications, including your competitors’ posts. Take those topics and come up with new angles or approaches that address your specific audience’s needs and wants.

Step No. 4: Review historical data

To round out your list of general blog topics, identify top performing content pieces your brand created in the past. To do this, you’ll need to set up a website traffic tool like Google Analytics. Dive into the data to identify content pieces that resonated with audiences and look for opportunities to repurpose that content like:

Refreshing old blog posts by updating stats and data and incorporating new trends
Elaborating on topics that you just touched on in previous posts
Repurposing related blog posts into a longer form piece like an e-book

Refine your list of blog topics

It’s important to keep your blog topic ideas focused. The last thing you want is an amalgamation of semi-related topics stuffed into a single post. Instead, try to narrow down the focus of each post to a central idea. For example, if your company sells iPhones, instead of writing a post like “10 amazing features on your iPhone” write something more specific like “The 10 best iPhone parental control features.”

Step No. 1: Conduct keyword research

Start by finding specific keywords for each topic. Focusing your blog topics on specific keywords will not only keep your post focused, but you’ll have the added benefit of optimizing the content for related Google searches.

To conduct keyword research, head to Google Ads and pull up their Keyword Planner tool (you’ll need to set up a Google Ads account to access the tool). From there, start entering in your general topics and related terms to identify popular relevant search terms.

For each topic, identify one or two keywords to focus your blog post on. Any more than that and the blog will likely lose focus. Choose keywords based on:

The keyword’s length: longer-tail keywords typically have less competition in search results
The keyword’s search volume: choose popular terms that your target audiences are likely to search for
The keyword’s seasonality: don’t just use average search volume, look at the popularity by month to identify seasonal trends to write about

Step No. 2: Find top performing topics

Now that you’ve set yourself up for a search engine optimized post, it’s time to make sure the content will resonate on social media. To get an idea of the most popular topics on social media, you can use a freemium tool like Buzzsumo. The free version of Buzzsumo can help you find related top performing content by entering your general topic into the tool’s search bar.

Organize your blog topics strategically

As you gather ideas for blog post topics, it’s important to keep them organized so you can strategically create and publish the content. One way to do this is to keep a running list of blog topic ideas in a spreadsheet that you can turn into a de facto content calendar.

Step No. 1: Build out a content calendar

Turn your list of ideas into an organized calendar that will guide your content creation. An effective tool for organizing this list is Google Sheets. With Google Sheets, you can lay out upcoming content pieces in a way that’s easy to digest and edit while planning out details like post date, focus keyword, working title, additional notes, etc.

If you’d like to start building out your own content calendar, you can copy this Google Sheet into your own Google Drive account.

Step No. 2: Develop topic clusters

One way to build out your content calendar is using the topic-cluster method. This method makes it easy for search engines to understand that the content is related, crawl individual pages and display the pages in relevant search results. Here’s how it works:

Determine an overarching topic you want to write about to act as your “pillar content”
Develop “cluster content” – blogs and other pieces about subtopics related to the pillar content
Create a pillar page to act as the main content hub for an overarching topic that links out to the previously published cluster content

Once you’ve gotten all your ideas laid out and organized, it’s time to start actually writing blog posts. Make sure to subscribe to our blog for more tips on best practices for creating blog posts.

Contact Mindstream Media Group to learn how we take our clients’ content game to the next level.

How Featured Snippets Help You Conquer Google’s Search Results

Posted on November 9, 2018January 21, 2020 by Mindstream Media Group

Featured snippets: A Google search result displayed at the top of the page featuring information that quickly answers a user’s query.

Marketers are constantly looking for the best ways to get content featured prominently on Google’s search engine result pages (SERPs). Whether they are paid ads, local listings or organic results, we want to make sure our content is optimized to the fullest to drive as many clicks to our online properties.

For its part, Google is happy to provide plenty of opportunities for marketers to appear in search results. There are search ads, shopping ads, map listings, Knowledge Graph boxes, standard organic results, etc. But there’s one type of result that rises above the rest (literally) across an array of searches – featured snippets.

If your brand is looking for more ways to dominate SERPs, earning a featured snippet is a great way to quickly answer searchers’ questions and drive clicks to your content. To help you in this endeavor, we’ve put together this helpful guide to explain what featured snippets are, how they benefit your brand and what you need to do to earn them.

What is a featured snippet?

While you won’t find one every time you conduct a search, featured snippets appear at the top of many results as a highlighted box. Google calls them featured snippets because:

“Unlike our regular web listings, the page’s description – what we call a ‘snippet’ – comes first. With featured snippets, we reverse the usual format. We’re featuring the snippet, hence the ‘featured snippet’ name. We also generate featured snippets in a different way from our regular snippets, so that they’re easier to read.”

Here’s an example of what a featured snippet looks like on a desktop search result page. As you can see, the one below is a bulleted list, but the information in a featured snippet can also appear as a paragraph or a table.

Why does Google display featured snippets?

Simply put, Google uses featured snippets to provide quick answers to simple questions.

“We display featured snippets in search when we believe this format will help people more easily discover what they’re seeking, both from the description and when they click on the link to read the page itself,” according to a blog post from Danny Sullivan, Google’s public liaison for search. “It’s especially helpful for those on mobile or searching by voice.”

How do featured snippets factor into voice searches?

Featured snippets play a large role in voice searches on devices like Google’s Home smart speaker. In these searches, the digital assistant that powers the speaker can’t display the answer to the search visually (unless the speaker also has a screen like the Google Home Hub). Instead, the digital assistant uses content that would normally appear in a mobile or desktop search to provide a spoken answer to the user’s query. In these instances, Google will also cite the source in the Google Home mobile app so the user can click to learn more.

How do featured snippets help marketers?

A few years ago, a debate began among search marketers as to whether featured snippets are actually costing content creators like brands and publishers traffic. After all, if searchers can quickly find answers to their queries at the top of the SERP, why do they even need to click into the content?

These concerns have proved to be unfounded, however, as searchers consistently click through to the source of a featured snippet to learn more about the topic.

According to a study from Ahrefs, for searches without paid ads that include a featured snippet:

8.6 percent of clicks go to the featured snippet.
19.6 percent of clicks go to the search result right below the featured snippet (i.e., the No. 1 organic result).

The study also found that, for searches without a featured snippet, 26 percent of clicks go to the top result, meaning, if your site owns the featured snippet and the top result, you’ll get 28.4 percent of the clicks vs. 26 percent of clicks if you only had the top result in a search without a featured snippet.

If your site owns the featured snippet but doesn’t land in the top spot, you’ll still likely see an increase in clicks. The vast majority of featured snippets come from one of the top five results, meaning you’ll “steal” clicks from the No. 1 result with the snippet while still getting a share of the clicks from your standard search result.

Where featured snippets rank in Google’s organic results (by SERP position)

The study was based on millions of search results with featured snippets. Studies that large can seem somewhat ambiguous. To help make this concept a little more tangible, here’s a specific example of how earning a featured snippet helped out one of our clients, AT&T Experience.

Case study: How earning a featured snippet drove traffic for AT&T Experience

First, a little background. AT&T Experience is the largest AT&T authorized retailer with nearly 1,300 retail stores nationwide. The brand’s website is relatively new, and Mindstream Media Group has been helping them gain visibility online with technical SEO and content marketing services.

Our content marketing services have included regular blogging efforts to help drive traffic and increase awareness. In July, we published a blog with a timeline of iPhone launches. For the first couple of months, the post didn’t get a whole lot of traffic. Starting in mid-September, however, the post’s traffic started to ramp up. Initially, we attributed this to the page’s rank steadily increasing in relevant search results coupled with an increase in queries about the upcoming iPhone launch.

In late October, the traffic shot up sharply and remained steady for the next few weeks. It didn’t take long to determine what happened. The post was appearing as a featured snippet for the search “Apple iPhone timeline” – a term that had more than doubled in popularity from July when the blog was released to September when the traffic started spiking.

Not only was our post the featured snippet for the search result above, but it was also the top result in the organic rankings. The post was also ranking in the top five results for a number of related search terms.

This boost in the post’s rankings – including its promotion to featured snippet status – had a significant impact on traffic to the site. If we compare the post’s traffic from the first 30 days after it was published to its traffic from the last 30 days in October, we can see some pretty impressive returns:

The last stat here is especially significant. Visitors to the blog post were spending an average of almost 7 minutes on the page in the second time window. The amount of time spent on a page is a) amazing for a blog post and b) an indicator that people found the content valuable and were reading it all the way to the end.

How do I get my content to appear as a featured snippet?

There’s no magic formula for getting your content promoted to a featured snippet. There are, however, a few simple steps you can take to give your content the best chance possible:

Create high-quality content: When it comes to any type of content you create that you want searchers to find, make sure it’s high-quality. This means the content is well-researched and well-written, includes quality images and graphics and, above all, provides audiences with valuable information.
Answer specific questions: Google often shows featured snippets for searches where the person is looking to find more information about a topic. To give your content the best chance of getting featured, create pieces that answer specific questions related to your brand. The goal isn’t to sell your products and services, it’s to help audiences learn (e.g., like providing a timeline of iPhone launches if your brand sells the devices).
Use a Q&A format: To make sure Google knows what specific questions you’re answering with your content, try using a question-and-answer format. This could include content like FAQ pages or (prepare for a fourth wall break) blogs like the one you’re reading right now that use questions to transition throughout the piece.
Optimize your content: Make sure your blogs and webpages follow SEO best practices by optimizing elements like title tags, descriptions, header tags, structured data, etc.

Need help creating optimized content that dominates Google’s search results? Contact Mindstream Media Group today.

10 of the Best Free Tools to Help You Produce Killer Online Content

Posted on October 30, 2018January 28, 2020 by Mindstream Media Group

For brands, creating online content like blogs, web pages and social media posts is an effective way to build relationships with target audiences. When done right, this type of content delivers a lot of value for brands like building awareness, increasing social media followers, driving website traffic and even helping consumers convert into customers.

The bad news, however, is that creating high-quality content can take a lot of time, especially if your brand doesn’t have the internal talent or resources to do it. If you’re having trouble jumpstarting your content efforts, check out our list of tools below to learn how to:

Identify topics for online content.
Write better headlines.
Edit online content pieces.
Develop concise copy.
Optimize your content for search engine results.
Organize your content creation process.

10 free tools for creating better online content

No. 1: Google Keyword Planner

If you want to know how your target audiences are searching for your brand on Google, look no further than the Keyword Planner. The tool is designed for choosing paid search terms, but it works well for identifying organic content topics, too. As long as you have access to an eligible Google Ads account, you can find the search volume for specific search terms to help guide your online content creation.

In the early stages of creating online content, you can turn to the Keyword Planner to:

Identify topics to write about based on the types of information that target audiences are searching for related to your brand, products and services.
Choose focus keywords for content pieces. If you have a general topic in mind, you can use the Keyword Planner to find specific keywords to focus on when optimizing the piece for search results.
Discover future content topics. When you use the Keyword Planner, keep an eye out for popular search terms on related topics to guide future content pieces.

No 2: BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is a great tool if you want to find the online content topics that are dominating social media conversations and earning valuable backlinks. While not as robust as their pro option, the free version of BuzzSumo allows you to check out the top performing content on pretty much any topic.

If you have a general idea of what you want to write about, just enter it into BuzzSumo’s search bar to find top online articles based on:

Facebook engagement
Twitter shares
Pinterest shares
Reddit engagements
Number of links to the URL
Total engagement

No. 3: CoSchedule Headline Analyzer

Want to write better headlines for your online content? Check out CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer tool. You can enter your headlines into the tool and it will analyze the text and provide you a score from 1-100 based on factors like:

Percentage of common and uncommon words – common words should make up 20-30 percent of your headline with uncommon words (e.g., awesome, beautiful, etc.) making up 10-20 percent.
Percentage of emotional words – terms that stir an emotional response from your readers (e.g., absolutely, wonderful, danger, etc.).
Percentage of power words – terms that demand readers’ attention and inspire action (e.g., pay zero, will make you, etc.).

No. 4: Grammarly

Grammarly is a freemium app that you can add to your browser or install on your desktop to help you edit online content. The tool detects grammar, spelling, punctuation and other common writing errors to help you create clean, professional-sounding copy.

There are a few ways you can use Grammarly’s free version:

Download their browser app and copy and paste your content into a new Grammarly document.
Use the browser app to automatically detect errors as you create content on other sites like WordPress, social media platforms, Google Docs and more.
Download Grammarly on your desktop to edit content in Microsoft Office products like Word and Outlook.

No. 5: Hemingway Editor

When it comes to online content, writing in a simple and concise manner is always the way to go. The Hemingway Editor helps you sharpen your copy by suggesting edits to complex sentences and phrases. Just copy and paste your content into the editor and the app will highlight portions of the copy that need work.

The Hemingway Editor highlights and suggests edits for:

Passive voice – try to stick with an active voice.
Adverbs – limit the use of these as much as possible.
Complex phrases – opt for simpler alternatives whenever possible.
Lengthy sentences – shorten or split up long, complex sentences to make them easier to read.

No. 6: Merriam-Webster online thesaurus

When you’re creating content, do you ever find yourself using the same tired verbs and adjectives over and over again? If so, there’s a simple fix to expand your vocabulary and add an extra punch to your writing – Merriam-Webster. That’s right, you don’t need a sophisticated browser app or plugin to find unique alternatives to frequently used words and phrases. Just go to Merriam-Webster’s website, enter in a word or phrase into their Thesaurus and browse the synonyms.

No. 7: Pixabay

Nothing can ruin online content like large chunks of text. Adding images to your content will give your readers’ eyes a break and help the flow of your piece. If you don’t have an in-house creative team or the budget for a premium stock photography subscription, try out Pixabay. The website has more than 1.5 million royalty-free stock photos that you can use for a variety of purposes. (There are some restrictions, however, so make sure to read this article before using Pixabay’s images.)

No. 8: Yoast WordPress Plugin

If you’re using WordPress for your website or blog, you should definitely download Yoast’s SEO plugin. Yoast helps you optimize your online content for the search engine results that matter most to you. Here’s how it works:

Enter in a focus keyword for the content piece.
Optimize the piece based on that keyword.
Yoast will provide you an optimization score and tips to improve the content.

No. 9: Google Drive

If you’re looking for a convenient place to save, organize and manage your upcoming online content pieces, look no further than Google Drive. With Google Drive, you can save all the content pieces and tools you need into easy to access folders by:

Creating editorial calendars with Google Sheets to plan out your upcoming content.
Saving blog drafts with Google Docs to research and outline future blog posts.
Uploading images to add to your content pieces later.

No. 10: Google Analytics

Once you’ve created a piece of online content, it’s important to find out if it’s actually capturing the attention of your target audience and driving engagement on your website. This is where Google Analytics comes in handy.

With Google Analytics, you can:

Monitor how much traffic your online content pieces drive to your website.
Understand what sources drive the most traffic to your content pieces (e.g., social media, email, organic search, etc.).
Identify top performing pieces to inform future content.

Need help creating awesome content for your brand? Contact Mindstream Media Group to learn more about our Content Marketing solution.

How to Create Engaging Local Social Media Content at the Local Level

Posted on September 6, 2018January 24, 2020 by Mindstream Media Group

This is the third post in our Local Social Media Series. In this post, we’ll cover how multi-location and franchise brands can give individual locations the tools they need to create highly engaging and brand compliant local social media content. Catch up on posts One and Two to see what you missed.

In this series, we’ve covered how multi-location and franchise brands can create and distribute content that engages local audiences. In this post, we’ll go a step further – explaining how these brands can give individual locations the tools they need to create their own content that’s brand compliant, engages nearby consumers and fosters relationships with local audiences.

Effective and engaging local content can include:

Images and video of the location’s business, employees and customers.
Images and video showcasing the location’s work.
Promotions for location-specific special offers.
Invites to location-specific events.

Content from individual locations is typically more relevant to local audiences than corporate content and therefore more likely to resonate. However, there are some inherent risks with creating social content at the local level. Local representatives are typically not professional marketers or social media experts which could lead to issues like:

Posting low-quality content like blurry or unprofessional photos.
Publishing copy and creative that doesn’t follow the brand’s style guidelines or desired voice.
Using images of customers and guests without their permission which could lead to legal issues.

While these are legitimate risks, creating social content at the local level can be very rewarding when it’s done right. The key for multi-location brand marketers is to provide their locations with the tools, systems and strategies they need to succeed.

Provide locations tools to create content

For most multi-location brands, employees at individual locations don’t have the time or expertise to create a lot of social content. To help them out, brands should invest in a tool that allows locations to browse, edit and repurpose content from across the brand.

In previous posts in this series, we discussed how using a technology like a local social media dashboard designed for multi-location brands can be especially useful. With a dashboard, you can import your local social profiles across platforms to allow locations to create and share content across networks.

Here’s a look at some of that functionality using a specific dashboard, Rallio, as an example.

(Note: Rallio is a Mindstream Media technology partner.)

Creating new posts

If your locations want to create original social media posts, a dashboard with an intuitive and easy-to-use interface that allows them to enter text, add images and video, schedule content and post across social media networks is key.

Personalizing content from the brand

If you’re creating a lot of content at the brand level, the ability to personalize and localize that content can really help you connect with local audiences. There are two ways a dashboard can help with this:

You can insert personalization tags into your corporate posts. These tags will pull in information from the business settings of individual profiles. For example, the [address] tag will pull in a location’s address and street information.
Locations can add custom tags to posts you’ve added to their queue to pull in additional local information like hashtags and business hours.

Repurposing content from other locations

One challenge locations face is figuring out what to share on social media. An effective way to help them learn what type(s) of content works best is providing the ability to see the performance of other locations. For example, the Sandbox feature shown below allows local representatives to view top performing posts from your other locations. They can then choose to repurpose, emulate and modify top performing posts on their own social profiles.

Approving posts from individual locations

Even when you provide a tool for locations to create content, you may still want to review these posts before they go live. The review and approve function helps make sure locations are only able to post high-quality and brand-compliant content.

Provide locations a system to use local images and video

Posting local images and videos is a great way for your locations to engage nearby audiences and build trust in the communities they serve. These posts could include content like:

Before and after photos.
Shots of customers using and enjoying your products.
Images of local events.

However, posting images and videos of customers without their permission can be risky. To make sure your locations don’t have to worry about any legal repercussions, you can load a legal release form into your dashboard. This allows customers to give permission to use their likeness by signing the form on the dashboard’s mobile app. Then, the dashboard will automatically save the form along with the accompanying image.

Provide locations a strategy to create local social media content

Remember, many locations won’t have a lot of social media expertise so it’s important to offer guidance on creating high-quality content. You’ll want to make this specific to your brand, but here are a few general best practices to help individual locations create high-quality, engaging local social content.

Post frequently

New and frequent posts tell your location’s audiences that they’re active, legitimate and care about them.

Be personal, meaningful and local

The more relatable and local your locations’ content, the more they’ll be able to connect to nearby audiences. When potential guests see posts that are local and relevant to them, they’re more likely to become fans of your location profiles and trust your brand.

Localize content

Encourage locations to use your brand’s content like images and video then localize it with information specific to their location.

Use high-quality creative

People may be more likely to pause on, interact with and respond positively to posts that include creative that captures their attention. Each post your locations create should include some type of high-quality creative like images, GIFs or videos.

Keep posts simple

In general, simple and clean posts are best at capturing an audience’s attention. Here’s how to keep posts simple:

Keep your color scheme clean, consistent and brand compliant.
Include images that are recognizable.
Use minimal, concise and impactful text.

Make posts actionable

Encourage locations to try different tactics to grab their audience’s attention and drive them to take actions you care about. While not every post they create needs to drive action, actionable posts may help you increase engagement and drive real business results.

Share content to start conversations

To engage local audiences, encourage your locations to share links to blogs from corporate or other related content and ask their fans questions or to provide their opinions in the comment section.

Share stories

People communicate through stories and so should your locations and franchisees. Sharing stories can help you build emotional connections between local audiences and your locations – and ultimately, your brand.

Keep reading… Next post in our Local Social Media Series: How to manage online reviews at the local level (and why you need to)

Want to give your brand’s locations the tools they need to amplify their local social media posts? Contact Mindstream Media Group to learn about our local social media and content services.