This week, we’re talking about what type of content you should be creating for your small business or brand! There’s this thought that flashy content, like Tik Tok and Reels are what’s important right now. While they’re pretty common these days, it might surprise you to know that I think there’s other kinds of content you should be creating. Remember, you want to put your energy where it matters – into the content that’s converting followers into customers and growing your brand. There’s a lot of content you can make, so today I want to talk about what kind of content will have a longer lasting impact on your brand. 

Why should we be creating content? 

First things first, let’s talk about why content for your brand is important in the first place. First, it helps us build our audience. I think that’s pretty obvious. Content allows us to connect with people – whether it’s followers on Instagram or on your website. Marketing also helps with the like, know, trust factor with your current audience. It helps build your credibility and primes your audience to buy from you eventually. 

The second reason we should be creating content is to grow your email list. A by-product of sharing content and sharing it strategically is that you can grow your email list. Treat your email list like gold – it’s one of the most important parts of your business. It’s one of the best spaces for me to drive sales and a more personal way to connect with my audience. When I created a YouTube video last year, I gained almost 3K subscribers from it alone because I incorporated a freebie. It just goes to show the power of marketing! When you launch a product, you’ll probably convert 3-5% of your email list to customers during that point. So, even if not everyone buys something right away, eventually they probably will. That’s a huge benefit of content creation. 

Where should you be creating content?

The next question you might have is where to be creating content – which platforms should you use? I think there’s two easy to distinguish between platforms. First, is by those you own and those you don’t. You should be creating content on at least one platform that you own. Obviously, I believe strongly in email lists. You could also consider your blog or podcast something you own. The platforms you don’t own are things like social media (Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok) and YouTube. If those shut down today and your business is dependent solely on them, you’re going to have some trouble and have to make quick pivots. 

Warm & Cold Audiences

Another way to distinguish content platforms is by who they’re reaching: a warm or cold audience. Both audiences have a purpose. A cold audience is driven by searches, something that makes it easy for someone new to find you. This would be like an optimized blog being ranked on Google for SEO terms. Pinterest and YouTube are also great for this! Sometime short form content, like a Tik Tok, can be shown to a cold audience, too.  Incorporating content that reaches a cold audience into your strategy is important. Warm audiences are the people that you have with you already and you’re focused more on building a relationship with them on a consistent basis. This is your email list or Instagram followers. Instagram can kind of fall into both categories depending on the type of content because they now have search features, but generally it’s a warmer audience. 

Evergreen Content

The other way I like to distinguish content is whether or not it’s evergreen. Evergreene means that a piece of content can live on for days, months, and years after posting it. It has a longer time span. Instagram has a short time span, for example. After about 24-48 hours, a piece of content isn’t really going to see engagement. But, something like a YouTube video or blog is going to live on for months (even years) and continually see engagement. I see this with my own brand all the time. Google and YouTube are our biggest traffic drivers – our videos and blogs still bring people in each month. This is a huge part of having a content strategy that doesn’t require you to show up every day to find new people. Creating long-lasting content helps you create leads on an evergreen basis. 

How to decide where to create content for your brand

Now that you’ve got a better idea about the types of content and places to create content, you need to decide where you want to work. There are some questions you need to ask yourself. FIrst, think about your ideal client or target audience. Where do they show up? If they’re not on Tik Tok, don’t waste time there. This will obviously look different for every business. Pick the platforms that will serve you really, really well. 

I want to encourage you too to think about playing the long game. It can be easy to post blogs or videos for months and not see anything. But, these long-term platforms require 6+ months to see traction. So, keep going. Remember that well-designed and strategic content will continue to drive traffic to your site and generate leads for you. When we look at our analytics, we see that we get traffic from YouTube, Pinterest, and Google each month. Spending all of our time on Instagram just wouldn’t make sense. You have to know where your ideal clients are looking! 

When you first start out, I recommend starting with two platforms and really mastering those before trying to add any more in. When you look at a brand like mine, you may see that we’re everywhere. But it’s taken us years and a team to get there.

Picking your platforms

Here’s my last few tips to choose your content platforms. First, pick a social media platform because it’s a great way to connect with your audience right away. Next, choose a platform that’s YOURS. Whether that’s your blog, email list or podcast. They will help generate new clients for you. I highly recommend choosing your email list but a blog can also be strategic, too. Out of the platforms you select,  one should be reaching a cold audience and it will typically be more evergreen. Remember that as you grow, content can overlap and be repurposed across your platforms. Try to write or focus on one longer piece of content each week that can be shared across everything. For us, that’s a video that becomes a blog, goes into an email, gets shared on social media, and even then later might become a podcast episode. Having a main content piece can make all of the other parts so much easier! 

If you’re listening and you have ideas about what to talk about next, please send in your requests! I really do want to know what you want to hear about in future episodes. Email me at [email protected] with your questions!! I can’t wait to hear from you! Don’t forget to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, too. We appreciate all of the support and love!