If you’re struggling to carve out enough time in your busy schedule to create quality content, or you’re frustrated with your content creation efforts, then read on.
Here are seven content development rules that will help ensure the hard work you put into creating content delivers the best possible value to your target audience. Incorporating these rules into your content development process will enable you to generate awesome content quickly, efficiently and consistently.
The seven rules were developed for written content – social posts, blogs, newsletters, emails, etc. However, the principles behind them can be applied equally to audio and video content generation.
Seven Content Development Rules You Must Never Forget
- Always be clear on your purpose
- Keep it simple and casual
- Make it engaging
- Be consistent
- Deliver value
- Have a plan
- Proof carefully
1) Always Be Clear On Your Purpose
One of the biggest concerns raised by my coaching students is related to content development. They have a topic in mind, but one of two things happens the moment they sit down and begin writing. They don’t know where to start, or they do start but then keep going… and going… and going.
Either outcome is problematic in that precious time has been expended with no publishable content to show for it.
Most often, the issue is a lack of clarity as to the content’s purpose. My students haven’t taken the time to consider in advance what they’re trying to accomplish and how they’re going to do it. And, when someone doesn’t know where they’re going, it’s challenging to get started, and it’s also hard to know in advance where they might end up.
Establishing a purpose before you start writing or filming will make your content much easier and less time-consuming to develop.
So, before you start any content project, ask yourself the following three questions:
- To whom am I speaking?
- What do they need to know about this topic?
- What do I want them to do once they know about it?
The answers to these questions will help you identify what information needs to be included in the content, as well as the appropriate language and tone to employ. Knowing this will aid in finding the right starting point and in delivering a message that’s both succinct and on-point.
The call to action (CTA) should always be aligned with your content. For example, suppose you’re writing about the importance of having a regular fitness routine. In that case, a CTA of “DM me to receive a free fitness routine” will seem more logical and desirable to your audience than “DM me to receive my latest recipe eBook.” (You should always include a call to action in your content, even if it’s simply “If you have any questions about how to get started with your content development, feel free to DM me at @dyble.lisa.”)
2) Keep It Simple And Casual
Just as casual Fridays have been extended to include Monday through Thursday in a great many businesses, so too has business language become much less formal than in the past. It’s become even more casual and conversational online for both business-to-business and business-to-consumer communications.
This is great news because it enables you to take a casual tone and use a simplified vocabulary that anyone can easily understand, regardless of their educational level or if English is not their first language.
It’s important to make it as easy as possible for your audience to consume your content. So much of the time, particularly on social media platforms, people are casually skimming through their feeds until something catches their eye. Unless they’re actively researching a subject, they’re not interested in deep thinking.
So always strive to organize and present your content as simply as you can. One of the reasons why listicles are so popular is that they break content up into organized chunks that are easy for the reader to consume.
For social posts, limit yourself to one main idea and one related CTA. Include only those details required to get your point across. Too much extraneous information can create confusion, and once your post becomes hard to understand, it’s no longer entertaining. People will simply scroll to the next item in their feed.
3) Make It Engaging
Whether you’re working on a social post, blog or some other type of content, the best way to ensure engagement is to make it stand out visually with a captivating image and a headline that “stops the scroll” for your target audience as they’re scrolling through their social feeds or Google search results.
The headline serves two purposes. First, it has to convince the reader that this content is relevant for them. Second, it must also entice them to read the first line of copy. The job of the first line of copy is to compel the reader to read the second line, the second line’s job is to ensure the third line is read, and so on. Think of it as “pulling” a reader through your content by crafting each line to compel them to read the next.
The best way to accomplish this is to tell a story that teaches, inspires or creates desire. Human beings think predominantly in stories, and our mind is designed to remember them. We relate to the world through the stories we tell ourselves about who we are, our environment and how we fit into it, who other people are and how our relationships with them are working. Much of human history has been handed down through stories, starting with the cave paintings of our earliest ancestors. The ancient Greek myths and legends were preserved through storytelling, and the Bible is one of the greatest stories ever told.
By story, I don’t mean the “once upon a time” type. The type of story I’m referring to is simply the telling of an event or experience in a way that teaches your audience something. It could be an experience you went through, a customer testimonial, or just about anything else if you think about it creatively.
4) Be Consistent
Because people prefer to buy from those they know, like and trust, it’s essential that your message is consistent across your website and social media platforms.
Particularly if you’re a coach or other service provider, your audience follows you for your passions and values. If your messaging is inconsistent, you are going to confuse your audience. If your audience can’t figure you out, they won’t get you, so they won’t trust you. And if that’s the case, they’re certainly not going to buy from you.
If you have an internal team or agency working with you on content development, be sure they understand your passions and values and create content that accurately reflects who you are and what you believe in.
On a related note, don’t be afraid to be repetitive with your content. When people are interested in something, they don’t mind some degree of repetitiveness. Besides, you should never assume someone has reviewed all your previous content or will remember it even if they’ve already seen it. Particularly for social media posts where algorithms dictate how content is distributed, the odds are fair to good that a large portion of your audience won’t recognize your “recycled” content.
I’m not suggesting you take old content and republish it as new, as the platforms frown on that and may penalize you. However, you can refresh older content before republishing and also repurpose it across platforms – think blog, YouTube video, video snippets suitable for TikTok and Instagram, etc. Since people like to consume content differently, you’ll want to share similar content across your various social platforms.
Additionally, it’s a great way to maximize content creation efficiencies and get the most bang for your buck from each content project.
5) Deliver Value
Creating and posting high-quality content on a regular basis should be central to any business marketing strategy. But given the time it takes to research and develop quality content, business owners and their marketing teams can sometimes be tempted to cut corners and “just get something up” in order to meet their posting deadlines.
However, there’s no point in investing valuable time and resources into developing content if it’s not providing value to the people with whom you’re trying to build influence. At best, it can act as “filler” content that shows you’re active online. At worst, it can damage your reputation as a thought leader and encourage prospects and clients to search out other thought leaders (such as your competition!) who are providing educational content that’s more relevant to their needs.
Obviously, not every piece of content you create needs to be meticulously researched and artfully developed. However, it should always serve a clear purpose and be relevant to your target audience.
So, tempting as it might be from time to time, don’t create content just for the sake of creating content.
It’s no secret that a key objective of organic content is lead generation and people don’t mind providing their contact information to receive an eBook, newsletter subscription, or some other form of exclusive, comprehensive content they believe will make their life easier or better.
Providing exclusive content that meets or exceeds expectations is an excellent way to create goodwill and deepen relationships with your followers.
6) Have A Plan
Before you write a single word of copy, be clear on where you need to start, where you need to end and how you’re going to get there. If you’re not clear on the overall direction, you could go in circles, writing and discarding countless drafts that waste time and raise frustration levels through the roof.
The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way. The bad news is that it often becomes this way when content creators get inspired by an idea and start writing before fully thinking about their idea all the way through. I caution you not to do this. Take the time to think your ideas through, plan out your content journey and follow your plan.
When you are clear on your purpose (Rule #1), planning the flow of your content becomes much easier. When you have a purpose and end goal in mind, it’s easier to think more creatively about how to construct a compelling story around that purpose (Rule #3).
As a result, you’ll write your first draft relatively quickly, and it will usually be more concise and on point than if you had simply sat down at your keyboard and started typing away.
Let the ideas flow naturally when working on your initial draft, and worry about editing them later.
Why? Because storytelling uses the creative (right) side of your brain and story editing requires the analytical (left) side. The majority of people’s brains work most effectively when only one side is in play at a time. So let the ideas flow and then worry about cleaning them up later.
7) Proof Carefully
You’ve labored for hours over your latest blog. Crafted your copy with care. All that’s left is to hit that final RETURN key…
But how well have you proofed your work?
Reviewing your final draft once or twice may not catch every spelling or grammatical error. That’s because we tend to see what we expect to see when visually proofing our own work.
It’s always a good idea to have someone else check your final draft as they could pick up minor errors you may have missed. But if that’s not practical or possible, don’t worry as the following will help.
Read your draft out loud to ensure it flows smoothly. As you listen to yourself, you may catch awkward phrases missed during your visual review. If something sounds even a little off, that’s your clue it may need to be reworked.
Once you’ve done that, use a spell checker like Grammarly. Grammarly is also great for catching missing articles and prepositions – small words our brain tends to gloss over in favour of nouns, verbs and other key parts of speech. They are therefore much easier are to miss during a visual proof.
Finally, I highly recommend you leave your work for at least a few hours and then review it again with fresh eyes. Sometimes you’ll see things differently, and perhaps catch a flaw in your logic or find a better way to state an argument or concept.
And there you have it. I hope these seven rules provide you with a useful framework for developing killer content as efficiently and effectively as possible.
If you have any questions related to content development, feel free to DM me at @dyble.lisa. Content writing is my jam, and I’m always happy to help out a friend.