Content Farms for Brand Building

Content is crucial — you know this. This blog has preached quality over quantity in terms of publishing blogs, articles, social media posts, and other media items and what makes an article readable. But how do you decide what to write?

According to a recent post on Search Engine Journal, one of the best ways to generate unique, share-friendly content is to farm your audience. When you’re brand building for your personal Web portfolios, company, or industry, your readership is only pleased if they are interested in what you’re writing. You can write the best post ever, but if it’s merely a copycat post of one you did the week before people won’t read it. Don’t beat a dead horse!

Crowdsourcing Content

Often, it is best to assess the success of prior blogs to see what topics are worth revisiting. Blogging software and analytical data can tell you which posts were visited the most, but Facebook shares, likes, other online mentions, and crosslinks are just as important. If you’re blogging for a technology company, for example, and the most read blogs involve industry insight and cutting-edge technology as opposed to posts centering around your business’ services, you should probably take that as a sign. There are ways to marry the two topics, of course, so do so as long as the content is unique and intriguing.

Listen to your readers directly. Scan the comment sections for common conversation themes and use reader questions and concerns as a platform to launch new content. You can also look at company-related online reviews and other sources as well. Another good way to write attractive blog posts is to find any industry-related hot topics through searches. If there is a national trend or statement appearing in high-traffic blogs, find a way to spin the trend to fit your company.

Social Media

According to the article, another great method for farming topics is to stay active in cross-industry blogs. LinkedIn related discussions are a good source; follow other companies that post related content and see which ones are generating debate and discussion. You can also join circles on Google+ circles in your business’ domain to see which topics are picking up traction.

Social media also gives you the opportunity to take surveys and suggestions from readers. Facebook polls are often used by writers as pseudo-research used to structure a blog. Your goal as a blogger is to write content that takes a spin on a hot topic and generates debate and discussion, all the while adding insight to any given subject and supporting your own agenda. You can also use case studies as a skeleton for fresh content as long as your source it accordingly. Studies are good ways to link to other sites to generate higher readership.

Futurism

One of the most read topics in cross-industry blogs relates to what’s in store for the future. Good writers are better readers; look around for similar posts that make guesses at what is going to happen in your industry in the future and find an angle on the subject. You can always contact us for content creation guidance.

via Business 2 Community http://www.business2community.com/content-marketing/content-farms-brand-building-0601787?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=content-farms-brand-building