There’s a lot of noise out there in the digital world, especially in the recruitment and HR spaces.
Companies are posting videos, blogs and social media updates each day about a wide range of topics in the hope of better connecting their business with both talent and prospective clients, and positioning themselves as an employer or recruiter of choice.
We all know the value of reaching out regularly to keep us relevant, but with the amount of material constantly flooding into cyberspace, it can be an intimidating thought. You'd be forgiven for thinking you're just posting the same stuff as everyone else and wondering why you’re even bothering.
So how do you dream up successful content ideas and then produce great content worthy of it, so that you're being different online? Let's start there...
Standing Out From the Rest
Content marketing is a necessary strategy that your business must use to reach your audience; but it only has effective cut-through if it’s powerful, relevant and of a high standard.
People are busy and bombarded today, which means they're only spending their limited time on communications they deem significant and interesting to them. Simply put, it has to be of value.
The problem (and the good news for you!) is, most businesses are so time poor that they’ll just put anything out there to ‘tick that box’ each week. Not only does this get less traction, it also establishes a low standard for your brand that can have a lasting impact as people start to deem your information as not worth their attention. So even when you produce an amazing piece of content, it goes unseen.
Most of the noise out there is actually of this calibre, which presents you with an opportunity to be different!
I always go by the mantra: 'quality or nothing.' There’s no excuse for bad or rushed content.
To stand out from the rest online, your content needs to be valuable and meaningful for your target audience; and this comes through proper planning.
How Does Content Planning Help Differentiate You?
Everyone knows that a rushed job gets the results it deserves, and posting ad hoc content is no different.
So, to stand out from the rest who are doing this, your business should take the time to plan out its future content so that it corresponds with key dates and proper research, and meets your audience’s needs for that time.
For example, Valentine’s Day was earlier this month. Instead of whipping up a quick post about love or chocolate to fulfil your content requirements for that day, dedicate the time and resources to leverage these dates with thought-leading content will differentiate your business by offering more value and depth.
The Easter break is just around the corner and people take time off for a mini-break to get away from it all. Could it be the right time to produce some amazing content targeted to prospective employer clients for temporary staff? Could it be the right time to produce great content targeted to qualified talent about starting fresh with a new role?
People don’t associate a message of ‘chocolate’ with jobs. But holidays and time off? You betcha! This is what comes of planning.
Content Planning: Why & How?
People - talent, clients - are precious commodities; and both want the best from each other. And from you. And they’re worth the effort in every way. You'll return better results when you take the time to produce quality content, rather than last-minute posts and hoping for the best.
So what's the best tool to plan your content? That's easy: a content calendar! Take a step back, map out the dates that are important to your target audience, and schedule into your calendar the campaigns you can run and the content you can create across the next few months, or year even, giving your team enough time to research and produce great content.
And remember, that content you produce is yours forever to re-purpose and use again and again. So the investment of time is more than worth it!
Because we believe in you, and your new content planning strategy, we're giving away our content planning calendar template - absolutely free - to get you started. No need to re-invent that wheel! Plus it contains a load of other free information to help you with your content marketing strategy! Get yours here:
