Creating Quality Content or ‘How do you blog for someone else?’
As a freelance content creator, blogger and copywriter I’m often asked by people ‘how do you blog for someone else?’ As I usually work with either solopreneurs (I’m not sure I like that word, I’m trying it out, thoughts?) and SMEs a lot of the time the content that I create is simply what a permanent employee would be doing at a larger company so I don’t think it’s really the mystery people think.
However, I’ve recently realised that what most people are actually asking me is how do you create quality content for someone when you aren’t completely immersed in what they do? If your product or service is particularly specialised can someone outside of your area really create quality content for you?
Let’s take a step back for a moment and just think about the reasons that people create content like blogs for themselves or their company in the first place. Creating and sharing quality targeted content about what you do and offer is a great way to position yourself as a knowledgeable and trustworthy source in your sector. It isn’t just about what you are writing, although it does have to be of quality, it is also about your presence online. People who are interested in you and what you do want to check you out online and having a dynamic source of information — a website with a blog on, an active feed on social media channels — shows them that you are active right now doing what you do, not simply a static webpage where the last update could have been when you set up your business.
So back to the first question: how do I create and share content for other people and businesses and how can you do the same for yourself or your business?
Set a schedule
How often do you want to create content? Think about what you can actually commit to — one written article a week, an image of your work or product every day, a short video talking about your latest client or service every few weeks or a mix of all of these? Remember that if you are doing this for your website an update every week or two weeks is more than fine for a small enterprise, people checking your website just want to know you are there regularly.
Also be aware that if you are going to share this content on social media then you won’t be exclusively sharing your own content so you don’t have to produce something every day to be posting every day; social media is very much about interaction and you’ll be sharing other people’s content and interacting with your community a lot more than you’ll be sharing your own.
Idea Generation or Getting in the Client’s Mind
This is where my geek brain kicks in and the fun starts. As well as talking about the products and services they offer I talk to clients about their sector. Where do you get your industry information; other blogs, media, channels? Who is doing great work in your sector? Who are your influencers? What books do you read for your business and how have these impacted your work? What do you think the greatest challenges are for your customers or in your sector?
I love getting into the mind of my clients and starting to inhabit their world. I want to know where they are and where they want to go. I can tell when the process starts to happen; across my own media and online consumption I’ll start to notice stories that they will be interested in, things that affect or inspire their work, companies and contacts that could work alongside them. And I start asking questions and looking for my own answers, finding trusted sources around their subject and seeing what communities are out there for them and where they hang out online.
Format
People get very hung up on format. For blogs there is always talk of how best to optimise them for SEO, what length they should be, how they should incorporate keywords etc. These things are important and worth considering but I don’t think they should be the be all and end all.
I think it is best to look at how you consume this content yourself and then start to hang your ideas from that. For example, I never used to put headings in my blog posts. I didn’t really like doing it, maybe I had this lofty idea that all my prose should be read in full from start to finish. Then one day I had the realisation that when I read a blog I read the first paragraph or two sentences and then I start scrolling and skimming through the rest, reading any headings or quotes in order to decide whether I’m going to read the article in full. Now I use both headings and quotes.
If I wouldn’t read my own blog due to its format then why am I asking anyone else to read it?!
This can be used for any type of content. What images do you find most appealing online? What type of production on videos will entice you to watch them? What tone in tweets do you most respond to? A lot more of you is in your business than you realise and what appeals to you will often, by extension, be part of how you position yourself to clients and contacts so it is a good place to start.
Specialist Knowledge
For me all the steps that we’ve just been through will lead me to the point where I’m now ready to sit down and produce specialist content for a client. I take content from my clients that they’ve used before: adverts, old blogs, email copy to new customers, images and infographics from brochures, brochure copy — and start to write and produce content for them.
And content creation is very much about relationships and evolution. The more that I write for someone and the longer that I work with them the more I can build a voice for them with their audience that will grow as their business does. It the same with any ongoing content creation, you might feel like it is a lot of work to begin with but the more that you do it the more it becomes part of what you do within your business the more you will see benefits and integrate it into what you are doing.
Complex issues often come down to the same things. I recently read this great article on the Buffer blog — people don’t buy products they buy a better version of themselves. By positioning yourself as an expert in your field you want to be offering your audience something that makes them a better version of themselves. If they have a complex problem what would it look like to them if it was solved? Write and create content that shows them how to be that person, as an individual or within their business or sector.
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