By Darren Gilbert

After all, creating good content is not easy. Writing engaging copy is difficult. Speaking recently to PlusNarrative’s Director of Strategy, Kyle Fraser, he emphasised just this. “It is not something that comes easy. If you are getting it right, it means that you really are trying.”

Consider for whom you are creating content

Behind every decision lies a purpose. It could be as trivial as deciding to buy skim over full cream milk or deciding to take out life insurance. The same can be said when it comes to producing content. Every time you set about creating content, you need to consider who you are creating it for.

“Content must be related to a persona you are targeting,” believes MPULL Director, Daryn Smith. “To be successful in content marketing, you need to be creating content that actually interests a persona.” For example, if you sell wall paper and you create content about wall paper constantly, you will generate little interest. But if you create content about interior decorating and architecture trends you will capture your persona.”

“One of the ideas behind content marketing is to not only get content in front of users’ eyes but to also trigger some element of engagement,” says JellyFish South Africa’s Managing Director, Tim Lombard. “Without truly understanding your audience, this is unlikely.”

Make your content special

“We’ve created a lot of content at a pretty remarkable rate. Between 2010 and 2014, we generated three times the amount of content online than was created between the mid-90’s and 2009,” points out Lombard.

This points to an obvious conclusion: you need to think long and hard about what you create. “That is the most important thing,” agrees Fraser. “When [PlusNarrative] produces something, we think about who it is for. We put ourselves in the shoes of everybody.”

For Lombard, it’s about making your content unique, engaging and better than your peers’. “For your content to rank more predominantly, last longer and deliver greater value than that of your competitors, it will most likely need to be considerably better than what is already on the landscape.”

“Every piece of content must have a defined take out before you start creating it,” says Smith. “If you do not have an objective for each piece of content you create, you are just creating noise.”

Be careful not to only talk about yourself

As much as it is easy to say that you mustn’t talk about yourself, it’s difficult. “It is difficult for brands to stop hard selling because this is what they have always done,” says Smith. “They need to rather think about helping and engaging their market and the sales will come from that.”

Carla van Staden. Marketing Strategist at Twenty3Media agrees: “You want to create content that entices people to share the content with a friend or family member.” This is the type of content that doesn’t focus so much on you as a brand and your product and how great you are but rather on how you can help someone.

Be careful not to only talk about yourself. Instead, consider your audience first. Consider what they want and not what you think they need to hear.

What are your thoughts? How do you go about creating content? Tell us below.