Category: Uncategorized

10 types of content that will keep your followers coming back for more

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When it comes to social media content, variety is the spice of life. Mixing up the types of content you’re offering allows you to cater to the different interests of your audiences. Variations in content also keep your feed engaging and fresh, enticing your followers to return again and again for all the interesting news you have to share.

Photography

Photos are some of the most valuable types of social media content, and some of the most frequently posted. That’s because they can be easily absorbed and give viewers a quick view of your brand.

Research shows that photos of people resonate more than photos of objects, and photos of people looking directly at the camera perform better than images of the subject looking away from the camera. But those are not hard and fast rules. Read up on trends in your industry, and check social feeds for industry leaders to see what their followers are responding to.

You can also experiment with what I call the “Netflix Effect” – trying different images at different points in time without changing the text of the post to see what performs best.

Graphics

Graphics that incorporate your company’s identity can help reinforce brand messaging on social media. However, be careful that you’re not over-branding your posts; some users may find too much branding inauthentic, and your social feed will look dull and static if every graphic looks like the next one.

Blog posts 

Blog posts hosted on your site will help establish your expertise and provide value to your audience. Sharing these posts on social media will drive more viewers to your site. They’re also a force multiplier, allowing you to leverage content created for one platform on another.

Infographics

Infographics present complex information, data or statistics in a clear and concise way. Because they are designed to be easy to understand and visually appealing, they are ideal for sharing on social media platforms. Infographics can be shared as stand-alone images or incorporated into larger posts or articles. Be sure to include text in your post as well for accessibility.

Videos

Videos help create emotional connections with your audience and supersize your social media efforts by helping to generate more interactions and shares. They can range from simple to complex, from short reels created with still photos to organic phone content to highly-produced videos. Topics can include customer testimonials, product demos, event recaps, staff interviews and more.   

User-generated content

Content created by or involving your customers helps to humanize your brand while instilling a sense of community and encouraging engagement. Encourage users to tag your business during events you’re hosting. Sponsor photo contests, offering a small prize for the top images. Post customer reviews and testimonials to build credibility. 

Polls and surveys

Ask your audience to participate in polls or surveys to gather feedback and insights. This free version of market research, while maybe not the most rigorous, will yield valuable insights into your followers’ preferences and desires.

Live streams

Host live streams to interact with your audience in real-time and answer their questions. The upsides are numerous: building community, showcasing the benefits of your products and services, enhancing engagement and building brand recognition.

Quote graphics

Motivate and inspire your audience with inspirational quotes. Whenever possible, quote people associated with your company, such as a founder or president, or a person from history whose values align with your company’s.

In lieu of quotes, consider breaking down your mission statement into a series of posts. Whatever approach you take, be sure to incorporate a graphic that includes a photo of the person being quoted, an aesthetic photo from your company’s stock images or brand elements such as illustrations or icons.

Helpful content

How-to guides posted on website and shared on social media provide value to your audience and help establish your expertise. Depending on the platform, you can either share the entire story or just bullet points with a link to a longer article on your website. Remember to keep your content engaging, relevant and aligned with your brand messaging to maximize its impact.

Featured image above: Photo by Merakist for Unsplash

8 project management tools to take your marketing to the next level

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Ready to level up your marketing efforts? If you’re managing a team, get help from project management software.

By providing a centralized platform for collaboration, task management and resource allocation, PM platforms can greatly enhance efficiency and effectiveness, reducing headaches and allowing your team to achieve its goals with greater ease and confidence. Depending on the product, features include automated notifications, customizable workflows, real-time updates, robust reporting and analytics, and process optimization.

Here are some of the most popular project management brands available today:

  • Asana: This web and mobile-based project management software helps teams track their work, manage deadlines and collaborate effectively. It’s a popular choice for businesses of all sizes, and is known for its ease of use and versatility, including the ability to check progress online, on a computer app and on your phone.
  • Basecamp: Not ready to ascend the mountaintop? Like the name implies, Basecamp is designed to be simple and easy to use. The web-based project management software is considered a good choice for small businesses and teams looking for a basic solution.
  • Celoxis: A comprehensive project management platform, Celoxis is designed for enterprise-level businesses. It’s known as a powerful tool for managing complex projects with multiple stakeholders.
  • Jira: Designed for software development teams, Jira is a popular, powerful tool that helps you track bugs, manage tasks and release software.
  • Monday.com: With a name that’s much more relatable than its original daPulse moniker, Monday.com is a web-based project management software known for its intuitive interface and customizable features. It’s considered a good choice for businesses of all sizes, and it’s particularly popular with creative teams.
  • ProofHub: For a simple and affordable solution, ProofHub is a web-based project management tool designed to help teams collaborate effectively.
  • Smartsheet: Sometimes referred to as Excel and Access on steroids, Smartsheet is, as the name implies, a spreadsheet-based project management software. Considered a good choice for businesses that are steeped in spreadsheet culture, this powerful tool can be used to manage projects of all sizes.
  • Trello: For visual folks like web designers, Trello is known for its Kanban boards – graphical representations that allow team members to see the status of every project at any time. The web-based product is considered a good choice for businesses looking for a visual and easy-to-use solution.

Featured image above from Rawpixel

Are you getting headaches over project management? Here’s how the right software can help 

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My husband, a licensed marriage and family therapist, says that people don’t change when they’re comfortable. It’s only when they become uncomfortable that they’re willing to do the hard work to make changes for the better. 

With that in mind, what’s bothering you about your project management today? Missed deadlines? Poor communication? Low morale and productivity? 

You’ve likely experienced a number of other pain points as well. Thankfully, most of these headaches can be minimized with the help of project management software.

Maybe you’ve been reluctant to invest in a project management platform because of concerns over cost or time lost during the adoption phase. Admittedly, if your marketing team has never used PM software, it can be a steep learning curve. But here’s why it can be worth the squeeze. 

The upside

Improved planning and scheduling: With PM software, you can create and manage detailed project plans, including timelines, milestones and task dependencies. This granular view helps you identify potential risks and roadblocks early on, helping to ensure that projects are completed on time and within budget. You can also visualize everyone’s workloads, making it easier to schedule realistic deadlines.

Reduced risk of scope creep: It’s an all-too-common occurrence: an internal or external client requests your team’s marketing assistance, and everything is on track for a timely delivery. Then, a few weeks later, the client requests additional tasks out of the blue. While PM platforms don’t prevent scope creep altogether, they do allow you to set up templates for common projects; functioning as checklists, the templates help you and your partners consider a variety of options at project launch when deadlines and budgets are being set.

Better collaboration and communication: Having a central platform for all project stakeholders to collaborate and communicate effectively reduces misunderstandings and delays. When everyone is literally on the same page, employee and client satisfaction is likely to increase.

Increased productivity: With PM software, you can streamline workflows and automate many of the tasks involved in managing similar types of projects. This can free up your time to focus on more strategic work, improving your overall output.

Better visibility and accountability: Are you tired of spending hours in team meetings or sending endless emails to catch up on everyone’s workload? Project management software can help you track progress in real-time. By holding people responsible for keeping their project boards updated, you create transparency and accountability within your team.

Easier file access and sharing: Most businesses have multiple options for storing files, which creates confusion when searching for documents. With PM software, working files and final files can be stored within each project, making them easier to access later.

Data-driven decision-making: Whether it’s missed deadlines, budget overruns or inequities in workload, project management software helps you analyze and identify problem areas. Once you determine the remedies, you can return to the platform later to track your progress.

The downside

As with all digital tools, project management platforms are not fool-proof. The software can be complicated, and employees will need training, patience and reassurance to embrace it.

Additionally, if you’re using PM software primarily for your own team, then clients, even internal ones, will not have access. That can be good if you want to track challenges your team is encountering that you’re not ready to share with clients. But it also means you have to use alternative forms of communication to keep decision makers apprised of your progress, which adds a layer of complication.

Finally, PM platforms are big on notifications, from in-software alerts to emails. If you’re managing a lot of projects, you will likely get an avalanche of notifications. In that case, consider turning off email notifications except for critical alerts, and make a habit of checking the PM platform routinely throughout each day to ensure that communications don’t get lost in the shuffle.

Featured image above: Shutterstock photo

Writing with Smart Brevity: When less really is more 

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Whenever I hear the phrase “more with less,” I remember a colleague years ago in a meeting grumbling, “You can never do more with less. You can only do less with less.” 

While that is the case with budgets and FTEs, it’s also true that fewer words can have a bigger impact. That’s where Smart Brevity can help. 

Why it matters

In an era of information overload, it’s more important than ever to communicate in a concise and impactful way. Smart Brevity, created by the founders of news outlet Axios, is the ability to convey complex ideas in a simple and straightforward manner, using language that is both easy to understand and persuasive.

Ways that Smart Brevity can help

  • Increased attention and comprehension: When you use clear and concise language, your audience is more likely to pay attention to what you’re saying and understand your message.
  • Improved communication and collaboration: Because it distills text to key points, Smart Brevity can help break down barriers and foster better communication and collaboration between team members, clients and other stakeholders.
  • Enhanced credibility and influence: When you can articulate your ideas clearly and persuasively, your organization appears more knowledgeable and trustworthy.
  • Increased productivity and efficiency: Most writers agree that it’s harder to write shorter than longer. But eventually, you’ll develop a cadence and need less time to write each article. Shorter word counts also translate into less time conducting interviews and research.
  • Stronger impact and memorability: When you can convey your message in a concise and memorable way, it’s more likely to stick with your audience and have a lasting impact.

How Smart Brevity increased one team’s impact

In my capacity as a content director recently, I was charged with greatly increasing productivity and impact in a short time period among the members of a creative team. After team members read the Smart Brevity book and took a training course with Axios, I tasked them with immediately deploying its principles in content development. The result: increased efficiency, better audience engagement and enhanced brand recognition.

Here’s how we did it:

  • Eliminating unnecessary details: Smart Brevity helped us identify and remove irrelevant information, ensuring our stories focused on the core message and resonated with the audience.
  • Highlighting key moments: By concentrating on critical turning points and emotional peaks, we crafted narratives that were more engaging and memorable.
  • Structuring the story: Smart Brevity’s emphasis on clear structure helped our team organize our stories effectively, leading the audience on a journey with a satisfying conclusion.
  • Using active voice: By replacing passive voice with active voice, our stories became more dynamic and engaging, capturing the audience’s attention.
  • Employing concise language: We replaced jargon and complex sentences with clear, concise language that everyone could understand, regardless of their background.
  • Writing with vivid imagery: Smart Brevity encouraged us to incorporate vivid imagery and sensory details, making our stories more immersive and bringing them to life for audiences.

By boosting efficiency in writing, our team’s storytelling went from good to great, leading to supercharged productivity and impact. I encourage anyone who wants to improve the results of their storytelling to explore Smart Brevity and discover its transformative powers.