Tag: Content strategy

General

Summer content ideas for B2B businesses

Photo by Belinda Fewings on Unsplash

Summer meant slimmer issues of the B2B commercial property magazine I worked on, as more of our subscribers were on holiday.

But we still produced weekly issues with some seasonal, lighter or different features.

One I remember was a ‘favourite film’ survey of property CEOs and managing directors. It was fun and showed a different side to the industry leaders’ personalities.

The choices also became a talking point.

We also used summertime as a hook to look at usually unexplored commercial property markets such as seaside towns and holiday parks.

There were lots of tourist and holiday-related property angles to explore.

While the summer was a slightly quieter time for the property industry, not everyone was away.

And people perhaps had more time to read.

There are also those who might not completely switch off while they are away and might spend a bit of time catching up with some reading.

So don’t discount the Summer period and stop publishing blogs, articles and LinkedIn posts completely.

There is still an audience and a potentially more easily engaged audience.

It’s also a good time to try some different content, perhaps ahead of the autumn period.

Here are some Summer B2B content ideas:

💡 Is there a particular Summer related problem or challenge clients have that you can cover in an article or series of articles?

💡 Do you get certain types of enquiries over the summer that you could write about?

💡 Do a summer-themed survey of clients and/or staff as a lighter get-to-know-you piece, e.g. favourite holiday destination, ice cream flavour, best summer film etc.

People’s choices and favourites often make a fascinating read, and humans are naturally curious.

💡 Use summer events as hooks for market-related content; here are some property examples:

  • Staff summer party – the value of bars with terraces
  • Staff fun day – piece on leisure-tainment
  • Sporting events – sport venues and impact on regeneration

💡 Building designs that make the most of sunny weather

💡 Safe working on developments during hot weather

💡 How your business manages workloads during the holidays

💡 What the summer is like for your business (it might be a busy time).

What are your Summer content plans?

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More content goodness you might like to read:

General

From yawns to yehs: Refresh your B2B content ideas and banish the boring

B2B content creation can feel like a treadmill, can’t it?

The constant need to feed social channels, websites and newsletters can zap creativity and have you scrabbling around for good ideas. And how do you make those dry topics interesting?

In the July edition of the B2B Comms Breakdown with my fabulous co-host Ayo Abbas, we went live on LinkedIn to talk about how to come up with cracking content ideas and get more creative.

Here are the edited highlights; scroll to the bottom to watch the video replay.

How do you find ideas when you have none?

Ayo Abbas: There are ideas all around you. I take stuff from my life, as I walk along, I might see an ad that I think: ‘Oh, that’s smart’.

Or what are they doing? How did they do that?

Also, think about the questions that clients are asking you right now: How do we do this, or I’m finding this really tricky.

Those answers that you’re giving are topics that become content.

There are tools you can use, like Answer the Public, where you search for keywords, and it’ll give you lots and lots of variations and questions around those keywords.

Continue reading “From yawns to yehs: Refresh your B2B content ideas and banish the boring” →
General

How to avoid B2B content creation overwhelm and be strategic

With so many different types of content and so many channels, how do you decide where to put your content marketing time and energy?

This was the topic of a LinkedIn live stream and webinar discussion comms pro Ayo Abbas and I had.

We covered a lot (and answered a lot of audience questions) but here’s are some edited highlights. There’s a link to the replay of the full discussion at the end.

How do you decide what type of content to create?

Ayo Abbas You’ve got to make sure that you move away from perfection. Sometimes getting it done and getting it done to a decent standard is better than nothing at all.

When it comes to what type of content I want to create, I think about what the story is I want to tell and what content works for the story.

Or what have I not done for a while? Sometimes people aren’t posting certain types of content, so maybe doing that makes you stand out from the crowd.

Me I think it’s important to focus on where your audience is. Is your audience watching 15-second videos on TikTok? Then that’s probably what [your content] should be.

But if they’re not, then maybe that isn’t the type of content you should create.

[Caveat] Don’t forget new audiences. It’s very easy to get stuck into doing one type of content, but is there a new audience you want to reach, and are they consuming different types of content rather than the type you’re creating?

AA I interviewed an architect from BVDs. And he talked about finding the channels that you really enjoy. He loves talking, as does his partner, so they do podcasts.

Is it OK to stick to one type of content?

Me Yes and no. Yes, because it’s better to do one thing and do it well rather than trying to do lots of different things and not do anything particularly well.

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Repurposing

What is content repurposing, and why repurpose?

A bicycle leaning against a wall and on the back is a stack of newspapers waiting to be delivered. Image is illustrative of repurposing content being like distribution.
Think of content repurposing as like redistribution. Photo by Ravi Sharma on Unsplash

What does repurposing content mean? And why should you repurpose your B2B content?

Think of content repurposing as redistribution or broader distribution, making sure a piece of content you’ve created gets seen by as many different people as possible.

Another way to look at it is return on time invested.

You’ve created a piece of content for a purpose. It takes time to write, edit and get signed off (or filmed or recorded), and time is money.

So, you want to maximise the value of your time and content. Making sure it gets seen by as many of the right people as possible will help you achieve that.

How do you repurpose content?

There are different ways of repurposing content, which break down roughly into four areas:

1. Multiple-channel approach

This is where you publish the same piece of content on several different channels that you use for your business.

For example, you make a video and publish it on LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube, embed it in a client newsletter and put it on your website. That’s five different channels.

If you use Instagram, TikTok and Facebook, you could publish it there too.

2. Break up a longer piece of content into smaller pieces

Longer content, whether an article, report, longer video or podcast, can be repurposed into smaller chunks of content for different channels.

For example: Take your thought leader article or white paper, pull out key sections/points/quotes, and turn them into a series of shorter LinkedIn posts, blog posts or Tweets.

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General

People in business: How to add personality to B2B content

“We want our content to have a bit more personality” is something I often hear from clients, but when they see copy that reflects the individual, it can make them nervous.

Photo by Tengyart on Unsplash

It reads as more conversational and less formal than the traditional B2B content you normally see.

The built environment sector I work in is frequently described as a people industry, yet you wouldn’t guess that from the content that is regularly published.

A lot of it sounds quite similar, as if following a particular rule book about how you write to sound professional and authoritative.

To reflect personality in your business content, that rule book needs to be ripped up. It will read a little differently, but it can help your target audience get to know you and the people in your business. It can make you more relatable and approachable.

And content that is a bit different is good in the noisy world of the internet and social media.

You don’t have to completely change how you write or sound like an Innocent smoothie advert. There are small, subtle ways to add a sprinkle of personality to your B2B content that will make a difference.

Whether you are writing your own content or writing it for someone in your business, here are four ways of adding personality:

1. Particular word choice

Start with choosing words and phrases you would use in a real conversation with a friend, family member or peer. If you would naturally say you were ‘chuffed’ or ‘over the moon’, write that.

If you are writing a piece for someone in your business, listen carefully to the words they use. I like to record content chats and get a transcript (Otter.ai is the tool I use).

Are there any particular words or phrases they use? How do they explain their viewpoint or describe something when chatting about it?

Use these in the copy so that it sounds authentic to them.

A simple example is someone who works in the healthcare sector using the word ‘poorly’ rather than ‘sick’ to describe patients using a facility.

Continue reading “People in business: How to add personality to B2B content” →