How to Create Content that Stands Out

[00:00:00] Surbhi Dedhia: Hello, and welcome to a brand-new episode of the making of a thought-leader podcast. Have you been in a situation where you have been posting on social media, communicating? Let's say at least once or twice a month and don't see any trends. Or perhaps you've been doing better than that. I've been pretty consistent on the content front, but when it comes to differentiation, it's a far cry.

[00:00:27] Surbhi Dedhia: Maybe your 2022 marketing budget is skewed towards content creation and you believe that posting every day is going to bring in the engagement from your audience. You may be in any of these situations, but the fact is that digital presence is not only too noisy today, but it's even more confusing. And I'm here today to tell you that it does not have to be that way.

[00:00:55] Surbhi Dedhia: In this episode, I will be sharing some ideas of con on content creation that can help you think differently about creating content for building thought leadership. So, let's dive in. There is lots happening in the world today, socially, politically in business news and more. And if that's not too much, the advent of artificial intelligence has eased up the challenge of content production.

[00:01:24] Surbhi Dedhia: And I think that day is really not too far when advanced technologies will automate content creation and even modify it to suit different. Creating and distributing more content means you're simply adding to the noise on there. So how does one engage meaningfully with the audience through content? It is a paradox, not similar to catching up with a long-lost friend at a concert and not at a cafe loud music definitely entertained, but that is no possibility of a conversation at a time.

[00:02:02] Surbhi Dedhia: So, it is by design that in business setting content’s role is to talk about the business and not to create an award-winning literature piece. Therefore, marketeer’s role is also to make content popular so that it attracts interest from the target audience. When it comes to differentiating creating engagement, adding value, how can thought leaders win with content?

[00:02:32] Surbhi Dedhia: I'm going to take inspiration from Robert Rose of Content Marketing Institute and share his top 3 ways to win with content. The first thing he says is choosing in quality or quantity. Second is consciously creating experiences with content and third focusing on different than that. Let me explain this and little and add a bit more to these three points from Rome.

[00:03:01] Surbhi Dedhia: So first is choosing quality or what quantity. This is an age-old mantra in lot of domains where everybody says there's quality and therefore the price is better not quantity. So, in content generation too, mirroring Client's content, or simply turning up content pieces for daily distribution with only goes so far. Content that resonates with your audience is quality.

[00:03:30] Surbhi Dedhia: I think McKinsey, for example, each of their blogs, articles and research is so in depth that it adds value to the reader. It's the quality over the years. Yes. They have had so much content that it becomes large in quantity, but every piece is relevant because it is in depth. They did not start that way.

[00:03:52] Surbhi Dedhia: HubSpot is another example when it comes to content. Today HubSpot is a go-to resource for digital marketing content, but they did not start that way too. So, to guarantee high quality content, put yourself in your reader's shoes and ask these questions. Is it relevant? Is it education? Does it add value?

[00:04:16] Surbhi Dedhia: And if it is yes to all three, then, then you have it a very good quality piece. Of course. The second one is creating experiences with content. This is easy for media because no business of news and some stories may continue for law, but for organizations and individuals working on building network leadership, they need to think about how they can tell the same story with the changing times.

[00:04:46] Surbhi Dedhia: Marvel is a very good example. They started with comic books then they did movies. And now to keep the audiences enthralled with the franchise talks about individual character's past future or connection with the rest of the characters, as it is known, content is the king. Yet context is the queen. Context marketing adds a new dimension to your content so that the people who see it connect with it at a more personal level.

[00:05:19] Surbhi Dedhia: It speaks to a specific challenge that they may be facing or specific interests that they may have. To get contextual, when you create content. And to get that context, right, there are these five, six points that build the framework of contextual content. So first is to keep your target audience in mind.

[00:05:43] Surbhi Dedhia: I believe that audience is. If you keep audience at the center of everything that you do, it will really help you understand and design better quality content campaigns, interactions, engagement. Second is determine what issues your audiences face. Third is offer guidance and real solutions. Don't go with the safe switch all the time.

[00:06:08] Surbhi Dedhia: Well, it is keep writing very simple, clear, and jargon-free a lot of industries actually have progressed with the technology and therefore the there's so many jobs out there that it can get really very confusing and last but not least include keywords that will reach a target audience in their online.

[00:06:28] Surbhi Dedhia: And that he was best known of. Obviously, there are a lot of apps and, metrics is that you can, you know, gather from the internet, but if you keep our, our target audience in mind, and it will be really easy to understand where they are thinking about how they will search on online, et cetera.

[00:06:46] Surbhi Dedhia: All right. So, we spoke about quality or quantity and creating experiences with content. The third thing is. Focusing on different rather than better. Again, drawing from the media industry. There was a time when trade publications were in demand and there were many publications of similar journals, such as, for example, if you take from automotive industry automotive today, Drive, Tyres World, et cetera here, the aim is not to be the best in the cat category, but to be the alternative source of information.

[00:07:23] Surbhi Dedhia: Many years ago, I was working in research and a consulting company. And each year there were updated version of results reports in different industries. Campaigns announcing that the latest update on research is out. See it, click on it, got very little traction, but giving the snapshot of research and contextualizing the, the latest news definitely had much more interest.

[00:07:51] Surbhi Dedhia: Another hit on the, getting the context right. And doing it differently was, the executive briefings that we hosted, these, these briefings allowed prospects or clients to hear from our teams straight up and give them a in depth understanding, understanding of what's happening in the industry. So, when it comes to thought leadership, most end up upgrading all blogs, books, white paper, with new research and republishing it. A different strategy in the same way to continue, engaging the audience could be go onto a live YouTube event or share your findings content to a community that can hear and see you instead of just passively reading it.

[00:08:41] Surbhi Dedhia: All right. So, beyond the three. Three top ideas that Robert Rose of content marketing Institute says, I want to add, um, a couple of more to it. The fourth being importance of adding value. They say that if you want to build trust with your audience, you must provide value. First. When was the last time that you engaged in a bit of business by calling them, emailing them or booking a demo to ask for the details about their products or so?

[00:09:11] Surbhi Dedhia: If you're anything like me, you probably did that like few years ago, what is happening? How do you find out more about the company in the present day, where you just go online and search the content and answer, uh, that, that answers your question? Most of the brands today are providing brand related content content.

[00:09:38] Surbhi Dedhia: That answers questions, content that addresses the audiences, pain points, uh, content that keeps them updated on the industry content that engages them with interesting stories and gets, makes it relatable with added anecdotes. So, providing valuable content is definitely a differentiation story. Valuable content should have these five characteristics.

[00:10:04] Surbhi Dedhia: Firstly, it should be find-able. So, using clear jargon-free language, symbol terms, simple, uh, industry keywords will definitely make it more find-able. Second, it should be readable. Um, obviously connecting ideas, easy to read content makes it more readable. Third. It should be understanding. It should be actionable.

[00:10:29] Surbhi Dedhia: So once, once your target audience has found it, read it, understood it, then he, or she should have the option to click on a link to go to your website or to your contact sales page and that fifth and not last, uh, in the list is shareable. So, find-able readable, understandable, actionable, and shareable.

[00:10:54] Surbhi Dedhia: So that's how you create valuable content. After these four characteristics, I feel the fifth one is research. According to me, research is one of the most, forgotten aspect of content development research can actually provide you with definitely answers to questions. Like when my intended audiences ponder the content in the first place, what specific topics that resonate with my own.

[00:11:20] Surbhi Dedhia: So, in addition to the preferences of your audience research also sheds light on how your competition is doing by answering questions. Like does the content have weight or authority are the right people sharing or interacting with my content, our readers converting into loyal paying customers. So, research definitely adds the valid Haiti on the content that you have.

[00:11:46] Surbhi Dedhia: In episode 14 of the making of a thought leader, podcast Trevor Merriden shared about the concept of clever content. On the episode, he said that clinical content is all about placing what you have to say expertly. So, you are showing to your buyers that you understand their world. And if you haven't had yet heard that episode, go to podcast.digitalgenie.co/14 to get that episode. Knowing your audience is definitely a differentiator when creating quality content research definitely helps to know your audience better, to get a complete lowdown on how to identify, clarify, and magnify your audience.

[00:12:31] Surbhi Dedhia: Check out episode 15 on the making of the thought leader podcast creating content is definitely not easy. There is an extreme competition of there to stand out. So, if you don't approach creating content with clarity and differentiation, you will simply be adding to the noise. And I'll leave you today with a quote from Adam Grant, creating knowledge without sharing is elitism, sharing knowledge without creating it is Marketing.

[00:13:03] Surbhi Dedhia: Creating knowledge for the purpose of sharing is thought leadership. I hope you enjoyed this episode and thank you for staying until the last of it. I'll see you in the next episode.