As the owner of an mHealth marketing and communications consultancy, I am always striving to provide our clients with great content strategies. As Scott Stratten, author of Unmarketing says, ” People don’t spread fairly average, they spread awesome.” But what is awesome content? In my world, content is not just words on a page. It’s everything on the page. But even if a client has a successful website, Facebook page and business blog … there is always room to create more compelling content that users will want to read and spread.
If you can’t hire outside help and just want to enhance your existing content strategy, I want share a great list of content ideas from one of my favorite websites for social and content marketing, Social Media Today:
- Demonstrations—Can you show what it is you’re trying to say? Do it. Since the dawn of marketing, demonstrations have demonstrated to have massive magnetic power.
- Comparisons—Windows, Mac; Venus, Mars; men, women; apples, oranges—comparisons give us context. Us humans long for context, so bring it when you can.
- Mistakes—Nothing pulls quite like telling someone what they’re doing wrong. If you know the moves and maneuvers that lead to failure, offer ‘em up and expect the bugs to come a buzzing like flies on you-know-what.
- Interviews—Hey, know someone who knows what they’re talking about? Get ‘em to talk and people will line up to listen.
- Instructions—How to (blank). Fill in that blank. Everyone responds to instructions, even leaders.
- Stories—Once upon a time some character met some other character. They overcame a conflict and lived happily ever. You love that story. I do too. Everyone does.
- Examples—There’s no denying the court of public opinion values evidence. If you have some, take the stand and present it. Reveal stuff that actually happened, for example.
- Stupid truths— People love this stuff. “It ain’t over till it’s over” and all those ironic truisms Yogi Berra spouted get a rise out of people, however obvious they may be.
- Threats—Know what? If you know something that poses a serious threat to something, something tells me you’re onto something people will be drawn to.
- Findings—If you did the homework for someone or you somehow managed to stumble upon the answers to, er, anything, you’ll find sharing what you found will find a good size audience.
- Confessions—Hmm, 12 suggestions into my list and I’m feeling a little opportunistic, dirty even. But I must confess, we all harbor a hidden desire to hear what priests get to hear.
- Scores—If you have the credibility to call the score, call it my friend. Us humans really want to know who won, who lost, or if the game’s still being played, what the score is.
- Reasons—Why does this cause that? You have no idea what I’m talking about and still you’re dying to hear me give you the reasons. It’s reasonable to conclude we want reasons.
- Humor—Laughter is such powerful medicine. If you have something funny to share, it’d be tragic not to try tickling some funny bones.
- Applications—There might be 100 things you can do with a toilet paper roll. You can really fascinate an audience by detailing how to apply something that seems so ordinary in different ways.
- Quotes—People relish what other people have said. You can quote me on that.
- Opinions—Insiders, outsiders, experts, novices… Everyone has an opinion and everyone has an opinion about someone else’s opinion. Valid or not, it’s divine to opine.
- Lessons—The guide, primer, 101, cliff notes, need-to-knows… Any form of “how to” is magically magnetic.
- News—Old news: everyone needs to know what’s new.
- Lists—People love lists and good ones keep you hooked until to the end.
The bottom line – The time you invest in creating compelling content will be rewarded with more visitors to your site, more prospects in your sales funnel and ultimately new customers for your mHealth company.
Suzie Mitchell says:
I really like this blog, but I find the light font really hard to read. Not sure if your target market is 50+ but if it is, I’d darken it up so the market can read it. Just a suggestion
Sam Stern says:
Thanks Suzie. Happy to hear you like my blog. Your timing couldn’t be better as we’re working on a redesign now. I like your suggestion and will bring it to my team.