3 Questions to Kick-Start Your Web Content Strategy

Whether you are a social media newbie or a social media expert, your single largest opportunity for success in 2010 will be to create a Web content strategy that generates traffic for you. Here are three easy questions you can ask yourself to kick-start that plan that you should answer well before you decide whether or not you need a Facebook Fan Page or what to do with your Twitter account.

 1: What lies at the intersection of my passions and what my target market is interested in?

This is going to be a lot of work, so pick something you really love doing. At the same time, you don’t want to be starting a blog or a podcast about at stamp collecting, unless that’s part of your business. You want to create something that will attract the people you are hoping will buy your products and services. Notice that I said that it should attract the people who will buy your products or services, and didn’t say that it should be about your products and services. For instance, I’ve had some success by creating a business book review blog for busy executives, which has nothing to do with my core business of digital marketing.

2: What medium am I most comfortable dealing with?

There are 4 mediums that you can choose from: text, audio, video and images. You’ll want to pick the one that shows you at your best. For instance, if you write beautifully, but couldn’t speak on camera to save your life, you should start a blog. If you are so charismatic that it seems like you will literally jump through the computer screen, but write at a grade 4 level, you should create a video blog.  And so on. However, as the development of rich media like audio and video continue to rise in popularity, you’ll want to strongly consider how you can integrate video and audio in your content. 

3: How can I become the hub for my industry?

This one is a little tougher than the first two, but well worth the effort. The chances are pretty good that nobody in your industry has firmly established themselves as the centre of their industry.  This is a position usually reserved for professional associations or news publications covering your section. But here’s the million dollar question: why can’t that be you? If you can create content that will attract a large portion of your industry, and then give them a place to connect and talk with one another (on your website, for instance), you’ll be well on your way to creating your own game.

I didn’t say it would be easy. But I know that if you are reading it, you aren’t interested in incremental improvements in your business, you are looking for a way to transform your business. These three questions are a great place to start. 

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