Given the many crackdowns by Google lately, the general consensus is,
high quality content is more important that ever. I whole-heartedly
agree with the quality part. However, this bit of advise seems to have a
little “build it right and they will come” ring to it, and we all know
things simply don’t work like that. In order for quality content to
become spectacular, people need to consume it first.
The following are 7 things you can do to help people consume more of your content.
Create different formats
Because we all learn and absorb material differently, our choice of media is also different. Not everyone is a reader. So, translate your content into audio, video, written text, slides, info graphics, quotes made into images. Those are a few to begin with.
The nice thing about doing that, you now have the material for distributing your content on more spaces like SlideShare, YouTube, iTunes, Pinterest, other people’s blogs and more.
Make it easier to consume on the device of their choice
Sometimes, it isn’t enough to produce multiple formats of your content. It has to be easy to get going. Audios and videos should play with a click. PDFs shouldn’t be zipped. This slows people down because they can’t simply click and read. It’s frustrating, especially if it is a short report. Here’s a better idea. Give me a way to load the document directly into my Kindle app. There’s actually a WordPress plugin that can do that. It’s called the Kindle Loader.
Highlight the good bits
Every piece of content has some key points in them. Pull them out, email it to newsletter subscribers and give them the link to the rest of the meat. This is a very effective strategy not only for freely available content but for paid information and it works. Repeat this on social media too because you never who has or hasn’t read your content. You can even do this for past content.
Encourage discussion
Similar to the technique above, when you ask questions about something in your content, people have no choice but to read it to answer. Make sure you ask in a way that leads them to it though like, “What do you think about the first tip? Do you practice it?” Now, if you haven’t been paying attention, you’ll want to re-read the first point so you can answer intelligently. Don’t just ask in the blog post. Periodically, throw a question out to your newsletter subscribers and social networks with a quick “Hey, can I get your thoughts on such and such in this post?”
Keep it short and on point
People are busy. Use just enough words to get your point across.
Promote It
This shouldn’t even be here but it is, because we have a tendency to underestimate simple things. Email it, share it, not only when you first publish it, but again and again using different words, angles, across different networks and over time.
Link to past content
Last but not least, it’s not always about new content. Draw people deeper into your old content and related areas by linking within the article or highlight quality posts.
The following are 7 things you can do to help people consume more of your content.
Create different formats
Because we all learn and absorb material differently, our choice of media is also different. Not everyone is a reader. So, translate your content into audio, video, written text, slides, info graphics, quotes made into images. Those are a few to begin with.
The nice thing about doing that, you now have the material for distributing your content on more spaces like SlideShare, YouTube, iTunes, Pinterest, other people’s blogs and more.
Make it easier to consume on the device of their choice
Sometimes, it isn’t enough to produce multiple formats of your content. It has to be easy to get going. Audios and videos should play with a click. PDFs shouldn’t be zipped. This slows people down because they can’t simply click and read. It’s frustrating, especially if it is a short report. Here’s a better idea. Give me a way to load the document directly into my Kindle app. There’s actually a WordPress plugin that can do that. It’s called the Kindle Loader.
Highlight the good bits
Every piece of content has some key points in them. Pull them out, email it to newsletter subscribers and give them the link to the rest of the meat. This is a very effective strategy not only for freely available content but for paid information and it works. Repeat this on social media too because you never who has or hasn’t read your content. You can even do this for past content.
Encourage discussion
Similar to the technique above, when you ask questions about something in your content, people have no choice but to read it to answer. Make sure you ask in a way that leads them to it though like, “What do you think about the first tip? Do you practice it?” Now, if you haven’t been paying attention, you’ll want to re-read the first point so you can answer intelligently. Don’t just ask in the blog post. Periodically, throw a question out to your newsletter subscribers and social networks with a quick “Hey, can I get your thoughts on such and such in this post?”
Keep it short and on point
People are busy. Use just enough words to get your point across.
Promote It
This shouldn’t even be here but it is, because we have a tendency to underestimate simple things. Email it, share it, not only when you first publish it, but again and again using different words, angles, across different networks and over time.
Link to past content
Last but not least, it’s not always about new content. Draw people deeper into your old content and related areas by linking within the article or highlight quality posts.
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