You’ve probably heard that developing engaging content is one of the most crucial keys to finding an audience for your brand or product and endearing them to you (or “converting” them if you want to get all business-y about it). It’s necessary for a stronger newsletter, email marketing, media relations strategy and social media, and more generally, it elevates your brand presence. 

This is usually the sentence where I’d say something contrarian, but in this case, I actually agree with every bit of that wisdom. But content marketing is a real undertaking because creating amazing content and stories takes time, strategy and actual skills. It’s probably not the starting place for every marketer as they get their work off the ground, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t even try. You should. 

So, how do you get started on a content marketing practice when you don’t have the time, energy or budget to do it? It’s actually not as daunting as it sounds if you take it slow and follow some relatively easy first steps. You can get more sophisticated over time and you’ll build a great library of content as you go. Ready?

Here’s my advice on how you can begin dipping your toes into content marketing.

Figure out your story. Put on your reporter hat (maybe a fedora with a little piece of paper that says “press” in the band! 🤣) and ask/answer a few questions: How did you or your company get started? Who was involved? What challenges did they face? What amazing accomplishments have they achieved? How are they making a diference? Answer these questions and you have the start of a pretty compelling brand story. 

Tell it consistently. Use this story (or variations of it) when you describe your brand, company or organization. Practice makes perfect! After you’ve perfected that, you can start branching off into the smaller stories that support the big one – including stories about individuals and industries you’ve impacted, employees or volunteers who make you what you are, tips or ideas that derive from your organization or brand – the branches can go on and on. 

Develop evergreen content. To keep the metaphor going, make those branches evergreen. Create a library of stories. Blog posts published to your website are probably the easiest place to start this storytelling and they can help your search engine optimization (SEO) if done well. Please don’t focus your stories on current events, company news, articles about holidays or “National Whatever Day”; instead, write engaging pieces that are timeless. 

Share across your platforms. Post your evergreen content across your social platforms with copy that makes sense for the audience you are trying to reach on that platform. Add them to the “news” or “features” section of your website. Publish them in your newsletter.

Share content more than once. Most people are not going to remember (or thanks to algorithms, even see) the stories you post on your social channels. You aren’t The New York Times. Your storytelling is great, but it’s not breaking news. Wait a month and post them again (then do that again at least once more a month or two later). Look for occasions to bring out older pieces to repost, too. You can write new social copy and frame them differently if you like. 

Make a note of what your audience likes and doesn’t like. Do more people tend to click on heartwarming stories? Do more of those. Do people seem to ignore your links about employees doing good deeds and winning awards? Do fewer of those. (Per my note above, that’s not evergreen anyway.) 

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to developing a content marketing practice, and I’ll share more about the topic in future newsletters. If you are already a seasoned content strategist and ready for the massive lower part of the iceberg, you would be well served to subscribe to The Content Technologist newsletter. It’s a weekly deep dive into all aspects of content strategy – from the technical to the philosophical to the practical. (Plus, it’s run by the super-cool, crazy-smart Deborah Carver, my longtime friend and former grad student.)

— Shayla Thiel-Stern, Uncommon Teal