Growing your audience, connecting with people, and improving conversions all take a large output of content. Some businesses seem to never run out of content while others in the same industry are struggling to find fresh new topics to grab their audience’s attention.
What is the secret to finding engaging topics to leverage for your content output?
Where to Look for Content Topics
Knowing where to look for topics is a key component to an effective content strategy. If you’re hitting a content block, start off by looking to those channels where you regularly engage with people. Search hashtags and simple phrases that are relevant to your industry on Twitter. Look at what your competitors and clients are reposting and sharing on Facebook. Every single industry is rife with discussion, questions, and even controversy that present ideas you can use to create articles, social media posts, videos, emails, and more to gain traction with your audience.
Combining Topics
Very few topics are completely unrelated to other subjects. If you are worried that your content will get lost in a sea of other businesses posting similar topics, then try experimenting with two or more topics at once. For example, let’s say you run across a news article about a specific piece of legislation that’s being considered at a federal level. That may seem very abstract or self-contained news, but how will that legislation impact your industry? Drilling down, what subjects are brought up in that article and where is your industry in relation to those items. Taxes? New regulations? Guidelines? Businesses that can draw connections between multiple topics that seem unrelated at first glance can reach a wider audience and position themselves as thought leaders in their respective industries.
Don’t Be Afraid to Disagree
The easiest way to improve engagement and shares is to take a stance on a topic. For the longest time, businesses took the approach that less controversy is better, because no one wants to lose clients or traffic numbers over controversial content. Quite the opposite. Taking a stance generates discussion among readers on every side of an issue, and many will feel relieved that you are willing to post topics that other businesses steer clear of in their content strategies. This is not a green light to become contrarian or outrageous, but if your business is not aligned with a certain topic, create content that outlines why you disagree. This is an easy way to stand out from others in your industry and draw people to your blog articles and social media posts to boost traffic and grow your client base.
At Outpace, we provide comprehensive content strategies that make your business rise above the noise so you can broadcast a clear signal to your audience. We take a bold and robust approach to position you and your business as leaders in your industry. Contact Outpace today to find out how our content strategy solutions can help you reach your goals.