Are you a small business owner feeling like you’ve hit a wall when it comes to digital marketing? Not sure of what content to put out there for your business? Or how to post something? Will it even work?!
In this article I am going to break down some VERY specific things you can do with specific examples to help get you over that hump and make you a content creating champ!
1. A Big piece of content
One piece of long form content is all it takes. This will come in the form of video and you will do this at the start of each week (or pick a slow day).
Let’s say, for this example, you are the owner of a furniture store. You are going to take a camera out (a smart phone will do for now) and place it in front of one of one of your in store gallery set ups. In this case let’s say it is a layout for a small space condo living room.
At this point, if you aren’t a furniture store business owner, you can start thinking of what it is you do and relate these ideas to your business.
Write yourself a script first so you know what you are going to say (this will come in handy later).
You are going to talk about all of the details of the room and why the furniture fits so well. Then you can talk about each piece of furniture in detail. Measurements, comfort etc.
Tell a relatable story about how someone’s life changed when they made their room this way.
Next, you are going to put this longer video on YouTube (and maybe IGTV – see more on that below) and call it, “The best set up for a Small Space Living Room Condo in Toronto“.
You are then going to take a picture of you sitting in one of the chairs pointing at something else in the room and making an exaggerated smiling face. This will be used for the “thumbnail” on YouTube and to save time you can also use this as your “featured image” on your blog – more on this below.
Take the video you just so eloquently created and post it on YouTube and then embed it onto your website. The more information on your website the better. Google likes it when people on are your site longer. The longer people are on your website the deeper they are involved with your brand.
Adding the video to YouTube will also be the start of your brand new Niche channel that you will build over time. (Article on how to post on YouTube coming soon).
This is just the beginning of your engaging content for the week.
2. Blog
Take that script you wrote and put it on your website as a blog.
This is even more content on your website for people to enjoy. It also gives you more ammo to put out there on social media to drive people to your site. Blogs will give you a tremendous boost in the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) game as well.
The blog will have to be formatted a little different than the script you wrote. For some reason we as humans like to read blogs in a specific format that is different than the way we read books.
People like to scan their way through a blog. Perhaps like you are doing now?
When you create your blog make sure you set a “header image”. This will make the links you put out on social media look much better.
This brings us to the breakdown of your larger content into smaller pieces.
use Smaller Pieces on different platforms
3. Twitter
Twitter is meant for headlines.
Grab an excerpt from your blog/script and use it as an attention grabber with a link to your blog. Keep in mind that you set a “feature image” when creating your blog on your website, so this will look very sharp once posted.
You can also choose to take a short clip from the long video to use as your attention grabber. Maybe it’s a description of the sturdy coffee table and then link it back to the page that has the full video on it or even your blog, depending on your end game.
4. Instagram
Instagram is a wonderful platform to show off and build your brand, however, directing people to your website is harder with out paying for ads. Organic link clicks only happen through your profile or “bio”. This is why people are always saying “link in the bio”. Instagram does allow “swipe ups” in their Stories section if you can get your followers over 20,000. Not an easy task as a small business owner, but it is possible.
With that said, if you have an ecommerce store it does allow you to sell your products right on their platform.
What I suggest doing on Instagram is to take screen shots (still images) from your long form video and use it to grab attention with wording from your script in the write up. You can also break down your long form video into smaller clips. Let’s not forget Instagram Stories, these are a fun and less structured way to keep your followers engaged in your brand.
You essentially could post a few times a day on Instagram using these practices. All of these tactics keep your creative juices flowing and help to make running a small business fun!
Expert Level Tip: Post your full video to IGTV. (A new post on how to do this perfectly is coming soon). See how well it performs and compare it to the response on YouTube. It is my suggestion to perfect what you are doing on YouTube first and then expand your reach.
5. Facebook
You can put the full video on Facebook if you’d like, but I would suggest focusing on one spot for the full length video to start. As was mentioned in the Instagram section, let’s start by focusing on one place to share your long form video.
Facebook is a great place to share a link back to your blog post. The “featured image” shows up nicely here as well. So when you do your little attention grabbing sentence or two with the link, a clickable image will show up along with it.
Like this:
Try out some screen shots from the long video and snippets of video as well. See what works for you and your audience and start to do more of what works.
Going back to the furniture store example, a nice still shot of how a couch and work space desk fit well together in a small space with a descriptive writeup could work well.
As you will notice quickly, it is difficult to get engagement on Facebook without paying for ads, but keep fighting the good fight. Put out good content and you will eventually get the traction you so well deserve.
6. LinkedIn
On LinkedIn it is best to take a business minded approach to things.
So if you are a furniture store owner you might take the angle of interior design for a small meeting space and have a link back to your blog. (People are more willing to read from the LinkedIn social media platform). LinkedIn is perfect for B2B and guess what, business owners have business spaces they need furniture for.
My point here is to rethink how the content you are creating can work differently on different platforms.
You can also try the screenshot or video snippet approach here as well.
After reading this article you can quickly see how making one piece of content (a video) a the start of the week can give you plenty to work with throughout the week. Keeping your brand alive and at the top of your next customer’s mind.
Forget the old thought that you should only be posting once a week. If you want to be seen and heard you need to put more content out.
Best of luck in your journey and make it count! Have you thought about what you can do for your next/first video yet?
