With the New Year already underway, we thought we’d give you some advice about how to keep adding content to your site throughout 2011.
Add/Expand Your Press Room
Granted, not every company needs a press room, but if you find yourself getting inquiries from the press, or you’re eager to get more exposure in the media, a press room is a great place to add the kind of content that journalists feed on. A few ideas for content in pressrooms include:
- Press releases that incorporate video – whether it’s to announce a new product, new location, product demonstrations, or even executive announcements, video content is perfect for a press room.
- Podcasts that set you apart as a subject matter expert. Broadcast your industry knowledge on a regular schedule, and have it produced so that holds some branding value as well.
- Background information and executive bios that will help journalists write stories with the most accurate information.
Incorporate Social Media into Your Site
If you use Twitter, why not incorporate your Twitter stream into your site? A few words of caution though:
- If your employees Tweet, be sure to have rules in place to keep them accountable for their tweets.
- People use Twitter to connect, and so should you. The great conversation that is Social Media is not one-way. Engage your audience and display the resulting content on your site.
- Monitor what people are saying about you online. The last thing you want is someone’s nasty tweet as content on your homepage for the world to see.
Let Your Employees Blog
Every company has its ‘superstar’ employees. They’re the go-to people who make a business hum. Often these people have knowledge that can be shared with your customers and other audiences through a blog. Therefore, let them blog and share their knowledge. Some things to keep in mind:
- Have a set of branding standards or guidelines that help maintain brand integrity.
- Be sure to have someone from your marketing or public relations team (essentially, someone with some authority) review each post before publishing.
- Blogging is also about interaction. If people leave comments on posts give your bloggers the latitude to respond.
Add Customer-Generated Reviews to Your Site
This one is geared toward the e-commerce crowd, but it can work in other types of businesses/websites as well. With customer-generated reviews, you’re letting your customers create your content for you by giving feedback about your products, and this isn’t a problem – until it’s a problem. Some tips to guide you:
- Be ready. If you don’t have some kind of gatekeeper for product reviews and other user-generate content (UGC) you’re asking for trouble. Someone needs to read every review, and be on the lookout for spam and people who post negative comments.
- You can’t stop. Imagine if Amazon decided one day to stop allowing customer reviews and ratings of their products. Their brand would be diminished and they would probably suffer a serious PR nightmare that would affect sales as well.
Celebrate Your “Wins” With Case Studies
It doesn’t matter if you sell a product or a service – everybody has a happy customer somewhere. Why not turn that customer’s experience into a case study you can show the world? A professionally-written and designed case study can be a great marketing tool for your site as well as your sales staff. Takeaway tips for case studies:
- Get comments from high ranking customer company people. It gives authority to your story and generates a context for readers.
- Don’t stop at one. The more case studies you gather, the more likely you are to have one that potential customers can relate to.
- There’s a formula to case studies that works: Customer background, customer problem, your solution, and finally why the customer is happy now.
If you’re not sure which of these is right for you to add as content to your site, we’re just a few clicks away. Contact us and let us help you keep your site growing in the right direction in 2011.
