Tonight, I’m blogging from an ice arena. I’ve blogged from dance studios, by the beach, from the pool, from a bar.
I’ve crafted social media posts from my front porch, from the pool, from the living room, from my basement, even. I’ve filmed videos for clients using props in my bedroom, I’ve filmed them at a 4-star resort. I’ve photographed them in client offices, conference rooms, training centers, manufacturing facilities.
Crafting blogs and social media content is more about perception than anything else. If you can see a content opportunity, you can take advantage of it.
Everything is interesting…
Behind the scenes content is interesting to your customers – they love to see what goes in to craft what you do for them. Taking your customers behind the scenes can vary wildly from industry to industry (think sneaking in on the developers at a software firm, for instance.) You might show them (non-proprietary) manufacturing, or a behind-the-scenes video of back office staff who man the phones or handle the billing. You might share how you use a template or what your process is for a particular service you offer.
Being open to seeing an opportunity to generate content required for a social media or blog editorial calendar is key for creating a lot of it. Many business owners think you need to carve out a dedicated time to manage this, but you don’t. You simply have to be observant. And have your phone handy.
If you’re having an event, take hundreds of images – you could have great content for years by simply taking advantage of something you are doing right now. Take videos, still photos, live-tweets or caption/quote/record your speakers during your event.
Take five behind-the-scenes images every day, write down three things your clients asked today, and you’ll have content for a week ahead. Continue banking that content and you could soon have an enviable library of materials that make scheduling social posts that much easier.
Live video can be recorded, uploaded to social networks or YouTube and a new content piece lives on even after it’s original broadcast when it’s re posted to your blog.
Your Social Media Image Homework:
Not every client can ‘see’ this content opportunity, so, to get started, take on this task. Every day this week, do one of these things:
- Take a screen shot, or screen recording of something that you do regularly for your customers. You can use screen recording applications like Camtasia to capture a how-to on your computer. Maybe it’s how you process orders for your customers, for instance.
- Photograph or record a video of a common (but not proprietary) process that you do for your clients
- Walk around your office and say hi to your team as you take a video
- Answer a question in a two-minute video recording
- Share a behind-the-scenes shot of some materials arriving for production
- Share an order going out the door (your UPS driver might be willing to smile for the camera!)
- Take two dozen photographs of employees working at your office (for service businesses). Try to get some interesting angles such as around the sides of their computer monitors or peeking around their doors
- Take two dozen photographs of your product in action – unpack the box, pack the box, open the product
- Sketch a process on paper and photograph the paper (see examples here and here)
At the end of the week, you should have amassed no less than 6 videos and two dozen images. The six videos can become blog posts (with transcriptions added), then shared on social media and the images can all be used as individual social media posts.
When a client recently said “how do we show what we do?” (they develop software) and I suggested we video their team interacting with what they build for their clients. How easy it is to use the software to do what the client needs to do. He said “that’s why you’re in marketing and I’m a software engineer.” When in doubt, show it. It’s way more interesting than screen shots and more unique than stock photos.
Creating content for social media can be a painless process that mainly involves being observant, capturing a moment and being intentional about recording what you do every day in your company. And those moments are interesting to your customers.
