Both big and small brands can have a tough time making content for various communication channels on an everyday basis.
For some, it’s a challenge to think of something exciting and engaging because they consider themselves as a “serious company”. Others might not have the time or knowledge to come up with a “big picture” that will be at the core of all their published content, so they resort to cliché posts and themes.
In this article, I’m not going to talk about complicated (yet crucial) communication strategies. I will give you five tips for that dreadful situations when you think you have nothing to say, when you are staring at a blank page, or when you realize you haven’t posted on social media for two months.
In that situation, you can feel like life gave you lemons, so my imaginary person in the examples is growing and selling exactly those fruits.
Get inspired
It’s a valid strategy to wait and relax until inspiration hits you, but that can happen in any period of time, from five minutes to five days or even weeks. Unfortunately, you can’t schedule “waiting for inspiration” for the whole week in your business calendar (if you can, I might be a little jealous).
A more active approach can include searching for it in unexpected places, for those out-of-the-box solutions. Your lemon orchard might be better presented if you visit an art gallery and see what colors emphasize yellow the best, for those artsy SM pics.
If you visit a library, you might find cute poems about lemons, or you can take a yoga class and find out how lemons influence chakras. Experiment with lemon juice in food or cosmetics and write about the failed combinations too. Having fun will transfer to your audience and they will follow your content for that feeling.
Think from the reader’s perspective
You might think that your product or service is the most interesting thing in the world, but just writing “my lemons are the best” in every post isn’t the way to hook a follower in.
The most important thing is to communicate the benefits of the product, without sounding like a bragger, and by focusing on what others will gain by spending their time and/or money on your offer.
This is especially important in these times of uncertainty and you can already find some statistics about what people today want to read. There are many guidelines for content creation available online, just take the time to research.
Ask for help
Even if you are the only person responsible for the content, include the others too. Brainstorming is the classic way to get out of your usual thought pattern and it also helps to strengthen company culture. But, don’t expect others to provide you with perfect, finished content – they have other things to do.
Give them small, manageable tasks, with good instructions. For example, they can take a few seconds-long video of picking lemons (tell them to do it vertically and what app to use) or just ask them what makes them the happiest at work and turn it into some kind of content by themselves.
Look into competition
No, you don’t have to steal their ideas, I’m telling you to take a look at what the others are doing so that you can avoid their mistakes or accidentally copying their work. The best thing about this approach is the fact you can jump into content slots they forgot about.
For example, if no one wrote about growing lemons at home, you can make a tutorial blog post or give a free e-book to your subscribers on that subject. Most people won’t be able to grow the tree by themselves, but they will develop a mental picture of you as an expert lemon grower that has a vast knowledge of farming the best fruits, and we can be sure they want them.
Giving something for free – information, entertainment or sometimes also products – is a good way of implicitly saying you care more about your clients than profit.
Forget about perfectionism
This one is hard to shake off, but the fear of being wrong and/or ridiculed will get in the way of excellent ideas. You should be thorough and open to constructive criticism, but overanalyzing every word for days on end, for every little piece of text, will destroy your productivity and passion for your brand communication.
What is the worst thing that can happen if someone on social media finds that a person in the lemon business should speak more about the price of lemons than kitchen décor, and you have a great picture of lemons in a fruit bowl?
It’s unlikely that these kinds of comments will come often, but they certainly will and you can be prepared for such occasions, so you don’t have to miss out on a potentially viral photo for Facebook.
When you receive criticism, the first impulse is to get mad, or sad, but you can use it to generate more content! If someone argues that lemons should be diced, not sliced, you can make a video about the best ways to cut a lemon.
If someone makes fun of your idea for lemon margaritas, you can make a poll about lemons in drinks and then use that information for more content, where you will make the drinks with the most votes, photograph them, and write the recipes in captions.
Every mean comment doesn’t deserve a response, but it can spark something better if you are not afraid of failure.
About the author
Lara Levak – Content Creator & 360° Specialist at Grizli komunikacije. After more than four years of #agencylife, Lara is responsible for developing advertising campaigns, communication strategies and producing written content for all communication channels, such as social media posts, blogs and media articles. With experience in creating content for various industries, Lara brings the best out of any clients’ story and makes it interesting for their target audiences.
