Stop Being Boring! – If you’re not generating results, it could be because your content sucks.

This title presents this blog post as much more harsh than it truly is. This is not a post to bash you, but rather make you consider a few items to your content strategy.
Wait…you do not have a content strategy? Do you not have content? Are you asking what I mean by “content”?
If you’re asking these questions, maybe this post will come off somewhat harsh. But it shouldn’t! I’m just trying to provide another perspective. So before you look away, give me a shot at telling you three reasons why your content isn’t producing results. After that, I’ll tell you what “results” actually mean.

What Makes Content Boring

I’m not just talking about your blogs. I’m talking about ALL of the content. The copy on your website, your social media, your Instagram, your pictures, your videos, your branding, your printouts, etc. Ask yourself for a moment: is your content all bleh?
Now ask someone else, because you are biased. Don’t ask someone who will encourage you. Ask a stranger. Truly ask them if they could reach, watch or look at your content and ask them if they care.
I’ll give you a little secret: even if the content has the best colors in the world, sparkles, visual effects, etc….if the content isn’t about the consumer, it’s boring.

All consumers deeply care about 2 things: Their money and their time.

When someone gives attention to your content regarding your business or organization, they want to see a return on their investment before you receive yours. Let me explain that a little bit.
Most content is free, so looking at free content is at no cost to the consumer. Cool, they’re now not worried about money. But if the consumer is bored after being presented your content, they’re upset. Like genuinely upset. You just took 5 seconds, 10 seconds or maybe more out of their lives.
Does that make them look like a snowflake? Either way, the truth is that our world is moving so fast that every ounce of time counts. Time has become more valuable than currency these days.

The secret of success to make sure your content isn’t boring is started in these three ways:
Know your consumer – understand what they like.
Make it about the consumer – focus on their entertainment or cares. Not your own.
Tell a story – there’s a lot to be said here about that and we talk about this in another post. For now, just understand that stories are what generate interest. Otherwise, it’s boring.

When Your Content is NOT Boring

We get the picture. Consumers do not like boring content. Let’s say you tried harder and followed the three rules above. What then?
If your content isn’t boring, it’s interesting. Interest from others comes in many ways. It could mean that they shared your content on social media because they wanted to show others that it was interesting, or it could mean that they look for more content from you. Maybe they actually contact you. Who knows? But any of those items would be awesome; not just the last one.
The best way to do marketing is to hide the fact that you’re marketing. This means that you are solely interested in making good content. You’re not about selling your product, but rather making something interesting, giving it to your consumer and saying “Hey, enjoy this.”

From here, many things happen.

If You Earn Their Time, You Earn Someone’s Money

Remember what we said earlier? Time is more valuable than currency.
If you win the consumer’s time first  (the more valuable currency), then earning their money is much easier. The trick is making sure that you know when you’ve won their time. For example, just because they follow you on Instagram doesn’t mean you have earned their time. You have to poke a little more first. You have to look into the insights to make sure that you have received it (we call this insight stuff “data”).
A good content strategy is making your content about gaining the consumer’s time first and their money second, because gaining time is gaining trust. You must have their trust before you have their business.
Not only does this generate more sales, but it generates more discussion. Social media is greatly used for this as people can engage with the content you produce and share it with others. Great content strategies lead to the best marketing and advertising you could ask for, which is “Word of Mouth!”

Facebook Live

Let’s examine a very quick case study.

You know Facebook Live? Yeah, that thing your friend uses when recording their 30-minute long video session on their phone that they think you want to listen to?  Facebook Live was not the first of its kind. It used to be Periscope (which was also not the first). It was popular for a little bit because it was cool to interact with people and celebrities while they were live, but then it fizzled. Facebook got a hold of it and began with a bang. It flopped as quickly as Pokemon Go (you haven’t played that game since September of 2016. Am I right?).
Why did it flop? Because as soon as the novelty of it fizzled, such as people lost the amusement with interacting live with their friends, Facebook Live became the annoying videos. We all found that raw video of other peoples’ lives were not fun to watch. It’s the same reason you have never chosen to watch one of your family films for movie night. It’s not interesting. It’s boring.
Facebook Live was cool for like an hour Somewhat exaggerated, but you get it). It became boring because the creativity was super low.

In Closing – Stop Wasting People’s Time

When you’re thinking of content, such as content for social media, ask yourself these questions next time you’re planning your content strategy:

• Would I care about this?
• Why would someone else care about this?
• What have my followers liked in the past?
• If the general content is blah, how do I make it cool?

This seems simple, but I promise most of you have not asked these questions lately. Maybe it’s because you’ve been busy,  or maybe you were awesome at making content that has recently become boring and you don’t know what direction to go! Either way, something has to change.

Make your brand engaging. Content might be king, but it doesn’t make your kingdom prosperous compared to others…Wow, that got like REALLY cheesy. I’m sticking with that statement because it makes sense, but whoah…sorry for being too literal. Wow…

Anyways, now it’s time to act. What are your first steps to make sure the content for your business is not boring this year?