There are many qualities necessary for a content & digital marketing strategy to be successful:
- your content needs to be thoroughly researched
- original, and
- intended for a specific target audience
But there’s one quality that’s easy to miss and hard to achieve even when you prioritize it: diversity.
Diversity in a content strategy means including a wide range of topics, different types of posts, and using different publication and syndication social media channels.
The more diverse your campaign is, the more likely it is you’ll keep your audience interested, and the wider range of people you’ll be able to reach.
The problem is diversity requires “out of the box thinking,” breaking your routines and stepping out of your comfort zone.
It also requires delicate balancing with the consistency of your brand’s material, which is just as important.
Fortunately, there are a handful of easy ways you can diversify your content strategy without disrupting the magic you’ve already established.
Here’s how to properly diversify content in 7 simple steps!
Table of Contents
1. Include more non-blog content.
Your website is a big place, and you can make it as big as you want. Instead of relegating all your same content to the blog (in whatever form you choose), start developing new content for other sections of your site.
For example, instead of writing five blog post that answer different questions commonly asked by your user base, consider writing up a detailed FAQ page that answers all of them. Instead of writing up a few detailed tutorials about how to use your products, create a dedicated, interactive “tutorials” page.
The stats show, users are demanding more interactive existing content:
You can also go back and write smaller blog posts to present the information in a different light.
2. Start developing infographics.
Infographics aren’t quite as powerful as they used to be because users have grown accustomed to seeing them frequently in their newsfeeds. The way to overcome this is to stand out among the crowd.
Infographics haven’t inherently lost value; instead, they’ve been overproduced by people trying to take advantage of their popularity.
Find an interesting, unique topic that people actually care about, and put the time and effort necessary into making an infographic. Do this on an occasional basis, and you’ll attract more of the “visual learner” crowd, not to mention making your blog feed seem more interesting.
3. Produce a video at least once a month.
Videos are super popular online, and they’re only getting more popular as brands like Facebook, Twitter, and Google continue making additions to make video viewing easier. If you’re worried about the time, effort it costs to produce a professional video, relax—remember, you likely have a video camera right in your phone, and not all your company videos need to be produced on a Hollywood budget. Video as a component of your overall content is growing:
Sometimes, the simple act of talking to an audience through a camera is more than enough to get your message across and diversify your strategy at the same time. aim to do this at least once a month.
4. Start a podcast or interview series.
Audio content is nearly as valuable as video diversify content, especially if it’s offered in a downloadable format so people can listen to it on the go.
Consider starting up a podcast for SEO with special guests, or an interview series, or a hybrid of both.
Whatever you choose, be sure to invite other influencers in your industry—doing so will instantly expand your audience and improve your appeal, plus your guest will likely share and promote the post as well.
5. Experiment with shorter and longer content.
Don’t keep writing the same medium-length blog posts. Consider experimenting with a handful of short snippets articles or go the other direction by producing a large-scale whitepaper or eBook. Your blog feed will look boring if it’s just an endless pattern of identically formatted posts; liven it up with shorter and longer pieces.
6. Reach out to one new publication channel per week.
Getting on a new publication social media platform is an instant gateway to a new segment of your audience (and possibly, a slightly new angle on the user generated content you produce). Make it your duty to reach out to one new potential publisher every week; you won’t always get accepted, especially in the first few months of this strategy as you build your reputation, but you should get at least one or two new recurring opportunities per month to extend your reach.
Similar to the strategy of search everywhere optimization, diversifying to new publications decreases the risk of overconcentrated distribution channels.
7. Get different people writing.
This is the final tip on my list, but it’s one of the most impactful. Introduce more writers to your stream of content. You can hire more writers or contract freelancers, but you don’t even have to spend money to get fresh user generated content from fresh minds. You could ask around the office and recruit people from other departments to contribute a post or two, or even better—you could hold an open call for guest posters. There’s never a shortage of people willing to write for free on your site to get a little content promotion. New writers mean new ideas, new angles, and a richer stream of creating content.
Consistency and diversity may seem like opposite qualities, but they can exist in harmony as long as you prioritize them. While diversifying the type, nature, format, and location of your posts, you can keep your target audience, voice, and aesthetics more or less the same, retaining your brand’s marketing focus while maximizing the possibility of attracting new readers. Put these content and backlink diversity tips to use in your own content and link building strategy, and if you need help putting everything together, don’t be afraid to contact us or check out our content writing service.
