I spent a great deal of time with some of the best journalists in the world when I worked at Maclean’s and I am thankful everyday as a communicator that I had that opportunity. Creating engaging, interesting and informative content isn’t easy – and writing clearly and concisely adds additional challenge to the craft.
We have heard for many years that content is king. Your stakeholders visit your website, your blog, Facebook page, Twitter page or other social networking sites to learn, to connect, to join a conversation and to either learn something or to tell you something. What you provide is important and it either leads to the person to return to your site because you provided value, created an opportunity to participate in a dialogue or offered something they want or need – or they don’t return.
While your organization may have valuable information that you want to share, it is important to approach content creation understanding what your stakeholders expect from you. It’s not always the same thing. This doesn’t mean you can’t provide the information that you feel is important. It does mean you need to find a different way to package it or put if forward and that you need to also focus on what stakeholders are interested in, relevant to what your organization does or provides to them. It’s all about them – not all about you. If you remember that, you will be ahead of the pack.
Mitch Joel of Twist Image has a great blog post about what type of content you should produce. We’re big fans of Mitch. If you are a communicator, his blog is a regular must read!