When creating content that is going to be valuable in attracting a defined audience it is important to remember four key areas, all of which WPcult can assist you with. Your content should try and combine all of the following:

• Educate

Educational content conveys knowledge to the user. Insightful videos that answer a question can leave a lasting impression. This includes videos such as ‘how to’ tutorials across a spectrum of areas: how to tie a tie, how to start a business, how to draw, or even how to be a ninja. Educational content satisfies the consumer’s thirst for knowledge or answers a defined question. This will be content worth viewing and sharing with selective audiences.

WPcult can research what people are searching for around your brand and what consumers want to find out. This in turn will drive traffic to your content.

• Inform

Whereas educational content answers people’s questions, informational content can keep people up-to-date with news and events, as opposed to responding to questions they may have. Social media is now the go-to platform for the collection and distribution of this content, as opposed to old media channels. The challenge with this form of content is its time-limited nature with content becoming irrelevant when lacking context.

• Entertain

Telling stories is as old as the human condition itself. Evoking emotion through entertainment is a great trap for viewers. Video is the ideal tool for evoking empathy or extreme emotion, whether this is through humor or sadness. As one statistic claims that video is worth 1.8 million words, this is the optimum medium to showcase the marketing power of entertainment. Humour also works with text-based advertising and memes, but the humor in video-form is likely to achieve more views and shares than anything else.

• Inspire

One often overlooked goal in content strategy is to provide inspiration to viewers and consumers. Inspiring content can be anything that encourages people to try something new, challenge themselves, or push their limits. Showing the achievements of others, those who have overcome adversity or other challenges will often inspire people to do something featured in the video or to buy a product to help them do that. This can be particularly beneficial in charity campaigns.

Top 28 social marketing resources

Not on this list but we will go over at a later date are

Findable, Readable, Understandable, Actionable, Brandable, and last but not least Shareable. Also Essential are Awareness, Interest, Consideration, Decision, and how you get there Research, Planning, and Ideas, Execution/Creation, Optimization, Distribution and Analysis of the data, Retweak until you have the best results.