4 Guidelines for Effective Content

A micro-blog: 4 min read

It's good to have some guidelines when you're creating content. You want to make sure that what you put out is effective and delivers the right message to build your brand equity.

So here are my 4 guidelines to creating content:

1. One of the Three E's (Engaging, entertaining, educating)

Your content should deliver value to the end consumer and it can take many forms - entertainment, education, engaging and/or a combination of the three.

Keep in mind the contextual background and the story of your brand. You always want to make sure you're in alignment with what you put out.

Test all three and see what works best. Maybe you make better info material than educational material? Always be testing.

2. Voice

I'm a big believer an authenticity. Of course be calibrated to where you;re speaking and to whom you're speaking to but you should always be in alignment with your main core of who you are.

On a micro level, you should write blogs that should sound like the way you speak. It gives the reader a unique voice to follow and not a vanilla tone. If you're pissed, write the blog as a rant (one of my favorites btw), if you're inspired then write in an inspiring manner.

3. Native to Platform

Always, always, always, always make sure your content is native to the platform. I wrote a previous blog post here, but as a refresher, being native to the platform means making sure your content fits the psychology of the end user when they are in that platform.

We think differently when we're surfing LinkedIn vs. when we're on Snapchat. You're content should fit and match our thought patterns.

The main differences are in the forms of the type of mediums used - Infographics for pinterest, graphics for Instagram, vblogs for snapchat etc.

4. Contextual

Is your content appropriate to your target audience? How many times did you want to watch a youtube video about cats but then a pre-roll ad about an insurance agency came up and took away a good 30 seconds of your life?

Now that's an extreme version but if that pre-roll ad (which btw please stop those) had any contextual consideration of you, wouldn't it be an ad about cats instead?

If you're content or ad has the right context of your user, that user will feel appreciated and excited about your content because it relates to them. They almost feel special .

Right now I work with a college based app so the type of content I put out are around the ecosystem that of a college student.

So these are just MY guidelines and principals when creating content. Use them if they provide any value, hope they help!