There have been times when my content sucked, and my audience reach plummeted, so I can relate when someone asks me, “Why aren’t people interacting with my content?”
The struggle to keep audiences engaged is one we understand firsthand, but when you ask us why people aren’t interacting with your stuff, you might not like the answer. I hate to be so brutal about this, but the painful truth (that all of us have experienced) is basically that your content sucks.
If you not sure if you content sucks, check out this post we wrote, called “3 Reasons People Aren’t Interacting With Your Content.” If you’re sharing spammy links, if you’re always selling to your audiences, or if your content is ugly, then your content sucks, and your interaction probably isn’t what you want it to be.
So what can you do to make your content better?
Answer the question “What’s in it for me?”
The most important way you can improve your content marketing is by asking yourself the question “What’s in it for me?”
The catch is that the “me” in this case isn’t you; it’s your audience. You need to ask yourself what value or benefit your content offers them. What’s in it for your audience if they click on your link, look at your content, or otherwise engage with what you’re putting out there? Is your audience going to get value or benefit from what you’ve shared?
If you see your number shrink, chances are good that you’re not informing or educating or entertaining your audiences. Whether it’s your blog, your website, or your social media, you’ve got to ask yourself what’s “in it” for your audience.
Improve Your Facebook Content
If your content is on Facebook, you need to be aware that there’ve been a lot of algorithm changes lately that have caused dramatic decreases in the organic reach of posts. This post has some solid tips in it for beating Facebook at the algorithm game.
Where Facebook content is concerned, there’s a valuable tool that you probably aren’t paying attention to; Facebook Insights. It’s amazing to us how often, when we ask people if they’ve looked at their Insights, they say “What’s that?”
Your Facebook Insights are all the numbers above your cover image when you’re logged in as an admin on your Facebook page. Click those links: All the information you need about your audiences — and about what content they’ve engaged with — is right there.
Give Your Content a Facelift
When I wrote the 3 Reasons post, I mentioned that ugly content is one of the reasons people won’t interact with you online. If people are turned off by your graphics, photos, fonts, or color palates, they’re a lot less likely to interact with what you share.
Here are a few of the tools I’ve had good luck using to make our content look great:
PicMonkey is a photo-editing tool that I think of as an Instagram for my desktop. It’s easy to use, and it works great. The free version is great, or you can pay for an upgraded version that has extra bells and whistles.
Canva is great for creating graphics. You can include photos, call-outs, and other graphic elements into great-looking images for your website, blog, or social content. We use Canva almost every day.
Getty has provided beautiful content for generations, and it’s recently opened up a lot of its creative gallery to the public for free use. Go to Getty Images and look for the Embed Images section for free, powerful photographs you can embed into your website or blog.
You’ve got the same Internet that I do, and you can find these tools (and others) yourself. These tools and this advice on audience interaction aren’t trade secrets. If you need some help, give us a call or shoot us a message. Let’s talk!
Tools mentioned in this post:
