The Content Creation Process For Small Businesses

The content creation process can seem like a big mountain you need to climb for your small business. Creating content can be intimidating—especially if you’ve never done it before. Lucky for you, I am going to break down the content creation process for small businesses into four simple parts and include some great resources for content creation. The content creation process doesn’t need to be intimidating, it can be simple and fun once you get started. Getting started creating content can be the hardest part, but once you take that first step, the process becomes easier.

What are your goals for the content?

First, you must figure out what your goals are for that content that will be created. Ask yourself these questions:

• What message are you trying to convey? 
• Are you wanting the content to be educational or entertaining? 
• What are you hoping to achieve with the content?

Setting goals will help you narrow in on what content to create. If you always keep your goal in mind during the content creation process, the content will always fit within your brand. When deciding what message you are trying to convey, it is important to figure out what your brand voice is. What do you want your brand to be known for? Figuring out your brand voice will allow you to establish the personality of your brand. How do you want to make people feel when they think of your brand or are on your social media accounts? Deciding if your content will be educational or entertaining will also play into your brand voice. Do you want people to be informed by your brand or entertained or both? 

Establishing goals is also all about what you want the content to achieve for your brand. Your goals need to be incorporated into the content creation process to help achieve them. Obviously increasing sales is the main goal for any brand’s marketing efforts, but when creating content, you don’t want to create ads—so understanding exactly what you want to achieve with the content for your brand will help in the creation process. 

Who is your target audience?

Your target audience is the consumers you want to reach with your content. It is important to understand and know your target audience so you can create content that attracts those individuals. You will need to conduct research to learn more about the demographics and interests of your target audience.

Demographics you will need to know about your target audience include:

• Age
• Education
• Ethnicity
• Gender
• Income Level
• Location
• Occupation

Interests that you will need to know about your target audience include their hobbies, their behaviors, and what gets them up each morning. 

Once you have done the research, you will understand who your target audience is. The content creation process will become just that much easier as you know who you are creating the content for. Knowing the demographics as well as the interests of your target audience will help you create relevant content for them to connect with and become loyal to your small business. 

People want to personally connect with brands, and it is important to them that the brand understands who they are and what they like. From a consumer perspective, seeing a small business that shares content they can connect with, inclines them to engage more with the content, become more loyal to the brand, and support the brand by purchasing. 

What content is best for your brand?

Deciding what content is best for your brand should come naturally after figuring out your goals and target audience. There are different types of content you can create for your small business.

Some of those different types include:

• Blog Posts
  • Blog posts help bring traffic to your website, educate users, help with your site’s SEO, and turn traffic into leads.  
• Images & Videos
  • Images and videos can be used within social media posts. Images should be eye-catching and interesting. You should have product and lifestyle images to ensure variety and relevancy. Videos for social media posts should be concise, informative, and fun. 
• Memes
  • Memes are mostly used to entertain consumers via social media or on your website. They usually are comical and relevant to pop culture. When creating memes, you should aim to utilize pop culture that your target audience will understand.
• Infographics 
  • Infographics are useful for educating users. They are a concise and quick way of describing information, data, or processes. They can be displayed on your website or on social media. 

If you’re just starting out creating content, you can focus on one or two types and become an expert in them. Although It is important to diversify the type of content you publish, ensuring that content is high quality is more important in the beginning stages than having multiple types of content. As you begin to understand what content connects with your audience, then you are able to diversify and expand the types of content you create. 

Where will the content be published?

The content you create can be published on your website, other websites, and your social media platforms. Your content should be shared on as many platforms as possible. It is okay and even encouraged to reuse content across multiple platforms, as this can show the consistency of messaging for your brand. Maintaining your website and social media platforms with current content will build social proof for your small business. 

On your website, it is important to have a blog with consistent posts. As mentioned above, blogs are key to helping your website’s SEO. They show users you know about your industry and care about it enough to write about it. It provides a way to educate and provide resources for users. 

Deciding what social media platform to publish your content can be challenging because there are many platforms all with a slightly different purpose. The main platforms we recommend publishing content on are Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. 

Facebook and Instagram are great platforms to begin on. They are connected so you are able to publish one post and it will publish to both platforms. Facebook and Instagram are easy to understand and there are a ton of resources out there available to begin content creation for the platforms. Publishing content on Twitter is another way to connect with parts of your target audience.

LinkedIn is a great platform for B2B businesses. Linkedin is a platform that is still developing and improving. 

Diversifying the platforms you publish content on will only help your small business reach all possible parts of your target audience. You may also discover a new target audience based on where you publish your content.

Resources for content creation

There are multiple resources available to help you with the content creation process. Those resources include:

• Adobe Express
  • Adobe Express helps you create graphics, collages, flyers, videos and animations that look professional in just a few taps.
• Boomerang
  • Boomerang helps you create captivating mini videos that loop back and forth.
• Canva
  • Canva is an online design and publishing tool.
• Fotor
  • Fotor is a free online photo editor.
• iMeme
  • iMeme is an app that can create high-quality memes.
• iMovie
  • iMovie is a video editing software. 

After completing the four simple parts of the content creation process, your small business will be ready to publish content consistently and frequently. The content creation process may seem difficult in the beginning stages, but once you follow the four simple parts, it will be a breeze. Reach out to one of our brand strategists today to learn more about the content creation process and how Set Fire Creative can help!