Content planning should be more than just words

Content planning is the foundation for a digital marketing strategy. Whether it's for a product, event or an idea, it's important to understand how this will be communicated to your audience. As this is a day to day task, it can be very easy to just run through the motions and fall into a monotonous rhythm. Publish the content on the website, post on social media, boost and analyse performance. Decisions from here are usually based around the audiences rather than the subject matter, or rather the quality of the content itself.

I’ve worked with countless content plans during my time in SEO and understand the trap you can fall into when building it around a keyword strategy, aiming to meet your SERP targets. Of course, the written word is always important for SEO, but in it’s constant evolution, content creators should be looking at more ways to engage audiences. With more complex indicators for search engine ranking success, such as time on site, bounce rates and even off-line sentiment, content plans need to be pulling out all the stops consistently.

Stand out content, such as video and interactive media used to be a privilege reserved for key seasonal and promotional events, but as the accessibility and turnover improves, more and more content plans are using these methods continually and with great success.

A new era of content creation

At Snap Animation, we’ve helped SMEs build their audience through social media using these eye-catching methods. Video has been fantastic for content creators as it delivers the message to an engaged user. The main hurdle is to ensure that you can continually deliver this.

Create a template

But more than just a template. A tone of voice. What is your brand trying to say? How is it trying to say it? When starting out, this should already be established and then the content can be built around it. This leaves more time in actually creating the content rather than trying to figure out how it should look or creating assets.

Committing to frequency

A standard 1 minute video can usually take a week to produce. This means that your content plan can reflect this, ensuring you can publish regularly and confidently once it is created. Algorithms look for consistency and frequency, so it know your website is fresh and continually updated.

Not just for promotions

With the frequence established, this content can easily be integrated into blog posts, articles and news, not just seasonal events or one of promotions. This is proven to increase engagement and time on site. Key indicators for a website’s success in search engine rankings.

Refresh your content plan

If you’re already finding that your content plan is becoming stale and monotonous, it’s time to change things up. Or perhaps you’re just starting out, in which case, you’re primed for a running start by incorporating this into your strategy. We’re seeing a new golden age of content creation and any brand not adopting this will surely be left behind.

If you’re looking to refresh your content plan or need help creating one, get in touch with Snap Animation today and let’s start something new!