Are you looking for new ways to engage your audience online? Consistently posting material, however long or short, will eventually build up a large library of content on your site. If you create a schedule and commit to posting regularly, you’ll set an expectation with your audience. Many will begin checking your site more often for new posts, which will increase traffic.
An effective digital content strategy doesn’t have to break your budget or consume all of your work day. Below are five types of content that take little effort but have potential for high engagement among your audience.
Short, frequent blog posts
On the path to easier content, many people don’t realize that not every post has to be long and thoughtful. Frequent, short articles have lots of benefits. For example, they’re much easier to craft and to fit into your schedule. Short-form content is also a simple way to keep your site fresh and improve your search engine rankings. Search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing prioritize websites based on how often they’re updated with fresh material. Consider creating a list of low lift, short topics that you can publish in a series or assign to other members of your team. For example, ask your on-air personalities to each draft a weekly blog, or task your interns with creating weekly updates about the local music scene, favorite songs of the week, or even just a simple “thought of the day” series.
Guest articles
One advantage that radio has is reach and brand recognition. You can easily put that to use by asking guest authors to write articles in exchange for publicity. Find an author of a smaller blog that you know will be of interest to your audience and invite them to contribute a guest post to be featured on your site. Focus on lesser known blogs where the author still needs to be “discovered” –they’ll likely be thrilled by the opportunity and the invitation to reach a wider audience.
Interviews
Interviews are another great way to offer fresh material without having to do much work. Approach people who will be interesting to your audience, such as public figures from your community or artists featured on your site that are performing in town soon. Prepare a few questions for them to answer either on-air or in writing. If you choose to do the interview on the air, record it and offer it on your website as part of a podcast series, or transcribe it to an article.
Curated content
Curating material from across the web can enrich your content plan with little effort. Consider posting a weekly blog or headline round-up, where you or an intern shares a list of some of the most popular (and relevant) content online for that week. Simply write an introduction to the list and then include the multiple resources you’ve collected.
Recycled or re-purposed older content
Once your site has been around long enough for content to grow stale, you can begin recycling certain material. Older posts that were once popular can potentially be updated and re-posted to your homepage for another round of viewing and even more traffic. You can also highlight popular content at the end of the year. Check your site analytics to determine what content has the most views and comments, and include it in a featured “highlights of the year” article.
You can also re-purpose older content by combining multiple posts about a single topic into one larger piece. Simply craft an introduction paragraph and then link back to all of the previous articles for reference. This type of content is most effective when positioned as a guide of sorts for your audience. When reusing content, make sure to scan through the old posts first for any outdated references and update them if you want the pieces to appear as new content.
Using the ideas above is a great way to ensure you’ll always have something new for your audience to engage with. Keep in mind, though, that with content coming from multiple sources, it’s wise to create a style guide to keep the tone and feel of all of your material consistent with your brand. For tips on how to create style guide for your site, check out this recent post.
