High-quality content is far more important than the quantity of content shared with your audiences. If you don’t have a lot of time to invest in content creation, invest more time in the quality and simply post less.
Low impact results in zero benefit for you and the company paying for your content production time.
When we create content, we must focus on the impact we achieve. Your audience needs to care about the content you share with them. What’s the point of spending time producing content if it’s regarded as trash?
High-quality content feeds your audience. They come back for more. Your content marketing fails unless your content is high-quality.
In this episode of the Building a Modern Employer Brand podcast, we talk about high-quality content, and I share eight tips to increase the quality of the content you produce and share with your audiences.
My name is Susanna Rantanen, and this podcast is for those who want to learn how to use branding, marketing and communications in the HR industry!
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What is high-quality content?
High-quality content is easy for the audience to consume and adds immediate value to the recipient. It is clear and concise and does not leave a lot to guess. It has a point, and that point is easy to memorize.
Adding value to content means that what you provide the audience in your content increases their understanding of a topic and inspires them to take action.
Adding value to content means that what you provide the audience in your content increases their understanding of a topic and inspires them to take action.
Susanna Rantanen
The first step in creating quality content is to find out what your target audience is looking for.
But, when you write or create content for business purposes, your content must always tie the topic to your organisation and business. Your audience is likely to look for all sorts of information and inspiration, but you, as the organisation, should only provide them with information that benefits your company too.
Writing SEO-optimized quality content
You don’t get rewarded for the amount of new content you produce
I started blogging regularly in 2009.
During 2010, I posted a new post to my new company blog every day. Thank goodness that is no longer necessary!
The thing with content production is that quality exceeds quantity when it comes to totally new content. Low impact results in zero benefit for you and the company paying for your content production time.
The thing with content production is that quality exceeds quantity when it comes to totally new content. Low impact results in zero benefit for you and the company paying for your content production time.
Susanna Rantanen
When we create content, we must focus on the impact we achieve. Your audience needs to care about the content you share with them. What’s the point of spending time producing content if it’s regarded as trash?
High-quality content feeds your audience. They come back for more. Your content marketing fails unless your content is good quality.
High-quality content feeds your audience. They come back for more. Your content marketing fails unless your content is good quality.
Susanna Rantanen
The good thing is that high-quality content does not mean a new blog post every day.
For years, I have created just one original high-quality content per week: this podcast, a weekly episode. And then I’ve repurposed that weekly episode into blog posts (in Finnish), Reels, TikToks, videos, carousel image posts, copytext posts, Stories and whatnot.
That is so much more effective and efficient. And thank goodness for that, now that I compare this to how it was almost up until about 2015.
Your employees will only share high-quality company content
A very common question in HR content marketing is how we can get our employees to share our content on social media with their networks. I can reveal a secret: creating content that adds value to their networks.
Let me reverse-engineer this problem for you:
- Your company benefits the most from audiences and followers of those of your employees who are active on social and care about their social media reach.
- This is because if they don’t care about their audience and social media reach, it is unlikely that their posts will reach anyone. Sharing something online means nothing if no one sees it.
- You will only benefit from employees who are active online and regularly share content their audiences want to receive.
- Getting to this point isn’t a day’s job. It requires activity and commitment to engage and build your audiences.
- These employees refuse to share low-quality content with their audiences.
This takes us back to where we started: Create high-quality content. Your employees will share your high-quality content without you asking for it because it also benefits them.
If you don’t get your employees to share your content, either they are not active on socials at all, or your content is not something they are willing to share.
Simple as that.
How to create high-quality content – 8 tips
#1 Use social media to trace what interests your target audience
The simplest way to know what your audience looks for is to spend time on social media reading their posts and checking out what keywords and hashtags they use.
Start following people belonging to your target audiences, connect with them and pay attention to their posts and activity.
- On LinkedIn, click open the person’s profile and find the segment about that person’s LinkedIn activity. It’s all there.
- Go to their Instagram and see what they post. People tend to post about what means something to them. Look for something in common with your business and organisation.
#2 Use the Google and TikTok search to learn what interests your audience about the topic on your mind
When you google for a keyword, Google provides you with a list of the 10 most searched key phrases. Those can lead you to what is interesting about the topic on your mind.
Did you know that millennials use TikTok as their search engine more than any other search tool?
Millennials are currently up to 26 years old, so they are quite likely to fit most of your target segment, right?
Go to TikTok, find the magnifying glass and type in your keyword. You’ll get more specified information about what interests them about your topic as hashtags.
#3 Google what others have shared about the topic
I like to use Google also to go through the search results on the first page for my topic idea. I look for what others have written about it, how old or new their content is and in which formats the content is provided.
If the available top content is more than one year old, there’s space to post a new version. Should your content type be a video, make it shorter than the currently available ones.
If all of the top results are pretty generic, go specific.
#4 Be generous with value-add
All content marketing, including the content created for your HR audiences, needs to be a trust-building activity. The more generous you can be with your content, the better.
For years, I’ve received feedback and praise about how generous I have been with my content. I have been asked why I give this information for free. It’s not free. I pay to earn your trust. And that trust has a business value for me.
For years, I’ve received feedback and praise about how generous I have been with my content. I have been asked why I give this information for free. It’s not free. I pay to earn your trust. And that trust has a business value for me.
Susanna Rantanen
- I don’t have to spend that much time on personal sales. I haven’t made a cold call since 2012.
- I don’t have to advertise my services and brand because I get inbounds and great referrals. Companies and people want to work with our agency and me because our generous content helped us win their trust way before they contacted us.
- When I hire, I don’t have to do much else than let my community and audience know I’m hiring, and people step forward to participate in our recruitment processes. I’ve never had a challenge in hiring the talents I needed.
My generous content might seem free, but it’s not. It’s the currency I exchange for value regularly.
You can achieve this, too, with your content marketing for your business purposes.
#5 Be contrarian with your content and key message
Contrary views and opinions and doing contrary to what others are doing get you attention. And your audience needs to be handed a reason to pay attention on a silver platter.
However, not everything you put out there needs to disagree with the general public. That can turn sour pretty fast.
A great way to make your content position as a contrary idea or opinion is to use the phrase:
“Most people think x, but I think y..” Then explain your difference in opinion.
You need to back it [your contrary opinion] up because becoming known as an argumentative asshole is not an ideal branding strategy for anyone.
You need to back it [your contrary opinion] up because becoming known as an argumentative asshole is not an ideal branding strategy for anyone.
Susanna Rantanen
#6 Provide your audience with something they can apply immediately
Many people search for examples, templates, guides, frameworks, methods and systems that help them solve a problem they have.
If you have anything like that to share, that’s probably a good idea. You’ve probably seen many recruiters share CV templates which is an example. But so overused, I wouldn’t go there anymore.
But you get the idea, though, do you?
And by the way, these don’t have to be your own. If you find a good one, reshare it with your audience!
#7 Become a great communicator, that really helps!
In episode 129, I shared with you the three characteristics of a great communicator I learned from marketing and business author Donald Miller:
- Great communicators are understood. They know how to articulate their ideas into a clear message.
- They are interesting. They have the skill to win attention and captivate their audience with their messages.
- They inspire change. A message that fails to impact is just plain fluff. Means nothing to the recipient, noise. Garbage for your ears or eyes. Great communicators know how to create messages that inspire change.
Every content creator must strive to become a great communicator, as this is the basis for creating high-quality content.
#8 Consider what works and what doesn’t on your chosen platform when creating your content
The platform you publish your content has a huge impact on the quality aspect of your content.
No matter how great your input is, if your audience cannot read your content because the letters are too small or hear your content because there is too much background noise, they quit and won’t evaluate your content as high-quality.
There are different rules to what is considered high quality regarding different content formats and media.
- Sharing a carousel post works great on Instagram but not so great on LinkedIn.
- A long-form article works great on your blog but not so much on LinkedIn or Facebook.
- Wide-format video works well on YouTube but not so well on TikTok.
Are you looking for an online coach to give you a plan and guide you in adopting content and social media marketing routines as an HR professional?
My coaching programs are typically around 12 weeks. They can consist of a suite of selected educational video and audio content, remote support, and personalised online coaching to set you a plan and help you build your marketing and communications routines.
I have two great options to recommend right now:
- The Instant Employer Brand Accelerator™️ for in-house talent acquisition to help you learn and integrate employer brand marketing and communications in your existing recruitment process and marketing.
- Personal branding for HR Industry professionals suitable for consultants and coaches who benefit from building trust and becoming known as the expert of what you offer for your clients.
Here’s what I suggest you do:
- Sign up here just to let me know you are interested in learning more about my coaching services.
- Follow the instructions you receive on email and we’ll book a discovery call to have a chat and see if I can help you.
That’s all.
Ok, that’s all for this week my friends!
Come back next week for more branding, marketing and communications juice to keep you going with employer branding, recruiting and personal branding!
My name is Susanna Rantanen, and I teach branding, marketing and communications for the HR Industry professionals who want to build a successful career and get the life you deserve!
Thanks for listening, and until next time, happy content creation!
Moi moi!