Hey there, my fabulous listener, welcome to episode 265 of the Small Business Made Simple Podcast.

Thanks for lending me your ears today – I know you have lots of choices, so I sincerely appreciate me being one of them!

If you’re enjoying this podcast – I’d love you to take a screen shot and share it on your socials and tag me in it.  How cool would that be!

Don’t forget you can get the show notes for this podcast at www.socialmediaandmarketing.com.au/265

Did you have a listen into last week’s episode? My guest, Brianca McKenzie, who is a Meta ads specialist.  She shared so many tips and tricks around ads and getting your money’s worth, it was fabulous! – www.socialmediaandmarketing.com.au/264

Hey, just a heads up before I get into content creation today, I just wanted to let you know that I am running my 4 Week Email Marketing Masterclass again in November. So, if you missed out in September, perhaps November might be better timing! Learn more or book your spot here: https://bit.ly/EmailMasterclasswithJenn

So, today I’ve promised 5 ways to create more content for your marketing. Creating content is one of the biggest challenges for many small businesses and probably you too!

Back in episode 250 I also talked about about creating more content – but this time, it’s more practical; it is more about where to find the content you need to be creating.

But first things first. You need to know your audience, your community super well.  This episode isn’t about just creating more content, but also creating content that your audience wants to read and/or consume.

So, what are the issues that your audience is talking about? What’s (metaphorically) keeping them up at night? What are they typing into search engines like Google, YouTube, Pinterest and even ChatGPT or Bard and wanting answers to?  This is what you need to be creating content (not all but some to most) around.

So, first up is Google.  Head to Google and type in some keywords around your ideal client into the search bar.  For example, I might write in to Google “2023 struggles of small business owners in Australia” or “what do business owners struggle the most with when it comes to Instagram”.  Specifically, here I want you to click the “People Also Ask” questions that appear on page 1.  The more you click, the more that appear.  This here could be a source 12 blogs – a year’s worth, potentially. Could be the source of a Facebook Live or a long form caption on Instagram or a LinkedIn Article to share with your peers. 

Of course, another great gift from Google on the same page 1 search results is the “Related Searches” prompts – check them out too.

Secondly, to find out the biggest challenges of your clients and customers if your ideal client deals with pricing, staff, mental health issues, marketing and/or technology, take a look at the 2022 results of the Big Small Business Survey (www.thebigsmallbusinesssurvey.com) and use those results in search engines like Google, YouTube, Pinterest and even ChatGPT or Bard to create bullet points or briefings for content creation.  For instance, the survey tells us that 22.6% of business owners cite burnout as one of their top three challenges.  Is this an issue that your customers or clients are talking about? If so, is this something you should be talking about too?  Or pricing, 91% of business owners saw an increase in costs in the last year.  How is this affecting your community?  Where’s your content around this?

A third place you might find some content ideas and find out what your community/ideal client is talking about is in Facebook groups.  If you know your ideal client, then you know where they are hanging out and if they are hanging out in Facebook groups, what are they asking advice about? Go to some Facebook groups with great engagement that you know your ideal client/community belongs to and use the search function and search some keywords around your business.  You might search “shipping” or “Facebook” or “gift ideas” – whatever are the keywords for your business.  These are your people asking these questions, why wouldn’t you create content around what you find!?!

Another great place to find out what your community or ideal client is asking and talking about is Reddit.  Reddit is a website and an app.  Basically, subreddits are individual communities centred around specific topics or interests.  You can use the search bar with some keywords to get involved in these communities, give some value but also see what they are talking about.  Points on Reddit, (a) know the rules, (b) lurk first (c) get involved in conversations and once you’re comfortable you can start your own thread.  Seriously interesting platform to be a part of.  Just like all platforms though, there will be people you’ll disagree with, so just be prepared and respectful of that.

Apart from Reddit, Quora is another great platform to stay on top of what’s going on in your niche world. Quora is a question-and-answer website where questions are asked, answered, edited, and organized by its community of users.

How does it work? Ask a Question: Any registered user can post a question on a topic they’re curious about. Answer a Question: Users can also provide answers to questions based on their knowledge or experiences.  So you can see that it would be a great place to find out what questions your community of asking.

Of course, aside from the places already mentioned above you can also use tools like:

• Instagram story stickers to ask questions and get answers from your community which will give you insights into what they are thinking
• You can read industry publications and blogs
• Looking around you at what other thought leaders in your industry are sharing on their social media and the responses and/or engagement they are getting
• Doing surveys and feedback forms to your actual clients or customers to get their points of view and their feedback.
• You can head to popular websites such as Pocket, Feedly and BuzzSumo and find new perspectives, intriguing deep-dives and timeless classic content worthy of your time over there.

There are literally tonnes of places to find content – you just need to know where your people are hanging out.  Be curious about what they are asking, what information they are sharing and how that information can relate to the content you are sharing with your community.

If you are stuck with how to get that brilliant piece of informational content, out to your community – eg/ how to write a blog around it or how to script a live video feed, how to write a long caption on social media around it or how to create an infographic to explain the answer – then ask ChatGPT or Bard (Bard is Google’s AI platform like Chatgpt).

When creating content that answers your ideal client’s questions:

• Be specific: Don’t just write a general blog post about your industry. Instead, focus on answering specific questions that your ideal client is asking.
• Be thorough: Make sure that your content is comprehensive and informative. Answer all of the relevant questions that your ideal client might have.
• Be easy to read: Use clear and concise language. Avoid using jargon or technical terms that your ideal client might not understand.
• Be helpful: Your goal should be to provide value to your ideal client. Help them to solve their problems and achieve their goals.

Bonus tip

Once you’ve created content that answers your ideal client’s questions, be sure to promote it! Share it on social media, submit it to directories, and reach out to other websites and bloggers to see if they’re interested in sharing it as well. The more people who see your content, the more likely you are to attract new customers or be seen to be giving enormous value to the customers you already have because they see you as listening to them and their issues and solving their problems – and everyone wants to spend money with someone who can do that!

I hope this episode has helped you think outside the square when it comes to content creation and marketing.  Loads of small business owners find marketing overwhelming and the need to be always creating content definitely contributes to this.  But hopefully, this episode and ep 250 have helped!

Of course, you can find the show notes for this episode at www.socialmediaandmarketing.com.au/265

But, that’s it for episode 265. If you loved this episode and found it valuable, please take 30 seconds out of your day to leave me a rating and review if you want where you are listening.  One more goal of mine is to reach more people with this podcast, and you can help me achieve that, by leaving me a review!  Thanks in advance.

See you next week on the podcast for episode 266! 

Remember to check out the November edition of my 4 week email marketing program.  There’s room for you if email marketing is something you want to get right for 2024. The link is in the show notes: https://bit.ly/EmailMasterclasswithJenn

But in the meantime, let’s hang out on social and get social on social – you’ll find me on Instagram, Facebook and my fav LinkedIn.

But whatever you do,

……..remember small business peep, as my opening song says, there’s no point in dreaming small!