Yesterday, I was going through my reading feeds, when this blog posts popped up: “Today’s Biggest Content Marketing Challenge”. Interesting enough, it seems that the biggest marketing challenge that B2C and B2B businesses are facing today is how to create engaging content.

It’s very easy to create content once or even twice a week. It would take you a couple of hours a day to create a good blog post a week. However, if we want to take a step forward and create something that people want to engage with, things get more complicated.

I’ve got my own theory based on my own experience. This is not an ultimate guide to create engaging content or anything like that. I’m just being logical here and telling you what engaging content takes for me.

Personally, if we want to create engaging content, we need to focus on three main factors: creating a community, the author behind the content and the content itself. Let’s analyse them!

1. The author behind the content

Engage means a situation in which two different parties (or even three in my opinion) are involved. Readers can comment on a blog post, but if there’s nobody behind it to get back to this reader, we would be losing points. (We all have been there, right?)

This aspect has to do with finding “the voice” of your brand. If readers think that a mere robot has written the content, they are not going to be bothered to engage with it.

[Tweet “People want to engage with real people.”]

• How can we show that it’s us behind our content?

We need to be honest with them and not pull the wool over our reader’s eyes. They are going to know when you’re being honest and when you just want to sell them something or promote a product.

We need to take some time to genuinely care about our audience. They are going to know when you are there, answering their questions, paying attention to what they have to say and listening to their opinion. If our readers feel that they are taken into consideration, we would be offering a good reader experience with our blogs. This is my approach here:

[Tweet “Write a blog post by imagining that you’re telling something to an old friend.”]

Then, your readers will realise that you’re being honest, that they are being noticed and they wouldn’t mind to stay around if they know that they are welcome to your blog.

2. Build up a community

When you have a blog, you realise that you’ve got two main types of readers. Those that will go to your blog once and you won’t see them again, and those who relentlessly come back every time you publish a blog post. Which public do you prefer? The question seems obvious, right?

Our mission here is to turn those readers that got to your blog for the first time into part of your community. That’s why we have to pamper our community every now and then and offer them the best that we can.

At this point, I realised a couple of months ago how important having a mailing list is. This is how I engage with my community and how every month they get something special in their inboxes from me. (For example, my eBook “How to survive your first year in business“.)

I know that they are there every time I publish a blog post, and this is how I say thank you to them.

Although this is probably a good way to start building up your community, this is not enough. Once again, you’ll have to engage with them, listen to their questions, resolve their problems, and let them know that they can rely on you. And this is my approach here:

[Tweet “The more you get to know your audience, the better you’ll be able to engage with them.”]

3. What engaging content looks like

Taking both points above into consideration, we will have to adapt our content accordingly.

Firstly, engaging content must be unique. This doesn’t mean that you only have to talk about topics that haven’t been discussed on the Internet yet (mission impossible!) However, it is about approaching these topics in a way that nobody out there is doing yet.

Why does our audience have to stay in our blog if we are writing exactly the same than other bloggers out there? Personally, I wouldn’t follow two blogs that talk about the same topic in the same way. I’d rather go for an innovative blog that maybe is about the same topic, but has something special.

Also, our content must connect with our audience. It must be addressed to their needs and to solve their problems. That’s why it’s so important to pay attention and listen to them, to get to know what they want us to talk about. In this sense, storytelling can have a significant importance to overcome the biggest marketing content challenge. This marketing technique will help us connect with our audience through stories. And, again, my approach here:

[Tweet “Engaging content must be unique and adapted to your audience needs.”]

4. Bonus: Be patient and never give up

Most blogs out there end up disappearing because people aren’t patient. They think that they will get loads of readers within the first months. Then, their bubble bursts and realise that it doesn’t work like that.

In fact, that happened to me when I first started writing content for this blog. I spent a lot of time brainstorming and polishing my writing and I wasn’t getting anything in return.

Well, some months later I can say that it was worth it!

My blog has been constantly growing since I realise that. (Obviously, we didn’t get to the end of July yet!) Thank you everyone!

Only when you realise that being consistent and offer the best to your readers is more important than the results that you get from it, you’ll see how people will engage more with your content.

Have you ever tried to make your content more engaging? How did you do it? I’d love to hear from you!

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