Social Media: 9 Questions To Ask Your Customers When Creating Content

I’ve been meaning to look for an article that gives tips on how to post content. I’ve got articles lined up and this blog just gave me very good information on how to go about it. I’ll surely go these “extra mile” for my customers.

On one hand, I think that you are absolutely correct. Everyone needs to consider that paragraph (when you are writing , sourcing and creating content for your blog, website and social media channels you need to ”walk a mile in your customers shoes” and provide solutions in your content for their problems that they face every day in their business. You need to talk their language and you need to have their segmentation in fine enough detail that when they encounter your web content they will then say…”they understand what my problems are and they can help me solve them”. )

BUT ON THE OTHER HAND – I think it is absolutely essential to maintain the blogger’s voice. I think any writer needs some unique quality, style and VOICE that makes that person unique. I think it is a necessary component too. Call it voice, or call it personal branding, or call it style, but if there’s nothing unique beyond “they understand my problems and have solutions” then there is much less to be memorable.

If you are memorable, you aren’t merely seen as a solution to solve ONE problem – you are seen as a go-to resource, perhaps a preferred source to solve the next problem too…

I am the Social Media/ Marketing Manager for Digi Tech Studios. I have just sent a similar list to my clients to answer. I was shocked that most of the answers were left blank for me to discover.

Composing is the first act of writing. The process does not start with the actual “deliverable” – a college essay fully footnoted with a bibliography, for instance, or a fantastic blog post that goes viral on Twitter. You as composer must first spit out the ideas – what you’re going to say, what you want to sound like, how you’re going to phrase your point of view or frame the facts, and whether or not there is a larger agenda to your creative efforts. Rather than sitting in front of an empty word processor screen, hypnotized by the blinking cursor, try using an audio app like tinyvox and just rambling for a bit on the topic. Or find someone else who’s interested in the topic and tape yourself telling them all about it. Composing by talking is so easy and even FUN! As interactive human beings, we are caught in an endless loop of composition for one another whenever we converse. We just don’t think of it as “composing”, because for most of us conversation is an incredibly creative and spontaneous endeavor, particularly when we find a person to talk to who shares interests and culture and excitement with us.

Interviews, being the interface between oral and written culture, are relied on by magazines as a dependable source of engaging content, and music and film and visual artists often have plenty to say about and beyond their works. Throw in a few current issues within the industry or the world at large, and merely by sending intelligent reporters out with microcassette recorders, magazines like Rolling Stone have been able to engage and retain subscribers consistently for decades with a minimum of editorial stress.

Everybody having an interesting conversation about anything is composing. Tinyvox is a great tool for capturing the magic. Your ideas occur in a whirlwind – you need a tool built for the on the spot, on-the-fly, in real-time nature of your genius. If you capture your thoughts, later you will have options for deploying them. If you do not capture these moments, they simply whip away in the wind like so much dust. We propose that you use tinyvox in the moment, to tape the genius as it occurs. Later, even a week later, in a free moment at home, pull up the tape and a piece of paper or word processor (I use Stickies for the Mac) and take notes. On yourself! Yourself a week ago – a weird new type of time travel. It’s fascinating! You may say to yourself, “I want to type that up as a chapter in my book!”

Having a conversation with tinyvox will make time fly. You’ll look down, and suddenly realize that you have 7 1/2 min. of conversation recorded. When you go back later to transcribe this tape, you’ll find that you have filled up page after page of text with the amazing words that you and your conversation partner shared, which never would have existed if you hadn’t taped it. Furthermore, you will add value as you transcribe the tape, of course. The written word is different from the spoken word, and your creation of a “second draft” off the tape will give you a chance to polish your composition for any readers you may wish to reach. You will also fill in the white spaces in your conversational logic the second time you go through it. When done, you’ll have a polished essay, based on a conversation that you had so naturally. With your tape as a seed, created earlier and nearly automatically, your writing just about anything instantly becomes a pleasure. And, of course, you have a pause button, which you should use constantly as you transcribe. If you go through your tapes after you have created them, you will never miss an idea again. You will also develop a reputation as a very, very prolific writer! (by the way, I spoke this out, then typed it up

Nice.

Wonderful insights!

I just wrote a book and built a blog centered website to complement what’s in the book.   http://www.Historic-FortMyer.com  – seems that I’ve taken a different path than the article suggests.  Going to think about how to employ some of the suggestions.

Great stuff…

Great one

Good stuff, to add to this checklist, I’d include finding out the psychographics of your audience/customers.