About 3 weeks ago I set up my Satire News & Entertainment Site BEBUSY NEWS. Among my first few articles was this one, about a popular Sri Lankan Cricket Star. The article was published on the new site at 9:33pm on 22 March 2015 and I shared this on my Facebook wall at 11:13am on 23 March. This is when things got interesting.
At the end of 23 March, this article had 26,002 Views by 28,733 Unique Visitors from 105 Different Countries. By the end of 24 March Views had gone up to 50,609. The daily traffic for the article has obviously been dropping but I would like to share a few things that I leaned first hand about Content Marketing.
- Choosing Relevant Topics – Now this seems like a no-brainer but here is what I am on about. The most creative content in the world will not get attention if it is NOT Relevant. Relevance of course, is subjective and you need to understand the demographics of your audience and social circles. I chose Cricket in General, a huge personality within Cricket and a recent world record feat achieved by him. All of this was highly relevant to my target audience.
- Working on the Headline
My article was satirical so the headline needed to Shock and Awe the reader. Think about what you want to evoke in the reader when they read the Headline, don’t get ahead of your self and think about what you want the reader to feel after they read the article, just think about the headline. A mistake we often make is that, we try to get the Headline out of the way before we start writing the actual article. As long as you know what you are writing about, proceed to the article and the content. Once you are done with the article you will have better insight as to what the best Headline will be.
- Using Relevant Images
Use an image that is most relevant to your Headline. The image that I used was of the subject personality of the article and it depicted the same kind of expression I wanted the readers of the article to feel i,e Disbelief and Shock, which I had also setup through the headline. If you are not using your original images, make sure that you credit the image source at all times in your article. I got this image from The Telegraph UK.
- Getting on the Right Social Media Platform
As you can see form the stats from my site, I chose Facebook and it proved to be the top source of traffic referral to my article. In Sri Lanka, FB is the best way to go. I love Twitter though, and am rather bugged that we have not mastered the art of communicating in 140 characters yet. If your content is relevant and compelling, chances are you will go viral on most platforms, but it is important that you choose one that which most of your target audience and/or social circles are engaged on.
- Just Doing It – About a Year ago, I did my research and brainstorming, come up with various topics and article prompts for my Satire site but just didn’t go ahead because I didn’t know how to design a Logo and/or build a website (and I didn’t have money to pay someone to do it for me). This time, I set up the site on my own using a free WordPress theme and did my own Logo using this awesome design site Canva. So it didn’t matter that I didn’t know how to code or that I couldn’t draw a Cat on Illustrator, all that mattered was that I could write, and at the end of the day that is the only thing that mattered. So go ahead and start that blog, write that article, take that photograph, do whatever it is that you want to do and have the passion for. In this era of online tools and Social Media there are many ways that you can publish your work and be discovered on the Internet.
kreativerights.wordpress.com 