Introduction from Hike – this post is the third in a series which we’re calling the “Friends of Hike Guest Post Series”. Being a SaaS/marketing company we have friends in lots of different companies, all who expertise in their specialist area. And we want to share their best tips – their best ‘knowledge’ – that can help YOU with your SEO. It’s all about sharing value.
It’s also to demonstrate to our users, and those small businesses/startups, that there are great opportunities for building links to your website if you participate in this ‘expertise sharing economy’. This is exactly what the future of link building looks like, and it’s what Google envisioned as the purpose of links.
The guys at Idea Labz who wrote this post have included a backlink to their site. And we are HAPPY to include it, as they are providing true value to our blog and to our users.
So without further ado, enjoy the third guest post in this new series…
It doesn’t matter what industry you are in, to become successful you must be aware of your competitors. Not only can you decipher if they have good content or not, but you can also fashion your content just like your competitors or even make it better.
When reviewing your competitor’s content there are some important notes to make that will help you to create better content for your brand.
1. Reflection of Personality
When it comes to B2B content marketing, in the majority of cases the content is educational. However, successful brands have found a way to make their content more interesting, relatable, and thus portray the brand’s personality in a good light. You can factor this same technique to into your own content, and fashion your content to project your brand’s personality. Follow the content posted on the competitor’s social media, as this is a great way to see exactly how they fashion their brand’s tone of voice.
2. Content Frequency
Knowing how frequently your competitors post their content is also a good way to help you schedule your own posting.You will also be able to identify what fuels the frequency of their content creation – is it promotional content, professional guides, videos, infographics, how-to content, expert opinion roundups, etc? – and thus gain some inspiration on how to go about your own content creation.
3. Content Quality Level
You always want to look to create content that is relevant to your audience and is the best it can possibly be.
However, this does not necessarily mean that you always have to go above-and-beyond to create content the likes of which have never been seen before. (But, if you can do that, then great!)
Mark Twain once said “There is no such thing as a new idea” as what we have are refined ideas. Simply put – don’t try and re-invent the wheel when it comes to creating content. Or, in other words, don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Because of this, reviewing the level of quality of your competitor’s content can function as a standard to help you know just how unique/above-and-beyond/deep you need to go in order to outperform in your industry.
4. Unique and Innovative Content or Something Regular
It’s very likely that when you review your competition you’ll soon see that almost all of them are creating content, and probably a lot of it.!
What you need to do is to try and identify what are the unique aspects of their best content that makes it stand out? Is it small and often posting across their blog and social channels? This is a common tactic; post frequently with little nuggets for your readers. If this is a tactic that works then you can create a lot of this content, fairly easily.
Or is it larger one-off pieces of content with a bigger aim in mind. For example, if your competitors are using explainer videos as part of their content strategy then it is key to identify how they are using them within their ongoing strategy. Maybe they splice it up into smaller chunks to share? Or maybe they keep promoting that same piece of content.
Look and see what your competition are doing well, and learn from it for your strategies.
5. Engagement
One of the primary reasons why your competitors are creating content is that they intend to generate engagement from their audience/customers. Therefore it is not always about creating educational content, that does not necessarily generate the best levels of engagement.
Try and identify how your competitors are able to engage their audiences with their content, and see how consistent they are with it. Do they create content that is not necessarily tied to their product? Maybe they create content around industry news, related topics, competitors, maybe even completely unrelated content.
This will help you to go back to the drawing board, and create a more-encompassed strategy armed with this knowledge. Alternatively, if this is not your skill-set you could reach out to a specialist content and marketing agency (such as Ideal Labz).
Outro
Having the right content strategy is an essential part of your business in this digital age, as it helps to convey (and improve) your brand’s personality online and attract more new customers.
You need workable ideas to help you climb to the top of your industry and what better way to get inspiration than to check the content created by your competitors, especially the successful ones!
Author bio: Srikanth Balakumar is the CEO and Founder of Idea Labz, a content and marketing agency based out of London and Bangalore.
