Capture the attention of your target audience with actionable content. Help your reader solve a problem or gain a competitive advantage. Learn the three-part formula to create actionable content.
One of my responsibilities here at Widewail is social media. For us, that usually means Linkedin.
Whenever I’m putting together content to share I consider three things:
Is it interesting?
Is it useful?
Is it actionable?
Today, I’m going to focus on my favorite of the three: actionable content.
Actionable content helps your reader solve a problem or gain a competitive advantage. Of course, the “problem” should be related to something your business solves for.
It’s easily consumable (all social should be) and can be used by the reader right away.
For your target audience (prospective buyers), actionable content gives a quick win. An idea that can be tried out, made a reality right away.
Here’s the formula:
Insight + how-to + examples = actionable content
For example:
Insight: 68% of consumers, when deciding where to make a purchase, are more likely to go with a business that offers convenient communication methods. (Forrester)
How-to: If you want to convert more prospects into leads, offer multiple, low-friction communication channels.
Example: Chat messaging is popular, convenient, and real-time. To enable messaging via your GMB, enable the “Messages” tool within your business manager. Assign responsibility to a team member for chat monitoring and engagement. In the GMB settings, turn on notifications under settings > web notifications > customer messages.
Social posts following this formula are head-and-shoulders above the majority of posts because they explain clearly to the reader what to do, how to do it, and clarify the execution with 1-3 specific examples.
Not enough local marketers clearly explain what their audience is supposed to do with the unique information they provide.
(Simply outlining the problem is not enough.)
Making sure your content is actionable before hitting “post” transforms the reader's response from “So, what?” to “That’s super helpful, I’m gonna share it!”
Readers share because it makes them look good, and as a result, more and more people will be exposed to your business. These types of network effects are what you’re after.
Remember, actionable content is immediately useful content. And when your readers get something worthwhile they will keep coming back for more.
Thanks for reading! I hope you find this actionable.
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See you in 2 weeks - Jake, Marketing @Widewail
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