Content Production: The Complete and Definitive Guide
May 30, 2021
Content Production: The Complete and Definitive Guide The Internet has facilitated communication worldwide, that is a fact. Currently, information vehicles such as magazines, newspapers, and television are increasingly losing their spaces, and slowly migrating to the purely digital environment. The public has quick and easy access to information and news through websites and blogs that are maintained by professionals in the field of communication, and even business people or lay people.
What is content production for websites and blogs?
The big lesson to be learned from this is: producing quality content for blogs and websites is vitally important for a company to stay in business or even an individual to have their name recognized. Content production is the act of creating text, video, images, audio, infographics, or any other medium in which useful information can be conveyed that generates value to the audience that will consume it.
How content production came about
To understand the birth of the strategy, there is a long way to go. Starting with one of the largest manufacturers of agricultural machinery in the world, John Deere. Travel back in time a little, when England left for America and found the new world, supplies for agricultural production were brought to the colonies to establish themselves. Everything worked very well until the colonies began to expand, and when they reached the state of Illinois, the new inhabitants realized that they would have a harder time sowing in that land, since all their equipment was prepared for the sandy New England soil.
By the 1890s, John Deere began to listen to what the farmers had to say, understanding their problems and trying to find a way to solve them. In 1895, the company launched The Furrow magazine that delivered useful information to these individuals, helping them sow seeds on that land and how to use the brand’s inventions, and there content production was born.A few years later, in 1900, what is the milestone in content marketing emerged:
The Michelin Guide
A book that provided information about the best restaurants in the United States, encouraging people to use their cars more and remember the brand of tires when a change was needed. From the success of these marketing moves, several companies took the same path, and one of the most famous and that persists until today is the Moça condensed milk (Nestlé), which has recipes printed on its labels. This is how offline content production came about, and over the years it has migrated to the digital medium.
Most of the devices, services, and means of communication that we use today emerged during periods of great tension in the world, and the Internet is included in this group. Around the 1970s, early 1980s, at the height of the Cold War, the US military found a way to distribute information over long distances, at high speed and in a secure manner. In time, universities started to use this tool, and in the 90’s the Internet was opened to the public, and companies found a new way to approach potential consumers, inspired by the success cases of the 20th century in content production, companies invested in this online modality through websites and blogs that gather a huge amount of information, data and news, and that can be accessed at the click of a mouse.
The importance of producing quality content
Traditional marketing has been losing space due to its high cost and low return on investment, and has even been called "interruption marketing", because it interrupts the user to offer a product. For example, a billboard that draws all the attention of pedestrians and drivers while offering a product or service that people are not necessarily looking for.
Before companies went after their customers, and now individuals have a more active role when it comes to making a transaction, they are the ones who seek the brand. It is important to pay attention to content production because:It is a cheap strategy, easy to implement and with high return on investment.People are not only looking for products, but solutions and content that really add value to their lives. If the content is useful, the user pays more attention to what the company has to say.The company builds authority, becomes a reference in its area of expertise.The chances of getting spontaneous advertising are greater, because users are more likely to share good content, increasing the reach of the brand.
How to choose a company that produces content
The company that will write your article, record your video, or produce an illustration will be your partner in gaining more readers and possibly converting them into actual customers. A good article convinces the audience that that is the only company that can provide the service they need, and will be helpful in solving their problems. Having understood this, you also understand the importance of carefully choosing the company that will be your ally.
Successful cases: The first thing to investigate is the company’s reputation and authority in the market. When it is well qualified and produces high quality content, it is cited by its customers. Give preference to those that make available on their website the brands they work with, so you can be sure that they are really committed to the success of their customers. Evaluate the company’s website and social networks:
the production of content is geared towards digital marketing. When the company understands such strategies, it will have a site optimized for various platforms (computers, tablets, smartphones...) and will be SEO-Friendly. Knowledge of all the techniques is essential to produce something that will dictate the authority conveyed by the content. Know who the professionals are: writing is not a divine gift that a chosen few possess, it takes hours and hours of practice to learn the best ways to develop an article or blog post. Look for companies that work with journalists, professional writers, and individuals who are familiar with communication.
Digital content production course
When you have practice in the field, writing an article is not complicated, especially when you write about a topic you understand very well. It is necessary to know some techniques to produce content in a satisfactory way that really adds value to the user. Investing in a content production course is a way to produce your own material and develop it exactly the way your company requires, thinking about every little detail, after all, you are the one who knows your audience best and knows what kind of media they want to consume and the most efficient way to deliver relevant information. The course alone is not enough to create a professional copywriter, it takes years of writing, practicing and improving. By understanding how each stage of creation works, it is possible to write an article with extremely high quality that converts the lead into a consumer or builds loyalty to that reader on your blog.
Production stepsThe production or writing of the content is a process that can be divided into small steps, so that the writer will put together a small checklist, indicating the step by step to produce in a timely manner and with web quality.
Elaboration of the agenda
The agenda is what informs the type of content to be produced. It is necessary to identify the objective to be reached, the best way to conquer it, and how to develop the content in a satisfactory manner. At this stage it is necessary to know the persona, or an average profile of who will consume the article, video or image, so that the writer, by understanding the agenda, will know the tone he should use, language and keywords.
Storytelling and draft
Storytelling is well known in film and literature. It is a short summary of everything that will be included in the text. The writer will think which information should come first, so that the next one makes sense, and thus create a logical sequence to transmit the information. Once the storytelling has been defined, or the script, it is necessary to make a draft, but always keeping in mind that this will be the final version. Doing a draft does not mean writing just like that, you must already write it with the highest possible quality.
Proofreading and final version
Though the draft is perfect, it will hardly move forward without going through a rigorous proofreading process. There, it is necessary to pay attention to any spelling or grammatical errors. If your content has a typo, or has a serious mistake in the language standard, it is one of the factors that makes it lose authority among readers. When all these corrections have been made, it is time to send the text for publication. The revision has been effective when you can answer the following questions: Does the text fit the topic, will the persona be engaged, are all typos and grammatical errors corrected, is the word count within the required range, are there keywords?
Writing and proofreading tools
Rarely will you find a writer who works with pen and paper, nowadays there is a plethora of digital tools that make the job easier. The best known and most used text editors are basically three: Google Docs, Word, and Libre Office. All offer grammar correction tools and features to highlight the relevant parts of the article, and have a personal dictionary where you can add neologisms that are used frequently. Another very good tool for producing content are online dictionaries. The great flaw that text editors have is the low capacity to judge the word by its context. Think that the most languages have many similar words, and if the editor does not observe the sentence in which it was included, he may replace it by another that exists, but that at that moment its placement is incorrect. The Creative Dictionary, for example, brings definitions of terms, as well as others that rhyme, synonyms, and antonyms, giving the writer a wider range of words to include during the content production process.
How to work with content production for websites and blogs
Writing and producing content is a great wonder and even therapy for many people. Writing is a creative process in which all ideas come out of the head and go to paper, or to the computer screen, and become something really physical and tangible. To work with content production it is necessary to have discipline and to know what your goals are? how much you want to produce? how much time you have available? how you want to do it? why you would like to produce content? the discipline cited is directly related to these four fundamental questions.
The writer must know his own limitations, find the periods of the day and times when creativity is at its peak, so that he can produce original content with the highest possible quality. It is a process of both self-knowledge and learning, in which the writer will learn about new things in order to write a good article, for example. The professional copywriter knows himself and can count on the help of numerous tools, such as, for example, One Note, a program that can help him at the time of brainstorming, creation of the storytelling and first draft. A fundamental prerequisite when talking about content production for websites and blogs, is to know the basics of SEO, Search Engine Optimization. It is through this knowledge that the writer prepares projects that add authority and value to the site where the content will be made available.
Freelance content producer- how it works
To be a copywriter was not an easy task in the past, because the demand was very low. Today, with the growth of content marketing, this type of professional has become indispensable for any company that has a profile on the Internet. The most common is to find freelance writers, who are paid per production, which is a great help for companies that do not have a substantial income to hire a specific employee for this function. Languageweb24, for example, is a platform that brings together more than 100 writers from all over Brazil, each with their specific areas of training and with different motivations for writing, what makes them common is the desire to write and produce quality content. They are journalists, copywriters for radio, television, and even magazines, all committed to the success of content production. Everything happens as follows:
The platform’s client sends a guideline specifying the type of content needed for their blog or site; Languageweb24 team filters these guidelines and suggests improvements, such as including keywords with a high volume of searches or more specific keywords;The professional copywriter receives the guideline and develops the content on it, always paying attention to the objective, details to be included and number of words required;Finally, the text is sent to proofreaders who correct any mistakes, however small;The text is sent to the client. If the client approves, the copywriter is notified. If the client believes that the article did not meet expectations, the staff returns to the writer and he makes changes until the client is completely satisfied with the service.
Content marketing with constant production
Content marketing is the biggest bet of most agencies and specialized companies, because it is the one that brings more return at a lower cost. Posting an article on a blog is not marketing. There needs to be a constant flow of content, so that the audience always has something new to consume. Good content is content that informs, nourishes, and engages the audience. Each niche market has its own requirements and different strategies can be implemented to attract more and more readers and keep the old ones eager for more content.
Content strategiesThe main thing for your content marketing to be efficient and bring good results is to think about what your audience needs and offer a solution. In a first moment there should be no brand or specific product disclosure, because the user is still considering the alternatives to solve a certain situation. If you have content that helps the user without forcing him to come to you, the engagement is automatic. Then, when you have a reader within your network, he already accesses your blog with a certain frequency and you can insert a short piece that informs that your company is available to help him, that is, it has the services and products he needs. A Call-To-Action (CTA) is a line in the middle of the text that encourages the reader to contact you.There is also the last stage of content production in the business environment, the institutional. This type is aimed solely at convincing the user that yours is the only company that can help him. This type of article is more difficult to produce, because the relationship between customer and company should never be forced, it should come naturally.
Social Media Content Production
The requirements for blogs and social media are not the same. Usually users of social networks look for content that can be consumed in a short time, such as short articles, but the best alternative are videos that, besides stimulating the reader through writing, can add other elements, such as images and sounds that will captivate him even more.
Creating content for social networks (Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn)
The number of users on Instagram and Facebook has been growing more and more, as well as LinkedIn which has always been a great tool in the corporate world. These social networks become extremely useful for something that is essential in digital marketing, link building. When the company has an active profile on a social network, your potential customers have an open channel to ask questions and give suggestions. And interacting with the public is one of the best ways to engage them in the campaign. Take Instagram as an example: if you post an image that brings up to 3 lines of relevant information and it is linking to your website, you have a path that leads the user to your official page, where he can be converted into a real customer. It is necessary to invest in these communication channels. When you post an article on your blog, you need to let everyone know about it, and a catchy Facebook call-to-action is one way to guide them to the full content. Producing content in a few lines and with a great power of persuasion is the best way to be recognized on the web.