With over 79 million posts published on blogs hosted on WordPress.com alone in July 2018, the sheer volume of content being produced nowadays is staggering.

So, how can content marketers create engaging, informative content that resonates with their customers as well as support their business goals? Here are five of Croud’s Charlotte Tobulevicius’ top tips for getting your content noticed.

1. Tell a story 

Your competitors are all creating content relevant to their industry, so make yourself stand out by offering something different that will knock their content out of the park.

Think about what you’re trying to tell people and how you can make it into an exciting story. The key is to turn the mundane into something newsworthy.

Start your story with an intriguing headline to pique the interest of your audience. Make it catchy but ensure it tells the reader what to expect. This is the most important part as it means the difference between someone clicking on your content or continuing to scroll through their newsfeed. Follow this with a creative and informative introduction that entices the audience to click through to your content; think about how you would summarise the story if you needed to shout it across the office.

Remember, you want your reader to feel like they’re being given some valuable information that they are able to interact with.

2. Be bang on trend 

What’s topical and taking over the news agenda – can it relate to your brand? It’s important to keep abreast of the wider news agenda as it’s a great way to source ideas for content and can often be planned in advance. Content calendars can help to proactively ensure you have content ready to go at key dates throughout the year.

However, reactive content can also be successful if you respond quickly enough. This can be difficult as it doesn’t take long for information to become outdated. Ensuring you’re up to date with the news should give you plenty of time to create content though. Google Trends and social listening tools are great sources to keep you up to date with what’s got people talking as well as reading up on different news sites.

3. Offer solutions and education

Your customers want to feel like you’re educating them rather than pitching your latest products. Think about your desired outcome and what emotions your customer is experiencing when they interact with your content.

We all know the end game is to increase sales but there’s a tactical way of doing this by building brand recognition and loyalty with your customers. Consumers have an abundance of choice between brands so offer something new. You’ll stand out by providing solutions that make them feel like the brand cares about them.

4. Right place, right time

Using the right channels for your content and the market you are targeting is really important – it can make or break your social posts.

For example, we all know Instagram as the visual social media site, and with over 95 million pictures and videos posted every day, you need to ensure you post image-led content that stands out from everyone else’s. Likewise, LinkedIn is the site for professionals, so ensure your content matches this. The content you post on here should be a little more business-focused as opposed to customer-orientated like Instagram.

Time is important too. There are a number of free analytics tools which can be used to determine when your audience is online, including Followerwonk, Google Analytics and internal tools such as Facebook Analytics. You can also opt for paid tools like Sysomos. Many people use LinkedIn as their source of news first thing in the morning so capitalise on this and schedule your posts accordingly.

5. Use awesome imagery

It’s not just a great headline that peaks the interest of your audience; a striking image can speak a thousand words and ignite curiosity.

Did you know that posts including imagery can produce 650% higher engagement than text-only posts? Getting your imagery right can be the difference between someone engaging with your brand or not. Think about how fast you scroll through your news feed and what type of images make you stop. Would this style of content interest your customers too? Ensure that every post includes an image that’s not only relevant to the content you are publishing but also makes your reader want to find out more.

Follow these tips and you’ll be well on your way to cutting through the noise and driving real engagement with your customers and prospects.