3 Questions to Make Sure Your Content Starts the Conversation

You own a business or a business title, so you have to be good at something representative of the type of business you own or work at. This alone makes you an expert on a certain subject. One of the ways to grow your business or business profile is to harness that expertise in ways that can be shared with others. Easy enough, right? Yes and no.

It is easy if what you are talking about is interesting, insightful and will appeal to peers and editors alike. But making sure everyone is happy and interested isn’t always easy to do. Because of these hurdles, here are three tips for making your expert content interesting to a media editor who will place it to be read, shared and discussed by your peers, industry influencers and future clients.

1. Is your content timely?

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Ask yourself if there are certain times throughout the year that your advice and expertise would be most beneficial to others. If so, make sure you prepare your content ahead of time and talk about why your expertise matters now. If you are an expert in shipping or logistics, you will want to talk about preparing for inventory issues that occur during the holidays. If you are a marketing expert, you will touch on how to market to customers during the holidays -- how to turn those holiday shoppers into year-round clientele.

This also ties into trends and making sure you are talking about things that are making news today and tomorrow, not yesterday. As an example, Google "time saving apps” and you will see about seven pages of articles on the subject, but you will only read the latest and newest because these are the most up-to-date thoughts and products and frankly, who has time to read outdated news?

2. Is what you are offering helpful?

Advice goes a long way in creating content that is shareable and of interest. When you are writing content about a certain topic, give very direct points on why it matters and how others can learn from it. If you are writing something for a business audience, make sure it has a business focus. If it is for entrepreneurs, make sure the points would appeal to someone starting a business.

Take the time to identify your desired audience and, if looking for an editor to use your content, make sure your content aligns with the publication’s audience before you get started. We all want to create content that elicits comments, shares, likes and retweets, so don’t forget this important step when creating genuine advice that people will appreciate.

3. Did you consider editorial guidelines and content that would appeal to an editor?

Often content creators don’t consider that ultimately an editor has to be interested in your content to get pick-up in the media. Unless the expert is famous, content that is really personal or inside information that only applies to them won’t be of interest to an editor. In the PR world, we call this “too inside.” It is information that really only matters to you and comes off more like a blog or commentary than something that is useful to a wider audience. By creating content that appeals to a wider audience, you are betting that an editor will want to share your work with their audience, giving you a positive media response.

The phrase "content creation" even has a Wiki page to help experts identify exactly what it is and who it appeals to. What they don’t talk about is how to make it matter to both an editor and to the audience. By using these three tips in your content, it will help you, the expert, share what you do well with an audience that can help grow you and your business.