Creating Digital Content
Once you’ve set up your digital marketing platform(s), the next step will be creating content — the information and media you want to share with customers and others. Content can build awareness of your company and product, help you engage with your audience and attract and retain new customers.
sharing Your Story
No matter which digital marketing tools/platforms you use, all provide an opportunity to share your story with your current and prospective customers so they can get to know you and your business. Many consumers are willing to pay more for a product that they feel connected to by knowing who is fishing or farming the product, if it’s locally caught or harvested, supporting family-owned businesses, etc. Share what makes your business different from others and what your interests and motivations are for doing what you do. For social media in particular, try to create authentic and unique content that sets you apart as there is a lot of information out there and you want people to remember you.
Consider including the following types of information in your content to help your audience get to know you.
Business Information:
- Are you a family business? Multigenerational family business?
- Women/minority owned business?
- How long have you been in business?
- Where and when do you sell your product?
- How did you get into this industry?
Fishing/Farming:
- What do you fish/farm?
- Do you offer products that are different from others?
- Do you fish/farm in unique ways?
- Do you use environmentally friendly gear, product packaging or other?
- Do you collaborate with researchers or resource managers to collect information about your product(s)?
If you’re not a fan of writing, there’s an easy work-around. Ask someone close to you to sit and talk with you as if they were a new customer. Tell them about yourself and your business and have them write down or type out what you’re saying. Answer any questions they might have as a “new customer.” As you talk about what you do and the products you provide, your excitement will come through and the highlights they write down will provide great content for your digital marketing efforts.
Content Types and Features
Historically, each type of digital marketing tool and/or platform focused on specific types of content. For example, initially Instagram was used for posting only photographs while TikTok was only for videos. Now, however, each tool/platform allows you to post a variety of content types and has features for engagement and managing content and sales including:
Content Types
- Text: Written updates or announcements that can also include photos, videos, or links
- Photos: Either a single photo or many photos shown in a carousel or album
- Videos: Short-form (<1.5 min) or long-form (>10 min) video content
- Stories: Text, photo, or video posts that are only visible for 24 hrs
- Highlights: Collections of stories that allow you to save and categorize the stories you want to be visible indefinitely
- Links: Direct links to other web pages shared as either part of a post or in your bio
- Live streaming: A stream of video in real-time that engages viewers, generally in an informal and conversational way
Features for Engagement
- Comments: Comments left on your posts and any responses you make to these comments are visible to anyone who views your post.
- Direct Messaging: Messages that are direct between you and others and not broadcast through a particular post
- Polls: A way to engage and survey your followers (audience) and gather their responses
- Events: Advertisements of upcoming events with the option for digital RSVPs
- Groups: A way to create and/or join a group/community of people with similar interests or goals
- Reviews: Comments from community members about your business or products that are visible to the public on your profile
Features for Managing Content and Sales
- Post Scheduling: Enables you to create content and then schedule it to be posted at a later date/time
- Direct Sales: Enables you to sell products directly from your page or profile
what to post
You can succeed at digital marketing no matter what type of content you post. Thus, it is best to focus on creating the kind of content you enjoy or at least don’t mind making. For example, if you like taking photos, use photos as your primary content type, and if you don’t enjoy cooking then stay away from creating content that requires you to film cooking tutorials. No matter which content type you use, be sure it is high quality, unique and provides value to your audience — be it informational, educational or entertaining. This is particularly the case for social media, as people engaged in such platforms enjoy learning about new things, following along with processes, and getting a glimpse into the lives of people with different careers, like farming oysters or crab fishing.
Here are a few examples of the kinds of content you can create:
About your business
- Your business priorities and values
- Biographies of you, your crew or people you work with introducing the people involved in your business
- Information about where and when you sell your products
- Advertisements of upcoming events or recapping events you’ve attended
About your product
- Information about the species you catch or grow
- Handling and preparation information for your products
- Recipes for your products
About your industry
- Information about the gear and methods you use
- Selectivity for target species
- Non-target species reduction devices
- Environmentally-friendly aspects
- A day in the life videos showing what your work and industry is like
General
- Behind the scenes photos/videos
- Media showing unique species or individuals you find
- Answers to questions you are frequently asked
- Sharing news stories and infographics about your industry
- Myth busting misconceptions about your industry or product
What not to post
Think before you post. Keep your business digital marketing posts positive and professional. Remember, the purpose for undertaking digital marketing is to build connections with your community and increase your sales. Remaining focused on your products and operations will help you do so.
when to post
Posting or sending your content at strategic times of day can help you maximize the number of people who see and engage with your content. Each platform has slightly different best practices for when to post, so be sure to verify the current best days and times to post for each platform as you’re getting started and check back on this routinely. As a general rule, aim to post between 8 am and 8 pm. Content or messages sent late at night or early in the morning will likely receive less engagement. However, posting consistently and on days relevant to your business is most important.
Example: If you sell at a Farmers Market on Wednesday, consider posting every Tuesday at 5:00 pm to remind your audience that at this time tomorrow, you’ll be selling at the market.
Synergies Across Platforms
Some platforms are designed to work together and share your content between them, saving you time and energy. Taking advantage of these synergies can be an easy way to have a presence on multiple platforms with the same amount of effort.
Sharing Between Social Media Platforms
The content from one social media platform can often be shared on other social media platforms that are linked to that account. For example, you can share videos created on TikTok to Instagram (Instagram calls video posts “Reels”). This will require you to manually share them from one platform to another, but this is straightforward and typically takes less than 5 minutes.
Meta Business Suite: Meta Business Suite is a platform that allows you to manage a Facebook and Instagram account simultaneously. You can create content within Meta Business Suite and then schedule it to be posted on both Facebook and Instagram at the same time. You can respond to comments and direct messages through Business Suite as well which allows you to manage your content and engagement from one location rather than within each platform separately. Meta Business Suite also provides you analytics and insights to how your posts are performing, tracks your followers and allows you to create paid advertisements for both platforms.
Sharing Social Media Content to Websites
Some website platforms will also allow you to link your social media posts to the website. If you have a primarily photo based Instagram account, this can help add current photos to your website or linking to an X (formerly Twitter) account can act as real time updates to your website. Your social media content will automatically appear on your website in these instances and requires no additional updating or work from you.
Saving Your Content
Like most work, it is a good idea to archive (download/save) all of the content you post to a platform onto your computer. In doing so, you protect yourself from losing all your content should a platform shut down. The best way to do this will depend on the platform you’re using. For example, if you’re making a website, be sure to save all the text on your website in a document on your computer. If you’re using TikTok, download all the videos you make after you post them.
Resources
5 Keys To Making Your Business Thrive on Facebook
Entrepreneur.
Facebook Marketing for Small Business: What You Need to Know
Social Media Marketing Society.
SCORE Association.
Social Media and YOU: The Benefits! (PDF)
Web Success Team.
Social Networks as Online Marketing Tools: New Trends in Social Media
Webbed Marketing.