Blog | Content Clarity | Content Planning & Creation Made Easy

Social Media
Signs you’re ready to add another social media platform
- by pamela
A question I get asked all the time is “when should I add another social media platform?” With so many social media platforms out there, it can be hard to know what are the right ones for your business.

I always recommend focusing on starting with 2 and growing them first before you even think about adding another. But how do you know when to add one?

Are you already getting great engagement?

Is the content you’re posting on your existing platforms getting great engagement, results & even sales? If the answer is yes, then I’d say you’re ready to consider adding another platform to your repertoire. But don’t go rushing to TikTok just yet!

Do you have the time?

It might sound obvious… But what would adding another social media platform mean in terms of the content creation process?

Would you need fresh content? Or could you repurpose content you’re already creating? Or better yet, is it a case of straight up cross posting?

Remember, it’s not just about posting and running. You need to be active on each platform you intend to grow on. So if you’re going to start uploading your YouTube videos direct to LinkedIn, you’d better make sure you intend to build an audience on their, otherwise the time it took you to resize, add subtitles etc could be better spent elsewhere.

Does it align with your audience?

If you’re already reaching your audience on the platforms you’re on. You need to ask yourself if you would reach any new audience of interest on another social media platform. Each platform has its own time commitments and you need to make sure you don’t over commit to the point it effects your success on existing platforms.

It’s important not to spread yourself too thinly!

Do you think you’re ready to add another social media platform? If you’re looking to up your content game, check out The Content Academy.
Content Planning, Business, Social Media
How to align your content to your goals
- by pamela
Content marketing isn’t just a buzz word… Nope. Done correctly and you can scale and soar your business. But the ones mistake most businesses make is they just dive right in and start posting on social media, blogging or TikToking with no real aim. Then 3 months later wonder if the efforts got any sales.

It’s super important that you start at the beginning when it comes to content marketing in order to see results and here’s how you can align your content to your goals:

Set some goals

Yep… You can’t align your content to goals if you don’t set yourself some goals first. But Don’t just pluck out the obvious “drive traffic”, or “sell more”. Get real specific about it and make those goals SMART.

I’m talking goals like “increase traffic to our website by 20% in 30 days” Because that’s where you can start to ask yourself the question “how can my content support this?”

Understand your metrics

You need to know where and how to measure your goals. Otherwise how do you know if your content is doing what you hoped it should? It might sound obvious, but so many businesses get metric blinkered and don’t know where to find the useful information.

Cover the bases

You need to remember your audience is made up of people at different stages of the buying cycle and so the content you plan out will need to aid people at each of those stages to get the best conversion. So people at the early stages may need more contact, or detailed information. Make sure whatever the content, to allow for this. i.e see how I linked back to the buying cycle blog post. Because there will be people who are reading this who haven’t covered that yet.

So just keep that in mind and build a well rounded plan.

If you want to find out how you can improve your content, then check out The Content Academy, a membership to help you become a content master.
Instagram, Social Media
5 reasons your Insta Captions aren’t working
- by pamela
We all know what it’s like when a post tanks on Instagram… It stings, right! But rather than run off and join a ‘like for like’ group, look a little closer to home and see if you can see why your posts aren’t getting the attention you desire.

In this blog I’m specifically talking about those captions. There are so many ways you can optimize your Instagram caption to help with your engagement. Here are my top 5:

Does your caption align with your image?

Is what your talking about in your caption related to the image in anyway? You should at least try to weave some of the visual aspects of your image into you caption, so that there’s a direct link there.

It just makes sense to the reader.

Is there a call to action?

You want people to take action from your content. Whether that’s commenting, visit your website or dropping you a DM.

Make sure every caption has a call to action, so people know what’s expected of them. You can expect them to comment if you haven’t asked them a question.

Try adding these today and in a month’s time you’ll be blown away!

Have you rambled AKA Fluff?

You might have more characters than Twitter, but you need to get right to the point. If there’s fluff in there, you can’t expect people to stick with you for the full caption.

It needs to be succinct and to the point!

Grabbing opener

Remember, in the feed people only see the first line, so make sure it really talks to you ideal audience. Note a problem that they can relate to. i.e Don’t you hate it when your Instagram posts tank?

All of a sudden they’ll be hitting ‘read more’ and reading the whole thing!

Emojis to draw the eye

Content consumption has changed… People are skimming like never before, so you need to make sure your caption is easy to digest.

Think return line spaces and using emojis to draw the eye to the important points you want to make. You don’t want anyone missing out on your great knowledge, just because of how it was structured!

So there you have it… What could you brush up on? Make sure you follow @contentclarity on Instagram for weekly tips on content marketing.
Business, Blogging, Social Media
5 Ways to drive traffic to your website
- by pamela
Getting those all important visitors to your website is essential to get eyes on your products & services, bringing new leads, enquiries and sales into your business.

But just how do you drive traffic to your website? Well don’t worry, I’ve got you covered. I’m going to break down 5 ways you can drive people to your website.

Blog posts

Now blogging is a great way to lead people to your website. Not only are you constantly updating your website with fresh content (which Google loves), but if you pay attention to the basics of something called SEO (search engine optimization) you can make sure those blogs actually get discovered by people searching for solutions you provide.

If the idea of SEO leaves you sweating, then check out my no BS SEO method I teach in Blogging for Business.

Social Media

Posting regular engaging social media content is a great way to raise your profile to a new audience. In return you can direct them to your website to find out more about your services or read your blog posts when they go live.

Paid Advertising

Whether you want to use Google’s PPC (pay per click) or Social Media ads, such as Facebook or Instagram etc. You can direct new, or indeed redirect previous web visitors to your website.

This very useful at all stages of the buying cycle, but it’s important you go in with a clear set of goals and a strategy so that you get the best bang for your buck.

Guest Posts

Why not interview an industry expert for your website and have them promote the piece on their social media channels… Or vice versa! That way you can drive fresh eyes to your website.

Make sure you chose someone whose following would have a genuine interest in what you do, so that you are more likely to generate income from that visit, than just get numbers.

Back Links

Say what now? This is links back to your website from other websites. This can be from people recommending you or reviewing your services/products.

I should say here, Google frown upon people who pay for back links. So, this one is a long term strategy, where you could maybe set a goal of x amount per quarter.

So there you have it, 5 ways to drive more traffic to your website and get those google analytics numbers on the up!
Video, Business, Social Media
5 Video editing tools for business
- by pamela
Many people put off using video in their content marketing strategy because the skill gap when it comes to the editing. But it doesn’t have to be complicated.

Let me share with you 5 simple video editing tools for your business, that won’t leave you feeling overwhelmed.

iMovie/Windows Movie Maker

Whether you’re team Apple or team PC, they comes with a free video editing software. Better yet, both are totally free! So why you wouldn’t you turn to them first, right?!

Once you understand the basics of trimming and piecing clips together, you’re laughing. You’ll be doing all sorts of cool things, like animated text in no time!

I do have to say you’ll outgrow Movie Maker, before you’ll outgrow iMovie. But don’t for one minute think you need to rush down to Apple and spend thousands on a Mac (you know I like to busy myths right!). Check out my next tool!

Adobe Premiere Elements

The big guns use Adobe Premiere Pro, but don’t jump straight into the deep end. Start off with Premiere Elements first. It’s a one off payment of around £80 (cheaper than a Mac!) and you really won’t need more than this.

This beauty has 2 editing views, inbuilt tutorials and templates. It really does hold your hand through those initial stages.

VivaVideo

For editing on the go, or for those who are just using their phones, VivaVideo has it all.

Very user friendly and does everything you really need to edit video for social media. Including filters, text, music and layering one video on top of another (great for tutorials, or maybe you want to show a powerpoint slide)

Adobe Rush

Another mobile app, which is free with an option to upgrade is Adobe Rush. If you have an Adobe subscription, them you can sync your account, so you can editing on both mobile and desktop Premiere Pro.

Again you can do all the video basics you really need to quickly.

Kapwing

Now, if you’re doing video for social media, then subtitles are an absolute must. With 80% watching with the sound off, you really need to get your point across somehow.

Kapwing is great for adding subtitles to your finished video. Simple upload and use their auto transcribe tool to add your subtitles. You’ll want to sanity check these (especially is your accent is as thick as mine!)

This tool is free for videos up to 7 minutes in length.

There you have it, my 5 simple video tools for editing social media video for your business
Blogging, Business, Content Planning
5 Places you can share your blog posts for more traffic
- by pamela
So, you’ve spent all that time crafting the perfect blog post, but you’ve got tumbleweed on the analytics and you just want someone (anyone) to read it.

Committing to writing blog posts, is a great decision to drive more visitors to your website. But don’t just sit back and wait months for the Google bots to rank your blog posts in the search results. Get that beauty out there!

Here’s my 5 recommendations to get instant eyes on your blog posts:

Social media

This might be an obvious one, but don’t just link drop and run… Write a compelling caption that entices your followers to click through, swipe up or read more. The one place that always gets overlooked when it comes to sharing on social media is the Instagram newsfeed.

You might not be able to link directly in the caption, but you can still direct people to the link in the bio (and if you’ve got under 10K followers, you’re pretty used to that by now anyway… So, no excuses!)

Email list

Another one that gets overlooked is the email list. Now you can go down the RSS feed route, whereby people receive an email every time you click publish. But it really depends on your niche and personal preference. If you’re putting out enough blog posts, then you may well decide to do a daily RSS feed of your blog posts.

I prefer the email newsletter route if you have less content. This works great if you blog weekly – monthly and you can link to latest posts with a simple excerpt.

Pinterest

Pinterest can be fantastic for web traffic! Make sure you take the time to put your content on there for people to find.

Spend time joining industry group boards that you can share your content to also. They act as a way to power up your pin and get instant eyes on your blog post.

Network Groups

If you’re part of Facebook or Linked In groups, share your blog post in there. There are specialist groups for all sorts. So, whether you want to become an expert in your niche and join an industry group. Or maybe you want to hang out in a business location specific group, or those who could use your expertise… Groups are a great place to share blog posts.

Some groups don’t like link dropping, so you may have to wait for the opportunity to appear via a question before you can direct to your blog post for help.

Internal Links

Another important one! If you have related blog posts, which are already getting great traffic, then make sure you work in a link to another blog post that would be relevant, so you can get more than one bite of the cherry with that visit.

There you have it, 5 places you can share your blog post for increased web traffic.

If you need help working out your blogging strategy, check out my Blogging for Business course, where you can learn how to run a successful blog for your business.