Writing content can be a difficult and even arduous task to have to perform, especially if it needs to be refreshed weekly or daily. The reason being that clients understand the time and strategic effort it takes to write original and thoughtful content. And when the content needs to have a business marketing tone focused on improving a client site’s search engine ranking, this task can feel almost impossible.
A recent Wall Street Journal article outlines how many online bloggers and social media agencies are being criticized for taking the easy way out by republishing and reusing content from other original sources without proper request and citation. The topic stems from intellectual property laws, which state that content must be requested from and approved by the original author–which goes beyond just citing the link.
So what can businesses do to write effective and meaningful content to promote their products or services? Here are a few suggestions:
1. Establish a marketing calendar to plan key topics and themes.
2. Cite industry articles and customers or partner’s content, which you could “easily” receive approval to use.
3. When citing someone else’s work, be sure that you’ve written your business marketing perspective on the article and then provide a link to the original text. Avoid directly copying the entire article into your web marketing efforts.
4. Ensure that you have a strong, business reason for publishing the content. Avoid the “need” to write content just to appear current and, instead, write content that supports your unique value proposition or your ‘Why’ statement
Autumn Consulting uses these guiding principles for business marketing on their and their client’s web sites. Autumn’s team includes both marketers, professional writers and journalists who help businesses write and clarify marketing messages for business marketing.
