Effective Content Builds Relationships
According to Hootsuite, the key to developing and sharing effective content is to keep your audience’s interests, goals, and pain points in mind. An organization must know who their target audience is (demographics), understand what content will resonate with them (interests), and understand what they're up against (pain points) or why they became a customer. This iPage.com blog provides specific examples of how to create effective content based on your audience’s pain points.
 There are two ways to develop effective content: created and curated. Created content is produced within an organization, such as blog articles, white papers, infographics, guides, and visuals. It allows the organization to position themselves as a thought leader, with unique insight, knowledge, and perspective. It is also better for driving traffic to the organization’s website. A good rule of thumb is to post 40% created content and 60% curated content.
 Curated content is gathered from trusted sources, both internal and external. It is a great way to grow an organization’s social media audience and demonstrate the company’s position as a trusted advisor in an industry. Internal curation of content is repurposing or breaking apart the most effective created content into smaller bits. External curation of content can be either sharing user-generated posts or aggregating or distilling industry content that resonates with your audience and supports the values of your organization.
 So what does developing and sharing effective content have to do with becoming a social organization? Content plays a crucial role in achieving business and social media objectives such as brand recognition, thought leadership, audience engagement, and lead generation. It allows an organization to cement its position as a go-to destination, whether it be for entertainment, education, or inspiration. Effective, well-planned content is a great way to build long-term, trusting relationships with your audience, ultimately supporting the needs of your business. A strong content strategy acts as a game plan for coordinating, creating, and distributing content in a way that cultivates a community. A social organization uses that community for mass collaboration to identify change and press for its adoption within the formal organization to improve corporate competence and remain competitive in the market.
