Most of the time, the point of content is to spread brand awareness. However, when it comes to real-time marketing the purpose of content is to build customer loyalty by engaging in a continuous dialog. Thankfully, today this can be done rather easily with the advent of online communication, social media being one of the main real-time centric technologies available to use with real-time marketing.
* Monitor Industry News – Keep abreast of everything happening in your industry in terms of news events, and how you can relate your business to the news events that are happening. Sell products related to any of the news events of the day; you can use that information to connect to your audience by (for example) creating a meme or infographic and sending it out with a specific hashtag to attract those who are reading that news event.
* Monitor Social Media – On any given day there are hundreds if not thousands of comments, questions and stories that appear on social media that you could use to craft content that is sensitive to real-time events. Even if a comment is negative, you can turn it around and make it funny or use the comment as a way to show the facts of your business and industry to the world.
* Build a Community – One of the fastest ways to build content that incorporates real-time marketing is to build a community of insiders. You can do this easily on Facebook with Facebook groups, or you can start a message board on your own website for your inner circle. If you are listening, your inner circle will let you know what they need and want in terms of new content.
* Don’t Forget Your Audience – Don’t get lost in all the information online and forget who your audience is. When you produce any content, including real-time answers to questions, comments, and information gathered, don’t forget who your audience is. Have them in mind when you develop the real-time content.
* Unleash Your Inner Editor – Real-time content cannot take the time to go through your normal editing process. You’ll therefore want to put a team on real-time content creation that you trust to understand the essence of your company and your audience so that they really can respond in real-time.
* Create Compelling Content – Real-time content isn’t the time to send out a stale and boring word salad. Instead, this is the time you want to take more effort to creating funny, entertaining, interesting content that speaks to what is happening right now that also keeps your company values and audience in mind.
* Less Is More – When it comes to real-time content, keeping it short, sweet and simple is often better. Creating a meme, infographic, or other easy to digest information may get more traction than a long word-centric document, especially when you want results fast as possible.
* Create Real Authentic Content – You want to create good content with the information that you can acquire on social media and by listening in on forums and other areas that your audience hangs out. More is not always better, but good content with an eye toward current events will garner more interest when it’s based on real stories and real information.
The important thing to remember when crafting content based on real-time information is to let go of the control reins a little so that the content can get out faster. Then be sure to monitor the real-time activity based on the content you push out. Try different forms of content to see what works best for your audience.