Path of Presence Podcast - Episode 06 - 5 Secrets of Highly Engaging Content You NEED to Know

Today we are going to talk about the 5 secrets of creating highly engaging, attractive, professional content that will be sure to turn heads.

With graphic design, you can either choose to wing it, or you can up the level of professional presentation so that all of you collaterals - everything that you produce is AMAZING - which, to your audience, is a reflection of who you are, what your brand is, what you represent and ultimately how your service, product of program is perceived.

Here are the 5 secrets steps that I’ll be covering today - the secret is in the execution of the steps - so stay with me.

These 5 secret steps may seem fairly obvious, but the difference between knowing and joining, is the SECRET- the practice of applying what you know - the application….and if you stick with me to the end of this program, I’ll show you how to get access to a 6 day social media content creation course - for free. You’ll be taken step by step, each day, in nuggets sized lessons so that we go over the why behind it, and you’ll be taking the practical steps to execute it - and the best part - I’ll be there with you so you don’t need to g oat it alone.

So here they are:

Photos (photos - where to get them)
Graphics creators (to create them)
Stylizing your brand with photo filters (to brand your look)
Content - what do you put on the beautiful graphics to engage your audience
The Call to Action

Graphics are central in today's high stake, short attention span online marketplace.

Technology has stepped up a few notches and everywhere we look, website, social media, mobile applications – everything is so visually engaging vying for attention. According to the social media marketing industry with report of 2016, 74% of social marketers use visual assets in their marketing, ahead of blogs, and even videos.

When people hear information, about 10% of that information is retained, where as most of us are visual learners and we retain 65% of what we see.

Graphic design has become available to the normal every day user. No longer is Photoshop necessary to create high impact visually engaging graphics.

Photos for Social Media Content

Graphic design and creation involve at least two elements. The photo itself and also the program that creates the graphic.

If you are really amazing with your camera or smart phone device and can take amazing photos, that is one resource. The photos you take can be back rounds to the graphics you create. There are a number of Mobile photo editors that have built in lenses and frames allowing you to produce graphics that appear to be professionally done. There are also programs and applications that actually put all of the elements of a graphic together: the photo, the text, and the styling of the graphic.

Supporting tools to help you create graphics for all your social media marketing, blog, and website use is availableeither online or literally at your dinner tips in your mobile device.

Some graphics functionality include drag and drop features and no graphics experience needed. For the most part, all you need is a good eye, and a sense of balance and creativity.

Graphics Creators, Online and in Applications on your Mobile Device

A couple of online graphics creation programs are available at Canva.com, getstencil.com and picmonkey. They are way to set up and use.

Simple quote creator applications make it really easy to put quotes in a graphic that is visually engaging and attractive. Two examples of these mobile applications are: Quozio and InstaQuote.

Other smart phone applications that allows you to start and finish a graphic in within minutes, if not seconds are the following: word swag, type over, and Istamp. In particular, I stamp allows you to put a watermark and also your logo on your graphics either one of the time or in bulk.

I've got a complete list of graphics resources for you available at: www.PathofPresence.net/graphicsresources

Okay, let's talk about stock photography for a little bit.

There are numerous sites online that offer royalty free general stock photo resources. Some very popular sites for royalty free stock photography are the following pixabay, pixels, and splash.

With today's resources, it is unacceptable to utilize low-quality bad lighting photos. Bad photos will simply will not receive the attention and engagement that you're looking for. So if you're unhappy with the photos that you take on your mobile app, stock photos are a treasure trove if value and is a highly recommended resource.

Stylized Photos for Social Media Content Development

For the sake of my audience I am also going to touch on royalty free specialty stock feminine stylized photo resources. Many of us go to creative market to purchase royalty free stock photography, however I have found numerous resources online that offer really beautiful stock photography at no cost. The information that I have is offered by photographers. You are free to download these stylized photo products any time for the exchange of an email address. Some of these are amazing and my list (at the time of this podcast) includes over 30 resource links you can go to.

So the download link for the entire graphics resource collection is available at www.PathofPresence.net/graphicsresources.

So we've got graphics stock photos, stylized photos and graphics creators, programs and applications. Let's talk about content. What kind of text do we overlay on the graphics to engage with our audience?

Social Media Content

Stepping back to understand social media and the purpose of social media, we need to touch on why people are online. If you could remember the acronym C. E. S. I. Which stands for connect, entertain, share, invite.

Social media has infiltrated our society and have become a norm in our every day life. The original intent of social media is to be social! People are on social media to connect with each other. Through the use of social media, people are able to find their long-lost Friends and cronies way back to even high school or elementary school. Social media is used as a means of communication between groups, clubs, organizations and much more. So I'm people on social media they are there to connect with one another.

Along the same lines when people go on social media they want to be entertained. Email is no longer the chosen medium for communication because email is seeing as a list of things to do on someone else's agenda. Think about that for a little... when you get an email it is usually a request from someone asking about some sort of information. Yes email still remains a primary form of communication however, arguably, email it is not nearly as entertaining as social media. The time is spent on social media is purely a demand for entertainment. The question you want to ask yourself is this your content is meaningful, relatable and easy to digest?

Another thing people do on social media is to share information. When something causes us to connect, or is highly entertaining, the post goes viral. Here are some questions to ask yourself when considering shareworthy content: does your content motivate? Does your content excite? Does your content address frustrations or pain points that is highly relatable in the human condition? When you create content that resonates with your ideal client that tickles your sweet spot, you will be serving them with great value and insight. They will share it and going viral means that it is shared on the Internet over and over and over again to a large amount of people.

Lastly as a means of connection entertainment and shareability, people on social media to invite others to be part of something, be at an invite to an event, or a birthday party, or an art opening or any other thing that might happen on a social level.

So therefore, the content, the text, wording that you produce on your graphics, and your beautiful photos, put together must do one or more of the following: allow people to connect with it or themselves, or that your content entertains them, or that your content is worthy sharing or that they feel included because they are invited to something.

The question of content then goes back to you knowing who your target audience is. Having an idea of your ideal customer persona, or avatar, really helps you to focus in on what your content should be.

Four instance content that is geared toward men in the construction industry is vastly different than content geared towards moms who are running businesses out of their home. Not only does the text and the messaging need to be specifically tailored to the audience, the graphic and the photos must also match the message.

Your Call to Action

Lastly and most important, your graphics, if not the corresponding text should have a call to action. Statistics show that people are 80% more apt to take an action if there is a specific call to action noted on the posting it self. A few examples of calls to action are the following:

Act now, limited supply, take action today, exclusive offer.

So back to our secret - applying what we know to practice.

Okay - I’nm going to share with you a story - my son, who was 8 years old at the time was about to go hiking, and I asked, like a good mom would - do you have your sunscreen? He said, “yes” it’s in my pocket.

"Great!" I said, "Is it on your skin?"

“Ugh — no” . So I reminded him that his sunscreen, or lip balm, or bug spray of that matter will only work for him if he applies it.”

Our creation of highly engaging , visual content will only work is we apply the steps -and the practice part - when we apply what we know - that is the secret sauce.

Here are the 5 secret steps again:

Photos (photos- where to get them)
Graphics creators (to create them)
Stylizing your brand with photo filters (to brand your look)
Content - what do you put on the beautiful graphics to engage your audience
The Call to Action

Okay - so here's the value add to this podcast - If you would like to participate in a 6 day practical course that is presented in bite sized nuggets -- information will be shared with you over the course of six days, where you take action everyday to create content,

Join me in my free social media content creation course!

Here's your call to action: To get started: www.PathofPresence.net/contentcreation

Best part about this is that it's a free course and will provide you with a time of free resources and get you on the right track to look for graphics, content, get you thinking about posting frequency, where to post and whether using a social Media scheduler is right for you.

So that's it for today, we've talked about the 5 critical elements that must be addressed when creating content, along with the value add of my a free social media content creation course to get you in your way.

If you would like to be in community with other conscious heart centered spirit led entrepreneurs, please hop over to our Facebook group and join us at www.facebook.com/groups/pathofpresence. If you're not already a member, submit a request and we'll see you on the other side.

Please submit questions to: Light @ PathofPresence.com

Alright - I look forward to seeing you in the free course and to talking to you in our Facebook group soon.