These days, in business, it is essential to be able to produce high quality content for your marketing strategy. Arguably, digital marketing has become the most successful form of marketing for most types of business – this is mainly due to the fact that audiences are increasingly spending their time online, on social media platforms, video streaming platforms, audio streaming platforms, etc. Many businesses, such as TechQuarters – providers of managed IT London Solutions that SMBs have found success with for years – have been keeping track of the increasing shift towards digital and social media-based marketing. But as well as this, things like email campaigns continues to be a highly effective form of direct marketing. This all points to the fact that businesses who aren’t creating content regularly, and to a high standard, will not be able to appeal to their customers, and their target audiences anywhere near as effectively as competitors who are.
These days, all a business theoretically needs in order to create high quality content is a smartphone. With most social media platforms optimised for viewing on a phone screen, this makes a lot of sense. What is more, increasing amounts of research indicates that audiences respond best to content that feels organic and, to a certain degree, spontaneous – yet another reason why having a smartphone for business content creation is important.
It’s not all about your phone
While it is perfectly true that fantastic marketing content has been, and continues to be made on nothing but a smartphone, that is not to say that just having a smartphone is the key to great content.
There are thousands of examples of how businesses have created content that failed to hit the mark, even though they were following many of the recommended protocols. Most social media platforms have certain times when posting content will get the most views – this is just one example of the many different metrics and techniques that need to be considered in order to take advantage of social media algorithms in the right way. But, even if you do all of these things right, if your content doesn’t appeal to audiences, it won’t succeed. Content analysis and content research are both critical to a successful content marketing campaign – a business needs to identify what content on social media is receiving the most attention, and additionally, assess the performance of their own content, to see what is working, and what is not.
But once you have a good idea about the type of content you need to be creating, you can easily create it to a high quality with just a phone. But what tools should you consider for the job?
- For Graphics: Canva
Graphic content is a big part of digital marketing. While a lot of social media platforms are picture and video based, if all you ever post is pictures, your feed won’t be every eye catching. Including a mix of eye-catching graphic content is very important. What is more, graphics aren’t just for social media. If you want to do a email campaign, you’ll need to have email containing interesting graphics.
A great tool that is free to use on your phone is Canva. It is an app that offers a wide range of templates for social media posts, emails, banners, and even things like business cards, newsletters, and much more. Canva is free to use, but with a premium subscription that offers more assets and functions.
- For Video Content: FiLMiC Pro
High quality video content has always been a winner in terms of digital marketing. It is becoming easier and easier to create high quality, even cinematic, content with just a phone. For instance, the app FiLMiC Pro essentially turns your smartphone into a manual cinema camera – it gives you control over every aspect of a video, and has actually been used to create whole feature films, so that gives you an idea of the quality of the footage you can get.
- For Photography: VSCO App
There is nothing more valuable to a business’ marketing than a well-timed photograph. Being able to capture a great moment in time is so valuable – which is why you need to be able to get the most out of your phone’s built-in camera. Fortunately, plenty of apps exist for this, but one of the best is VSCO. The app, pronounced ‘Visco’, offers total manual control over shutter speed, ISO, white balance, exposure, and manual focus. What is more, the app has excellent photo editing capabilities.
