Crafting Content Themes for Brand Consistency and Trust Building

All right, so let's continue on in section four, discussing the importance of having a general theme to your content. All of the types of content we were just discussing, educational, user-generated, the brand-building content, all that should ladder up to an overall theme for your content, the topic your business is focused on. And this theme should be present through all the various types and many themes of content that we were going through in detail, right? And having a content theme and sticking with that theme over time builds consistency with your audience, which establishes trust in your brand.

Seeing the same type of messaging, providing the same type of useful information or exciting contests or compelling testimonials, saying the same thing over time, begins to sink in, and your audience begins to expect a certain type of content from you, and that shows you as a trustworthy, reliable brand, right? But what should that theme be? It should be the overlap between what your brand does best, its expertise, its strengths, the resources it has, and which of those matters to your audience, right? So you take a brand like one of my clients, which is an energy provider, providing electricity, natural gas for residential consumers and commercial consumers, particularly small business owners, small mini-sized businesses. Now, what is of most importance to these customers? They probably don't think a lot about their electricity bill or their natural gas service until it's not there, there's a blackout, or until they pay their bill each month and it's higher than expected, and it's hurting their budget. So what do they care about? They care about saving money, reducing their bills, and managing their costs.

They also may care about how they can live greener or reduce their energy usage, right? So if a brand in that category is consistently providing helpful tips on how customers can reduce their energy usage during peak summer months by following these simple tips, or how to winterize their home to reduce their costs during the winter season, how to sign up for fixed rate plans that create more cost certainty, and where to find affordable green energy plans, right? You're around the same theme of reducing costs and uncertainty for customers when it comes to the energy bill and helping them live greener, live more efficiently, right? So, your content, you can educate people around that, you can create brand-building content that addresses that, you can have customer testimonials that speak to how they were able to reduce their energy costs and still get reliability, and all those various benefits that your brand offers. So you want to stay on that theme. And what that theme is, is a big idea.

We're going to discuss what a big idea is and the importance of that for a brand. But first, one more point about content themes. There are probably a lot of businesses within your category that are just going to come up with the same ideas you have.

Other energy providers are going to come to the same conclusion that we came to with my client as to the type of content that they need to focus on, right? So there are ways sometimes of combining themes to stand out from your competitors, looking at things a little bit more creatively, providing messages in some cases, non-traditional ways, but still within your brand, matching your brand identity within your brand voice, right? So here's an example of a rollerbladed company, I guess, when the Deadpool movie was out, and combining interests in superheroes and Deadpool to enhance people's interest in your brand. You see a lot of those types of tie-ins as one example of combining themes. Another example is a content creator that we talk about in some of these classes, these social media classes.

Her name is Bailey Sarian, right? And she is a makeup influencer who also does podcast-like content about true crimes, right? So she talks about serial killers, unsolved murder cases, as she puts her makeup on. So at one point, this seems like two very different themes, and in many ways they are, but she combines them, and it works because both themes are types of content that are compelling to her targeted audience. Whose targeted audience? Well, young women.

They're like the largest consumers of makeup, right? And young women would be interested in beauty tutorials, right? Makeup tutorials, as well as the fact that young women, women as a whole, but particularly young women, are among the most passionate fans of true crime content, whether it's podcasts, documentaries, movies, reenactments, whatever. So two types of content that appeal to a content audience or to a targeted audience, yet it's not any type of content that the competitors are putting together or any other beauty influencers. There are thousands of beauty influencers and thousands of people talking about shooting videos and creating podcasts about true crime, but no one's doing both.

So that's an example of combining content themes. Okay, so that leads us to one more significant consideration in developing a content category, and that is a big idea. A big idea is a content concept that can expand through multiple channels, so not just your Instagram or TikTok or social media, even.

It can include your web ads, broadcast ads, and it will show you Dove, a video from Dove, which obviously advertises on many channels. But when they are presenting a big idea, it's going to be consistent across all those channels, right? And what a big idea is in a format, what if your brand can make your target audience do or feel something, you know, be more empowered, be happier, be more confident, save money by a particular approach, right? By a product, doing something, signing up for a service, right? So that's the general format of a big idea. So we're going to show a video from Dove.

But first, let's talk about Dove as a brand. Dove, of course, is a health and beauty brand, right? They make everything from soaps to all kinds of hair products, skin products, et cetera, right? And they've been around for a long, long time. About 20-plus years ago, they redefined their branding, their brand image, and they embraced the concept of authenticity and beauty, right? That was their big idea.

And they demonstrated in a very visible, memorable way by having billboards and magazine ads of women, models who were not traditional in terms of their age, their body type, their race, or their ethnicity. It was at a time when most models were along the lines of the Victoria's Secret approach, very similar, thin body types, young, not very diverse in terms of races and other physical factors, right? So they featured women of all colors, sizes,and ages, clad in a way that their bodies were very visible, right? And they could see whichever product, lotion, whatever it was appropriate for that type of advertising, but just showing non-traditional models. And it created a lot of attention, and it became a trend, right? It sort of was at the forefront of redefining beauty when it comes to even runway fashion shows, but they were among the leaders in that.

But that big idea, which 25 years ago was close to that, was around beauty comes in all shapes and sizes as we define beauty. They've stuck with that general idea and demonstrated it in different ways over the last couple of decades. And here's one of the ways that they've done it, redefining beauty with a hair product ad.

And we'll discuss once I play. Creating special moments for my daughter is so important to me, especially on our hair care day. It's a time for bonding as well as educating.

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Right, so a few things we can discuss regarding that. So this was, again, adhering to that overall theme of Dove redefining beauty. In this case, they had a line of beauty products or hair products for a market segment that was underserved by major brands up until this point in time, by having hair products that are made for specific hair types that might be consistent with certain races that weren't getting a lot of attention, right? So they're saying, look, beauty comes in all shapes and sizes.

Hair comes in all textures, styles, and types. You want to have a product for that, right? It was also shot in a way that was a testimonial and was authentic, not a polished commercial, almost something that could have been filmed by this woman as she shares a very special moment with her daughter. So it felt authentic, it felt believable, and it was brand storytelling, right, just telling a story on how this product has connected her and her daughter.

And on top of that, they're adding how they are involved with a charitable organization that addresses this market segment, right? So the big idea is, what if Dove can make a product that's specific to the unique needs of this particular customer segment? How will that make them feel? As you can see, she's happier, she feels more confident, she's satisfied, okay? So let's just do one more exercise at this point, where you can look at Instagram, a brand account you currently follow, a content creator you enjoy, and see what content themes they might use, right? Are they using a theme? Are the themes easy to identify? Are they consistent? Is the information that you are receiving valuable to you? What type of content are they using, right? And define the themes you would use for your content, right? As you look through this content, if you are currently posting content, maybe look at, for your brand, look at a brand in your category and see what themes they're using. Are they using themes, whether it be educational, that you're not currently using? And maybe that's something that you can now, you know, add to your content strategy, right? And what is the consistency? Are they posting every day? Are you posting it once a month? Have they not posted in a few months, right? And we'll discuss the importance of consistency, right? But now, just do an evaluation of a different brand.