Unlocking Audience Growth: The Power of Tangential Content
Tangential content is a type of content that is not directly related to what your business sells or the primary topics your blog usually covers, but it’s still relevant to your audience’s broader interests and lifestyle. It diverges from the core subjects you typically address, tapping into the wider interests and concerns of your audience. This approach can help you engage with your audience on a different level, offering them value in areas connected to, but not exactly the same as, your main product or service.
A. Benefits of Creating Tangential Content
Expanding on the “Benefits of Creating Tangential Content” section offers a deeper insight into how this strategy can positively impact your marketing efforts. Here’s a more detailed exploration:
Broader Audience Reach
- Attracting New Segments: Tangential content allows you to tap into new audience segments that might not have discovered your brand through your core content. By covering a wider array of topics, you can attract visitors with varied interests, potentially increasing your customer base.
- Cross-Platform Visibility: This type of content often performs well on social media platforms, where users are more likely to share and engage with content that resonates with their personal interests, hobbies, or lifestyle. This increased shareability enhances your brand’s visibility across different channels.
Enhanced Engagement
- Deepening Audience Connection: By addressing the wider interests of your audience, tangential content can foster a deeper emotional connection with your brand. This approach shows that you understand and cater to their broader lifestyle, not just their needs related to your products or services.
- Increased Time on Site: Engaging, varied content can lead to longer site visits. As visitors explore tangential topics of interest, they’re more likely to delve deeper into your website, reducing bounce rates and signaling to search engines that your site provides valuable content.
SEO Benefits
- Keyword Diversification: Tangential content allows you to naturally incorporate a broader range of keywords, including long-tail keywords, which can improve your site’s search engine rankings for those terms.
- Content Freshness: Search engines favor regularly updated sites with fresh content. By adding tangential topics to your content mix, you can more frequently update your site, which can positively impact your SEO performance.
Brand Perception
- Showcasing Brand Personality: This content type offers an opportunity to showcase your brand’s personality, values, and the breadth of your knowledge, making your brand more relatable and approachable.
- Building Thought Leadership: By covering a wider range of topics, you can establish your brand as a thought leader not only in your core industry but also in related areas, enhancing your authority and credibility.
Link Building
- Natural Link Acquisition: Tangential content that is interesting and valuable can earn natural backlinks from a diverse array of websites and blogs. These organic links are highly valuable for SEO, as they signal to search engines that your content is authoritative and trustworthy.
- Social Shares as Social Signals: While the direct impact of social shares on SEO rankings is debated, there’s no doubt that they serve as social signals, indicating content popularity and relevance. High social engagement can indirectly boost your SEO by increasing visibility and the potential for link building.
Strategic Considerations
- Aligning With User Intent: Even when creating tangential content, it’s important to align with the user intent and ensure that the content meets a need or answers a question. This alignment increases the likelihood of positive engagement and conversion.
- Content Ecosystem Expansion: Tangential content expands your content ecosystem, providing more entry points for users to discover your brand. This expanded presence can enhance brand recall and facilitate multiple touchpoints along the customer journey.
B. Considerations Before Creating Tangential Content
Expanding on the “Considerations Before Creating Tangential Content” section, we can delve deeper into each consideration to guide creators more thoroughly in planning and executing their tangential content strategy. Here’s a more detailed look:
Relevance
- Understanding Your Audience’s Interests: Before venturing into tangential content, it’s crucial to have a deep understanding of your audience’s broader interests and how they align with your brand. Use social media listening tools, audience surveys, and engagement analytics to identify topics that resonate with your audience but are still somewhat related to your brand’s sphere.
- Connecting Content to Your Brand: Even when creating content that’s not directly related to your products or services, find ways to subtly connect it back to your brand’s values, mission, or expertise. This ensures that while the content may be tangential, it still reinforces your brand identity and messaging.
Balance
- Maintaining a Core Content Strategy: Your content strategy should still primarily focus on your main products, services, and industry insights. Tangential content should be used sparingly, as a way to supplement and diversify your content strategy, not overshadow it.
- Content Calendar Planning: When integrating tangential content, plan it carefully within your content calendar to ensure a balanced mix. This helps in maintaining a coherent brand narrative while still exploring diverse topics that interest your audience.
Quality Over Quantity
- High-Quality Standards: The internet’s content saturation means that only the most valuable, well-crafted content stands out. Ensure that your tangential content maintains high quality in terms of information, entertainment value, and production. Poor quality content can harm your brand’s reputation and SEO efforts.
- Investing in Research and Development: Spend time researching topics to find unique angles or untapped areas of interest. Investing resources in developing insightful, interesting tangential content can significantly enhance its impact and reception.
Audience Understanding
- Segmentation and Personalization: Not all segments of your audience will respond the same way to certain types of tangential content. Use audience segmentation to tailor your content strategies to different groups based on their preferences and behaviors.
- Feedback Loops: Establish mechanisms to gather feedback on your tangential content, such as comments, shares, and engagement rates. Use this feedback to refine your approach and ensure that your content continues to resonate with your audience’s evolving interests.
Strategic Implementation
- Aligning with Brand Goals: Ensure every piece of tangential content has a clear purpose that aligns with broader brand goals, whether it’s driving traffic, increasing engagement, or enhancing brand perception.
- Resource Allocation: Assess whether you have the necessary resources to create and promote tangential content effectively. This includes not just content creation but also promotion across channels to reach the intended audience.
Legal and Ethical Considerations
- Copyright and Sensitivity: Be mindful of copyright issues and cultural sensitivities when creating tangential content. Always use original, licensed, or appropriately credited materials and consider the potential impact of your content on diverse audience segments.
C. Should You Be Creating Tangential Content?
Yes, if it’s strategically planned and executed. Consider the following factors:
- Brand Goals and Objectives: Align tangential content with your overall marketing goals, whether that’s expanding your audience, improving SEO, or enhancing brand loyalty.
- Resources: Producing quality content requires resources. Ensure you have the capacity to create tangential content without sacrificing the quality of your core content.
- Audience Insights: Leverage data and insights about your audience to inform your tangential content strategy. Understanding what interests your audience outside of your direct products or services can guide your content creation.
In conclusion, tangential content can be a valuable addition to your content strategy, helping to engage a broader audience, improve SEO, and enhance your brand’s appeal. However, it requires thoughtful planning and a deep understanding of your audience to ensure it complements your brand’s goals and strengthens your overall marketing efforts.