When you think about marketing content for your brand, what comes to mind? Explaining the benefits of your product or service. Sharing useful information about your company. Advertising promotions and special offers. All of these are a given, but here’s a content category that may not be on your radar: community content. Did you know that being a resource for local happenings can benefit you from a marketing standpoint? Using community news as a marketing strategy not only generates appeal for your brand by presenting you as a resource in your area, but it can also drive traffic to your website and other digital assets.
Why it works
Put simply, people like to know what’s going on in the world around them. On social media especially, they are always looking for reliable, timely sources of information. Therefore, positioning your brand as a resource that people go to for local knowledge can be a smart move for small businesses. Again, the benefits are two-fold:
- Generating a sense of trust and positive association with your brand
- Creating more opportunity for engagement and traffic across your digital platforms
Examples of using community news as a marketing strategy
It may help for us to paint a better picture of what we’re talking about when describing “community news.” From posting about upcoming local events to sharing city updates, using community news as a marketing strategy gives you a wealth of content to draw from. Here are a few general categories:
- Local events (fundraisers, festivals, parades, downtown events)
- Municipal updates (upcoming meetings, change in trash/recycling schedule, road closures, new capital projects)
- New businesses opening (restaurants, entertainment, industry)
- And beyond!
How to implement
Sharing/creating community content from your brand’s marketing channels can be easy with the help of social media as your main focus. Your involvement can range from maintaining a regular blog and sharing it to your social channels, to simply resharing a post from your local chamber of commerce or tourism board.
For example, we maintain and create content for blogs for a client of ours comprised of several apartment complexes. Our blog entries for this client range from local events to local news to new businesses in each complex’s respective geographic area. We have seen these local-interest blogs consistently be successful at generating engagement and traffic.
Again—you don’t have to run a full-blown blog to use community news as a marketing strategy, however. Posting links to informative news articles on your branded social pages and re-sharing existing social posts from other organizations can be just as effective.
Summary
Community involvement is a small business’ bread and butter—and thus that should reflect in your marketing efforts if you are one! Consider using community news as a marketing strategy to establish yourself as a local resource in an effort to build a brand following.
McNutt & Partners is a full-service advertising and digital marketing agency. Contact us today for your marketing needs! Call 334-521-1010, or visit our contact page.
