How do you create fresh, and more importantly, good content? Truthfully, content is anything you write, anything you photograph, anything you video record, or that you audio record. A simple video from your iPhone becomes "content" as soon as you upload it to Facebook, Tumblr, or Google+. Anyone can sit down and write a new blog post; anyone can take a few photos, and anyone can create an amateur video using a smartphone now.
On the other hand, if you use a real video camera to film a 10 minute interview with a customer, that doesn't become content until you've processed it into something usable. That 10 minute video is raw, and represents a potential of 10 hours of video production before it becomes "content." I get really frustrated with other internet guys who say "You recorded a lot of good content in the studio today." When truthfully I know it's just raw footage that's worthless until it's processed. A lot of that ends on the cutting room floor so no; that's not all content.
If you intend to dabble with video, I suggest you keep your videos to simple 10 or 15 second clips taken with a smartphone to show off jewelry. This type of video is good enough. If you are serious about video you will at least need a high level consumer video camera, sometimes called pro-sumer, with good audio quality, and good lighting. You will also need to properly edit your video.
When it comes to building your brand online, there's an important difference between good and bad content and the type of customer it will attract.
For blog writing, good content could be about any topic as long as it supports your brand. Over the past few weeks the world was all abuzz with talk of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. Many people were blogging about athletes, game results, race results, and anything else that seemed of interest.
With all this blogging going on, the sad part was that most jewelers were blogging just for the sake of blogging about a popular topic. I found one savvy jewelry store that understood the purpose of blogging and took the opportunity to write a lengthy article, including photos, about the gold, silver, and bronze Olympic medals, and what they were made of. Considering how scrap-gold happy consumers have been in recent times, a discussion of the actual gold content of a gold medal was perfect to support the jewelry store's brand.
Switching gears to Facebook content let me review a few good and bad types of photos you could post. First, make sure all the photos you take with your smartphone are actually in focus. The Facebook app is sometimes a little temperamental when taking a photo to upload. It's much better to use your phone's built in camera app to take a photo and preview it before deciding to upload to Facebook.
I suggest using the pinch-zoom feature on your phone to make sure the photo is in focus. Smaller screen always tend to make things look better than they actually are, and if you don't check the focus before uploading you could be wasting your time and that of your Facebook followers.
Good Facebook photos include new jewelry items you take at a trade show to show off the new items soon arriving in the store. You could also take a few pics of models wearing the jewelry.
A posed photo of yourself in front of the trade show entrance isn't worth wile for your jewelry store's page, but it would be good for your personal page. On the other hand, a posed photo of you and a renowned jewelry designer would be a good photo post for your jewelry store's page. You could post a photo of you and Gabi Tolowsky to your business page because that makes sense for your industry, but not a photo of you and Derek Jeter. Unless he was at your store.
"Content" is anything you post online; just make sure it's always in tune with the brand or image of your jewelry store.
