On the internet, content is king. Billions of people around the world log online every day to consume all kinds of content like news reports, blog posts, movie and book reviews, animal videos, popular music, and their friends’ status updates.
As a digital content creator, how can you expand your reach and grow your audience? Here are some ways that are guaranteed to work:
Adding Subtitles
The internet is a world without borders. You can easily find like-minded people from anywhere. However, there are some blockades that prevent some audiences from enjoying your content.
For videos, subtitles can easily be added. Platforms like YouTube can generate subtitles automatically but, often, the quality is subpar. Translation also is not often available. You will get better results by hiring subtitle translation services to create closed captions for your videos in more languages. This way, your videos will be available to foreign markets.
Subtitles will also help those who have hearing impairment to enjoy the content you make.
In addition, subtitles offer other benefits. Google also scans subtitles for relevant keywords which, therefore, help optimize your content for search engines. On Facebook, a study found that 85% of videos were streamed by users with the sound off.
Adding Audio Description
Photos, too, can be made more inclusive. You can add an audio description to your photos for people with visual impairment.
Not a lot of people know this, but Twitter has a feature that allows users to add descriptions to images. When you upload a photo on the social media site, you have the option to add a description for those with vision loss. There is a 1,000-character limit so make every word count. Aside from describing what is in the photo, add an explanation of meaning and function. You can communicate tone or emotion through words for people who cannot see the photo.
You can do the same on Instagram and Facebook.
Ask Your Audience to Participate
The beauty of creating digital content is it allows you to see reactions from your audience in real-time. Use it for your advantage. Make your audience be a part of digital content creation.
Ask them questions to make them be more engaged and connected to you and your platform. Create digital content that is relevant to their life and their current situation. People will not follow you if you are only pimping out information. Plenty of other digital content creators are doing that, too.
When people can interact with the content and fellow users, they feel like they are part of a community and, therefore, will be more inclined to follow, comment, like, and share.
Actively Promote Your Content
Because there is a lot of content out there, it will not be easy for your audience to find you. You need to promote your content as much as you can.
Use relevant hashtags. Pretty much every social media platform has them. It will help users who are interested in the kind of content you make to find you. However, you have to know which hashtags to use. It has to be relevant to your content and not too broad that it will be drowned out by other similar content.
Share your content in multiple channels, not just in a few popular social media apps. Wherever relevant and where your target audience is usually found, go there and promote your content.
Of course, at the end of the day, you need to have content that is worthy of your audience’s attention. Otherwise, no matter how much you promote your content, no audience will stick around for more.
