TIPS SHEET ON CONTENT ‘Content’ has become trendy. We have all kinds of specialists in content production – working with books, articles, newsletters, websites, social media, advertising and so on. And they work with text, images, audio and video material. However, there’s a lot you can do yourself and here are a few ideas I hope will be helpful. 1 Be clear and as simple as is appropriate. Most people want to avoid lengthy, hard to follow, communications. Make your message easy to understand. 2 Be interesting. Life’s too short to spend it being bored to tears. So avoid inflicting tediousness on people – they’ll thank you for making their life a bit more enjoyable. 3 Inject some humour into what you produce (where appropriate). Not filling your space with ‘jokes’, but finding things to smile at and sharing them. There’s so much unpleasantness in the world that showing the fun side of life is a good counterbalance. 4 Use variety, again where appropriate. You can still have a regular structure to what you produce but, within that, it’s great to vary your contents. You could include, for example, information, advice, suggestions, useful contacts, topical news items or just things you’ve come across which you think are worth passing on. 5 Be professional. That means checking spelling, grammar and punctuation – as well as facts, avoiding items which will knowingly offend people, not copying material from others without their permission, producing material on time if you have a regular schedule etc. 6 Be consistent, so what you produce fits with how you brand yourself. That way people will recognise what you produce and will know what to expect. 7 Produce for your specific audience. You can’t, and don’t need to, produce content that everyone will like or value, so produce what you know will appeal to your particular audience. 8 Ask for feedback. Hopefully you’ll get good engagement when your material is right, however it’s also useful to check in with your audience from time to time and find out if what you’re producing still appeals to them. 9 Give value. This could include being helpful, providing useful information or advice, making offers and all kinds of other ways of ensuring that people find your content worthwhile. 10 Review periodically so things don’t get stale or fail to produce results. And keep up to date with what’s going on in the world around you so you can keep abreast of any relevant developments and information.  Carol Harris