Things move fast in the digital age; consumers expect online content to be up to date, and to move with the times. For those planning a content strategy, it requires a quick response to local and world events, trends, and consumer tastes.
Keeping up can feel like an overwhelming task; to avoid content fails, companies need a think-on-your-feet approach, including the staff, and resources to respond in real-time.
The best way to keep up to date – and ensure that your method is on point and relevant – is to have a plan. But can you plan to be spontaneous? Well, although it sounds like a contradiction, the answer is yes. What you need is a real-time content strategy.
But as well as a new kind of strategy, what’s needed is a new attitude, and approach. Real-time is about content that’s shorter, snappier, and that facilitates engagement. It’s about joining and starting conversations that lead to connections with your consumers, and conversions.
Let’s look at why and how to put a real-time content strategy in place and maximize the opportunities that being flexible, and responsive with your content can bring.
Still copying content into WordPress?
You’re doing it wrong… say goodbye forever to:
- ❌ Cleaning HTML, removing span tags, line breaks, etc.
- ❌ Creating your Table of Contents anchor ID links for all headers by hand,
- ❌ Resizing & compressing images one-by-one before uploading back into your content,
- ❌ Optimizing images with descriptive file names & alt text attributes,
- ❌ Manually pasting target=“_blank” and/or “nofollow” attributes to every single link
Table of Contents
Publish Google Docs to your blog in 1-click 
- ✅ Export in seconds (not hours)
- ✅ Less VAs, interns, employees
- ✅ Save 6-100+ hours/week
What is real-time content strategy?
Real-time marketing is an approach that demands spontaneity, flexibility, and reacting quickly to social trends, hashtags, and news, working at speed without neglecting content optimization.
Most of the time, this will be on social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram.
It requires a marketing team who are tuned in and observant regarding the conversations, trends on social media and who can come up with approaches, along with reactions that will capitalize on these trends with marketing tactics.
These strategies will maximize brand exposure, awareness, and interest in a company’s goods and services. This might mean creating a stream on Twitter with the relevant hashtags that highlight your company’s connection or response to a global or local event.
For example, it could be that the move to homeworking is trending due to a big company closing the main office; in this case, the marketing team of a communications firm could piggyback the conversation around this, to talk about the benefits of voice over IP telephone systems.
This marketing approach, working in real-time, requires agility and a team with an eye on news, fashion, and breaking stories. But you also need a team skilled in digital PR with a good understanding of making SEO, and link-building work.
A large amount of the success of the real-time approach rests upon the skilled individuals a brand has to call on. But more than this, although you can’t schedule real-time content in advance, you can have a response strategy when the opportunities appear. Let’s look at creating a strategy to help you keep up.
Creating a strategy
Like all the best business growth strategies, an effective real-time process takes careful thought, imagination, and hard work. But mostly, it’s about good preparation, being armed with everything you need to make the most of opportunities when they arise.
Getting together with colleagues to thrash out ideas, and tactics can be really worthwhile. Decide who is best placed to follow relevant accounts from your industry, set up alerts when appropriate words or topics are posted or trending, and make sure influencers who regularly post on industry topics are being monitored.
This type of social listening or watching may not be something all companies, and brands have much experience of. It can be an adjustment as well as a learning curve. There’s no shame in looking at what your competitors are up to in terms of real-time marketing; it’s a good idea to study their tactics for some time to gauge what seems to work and what doesn’t. You can easily monitor likes, and shares of their content to assess this.
One drawback of the real-time approach is that you must create content very fast, and there is little time to create great content briefs. Without a proper strategy, you could spend a disproportionate amount of time and effort poring over social media posts, trawling through news items without getting the desired results. Here are some tips for getting it right.
Getting it right
Tip 1
Set up alerts, but be specific. Make sure you aren’t going to be bombarded with useless information. Narrow down the most relevant keywords with your team; make specific alerts save rather than cost you time.
Tip 2
Beware of ambiguity and multiple meanings. If you see something trending that appears to connect with your brand, make sure you read the posts, and double-check that this is the case.
The last thing you want is to comment or share something that appears to be about AI and data, e.g., azure data lake security but turns out to be about an entirely different topic.
Tip 3
Stick around! Having posted or shared something, remember to continue that engagement. You don’t have to respond to each comment, but it’s great to interact with those who have taken the time to post their thoughts, and reactions.
Tip 4
Check who’s posting. Sometimes a post will appear that says the right things and is relevant to your sector. But always ensure the source is an account your firm would be happy to associate with. For example, could they be a firm with terrible ethics? Could the post come from a company in trouble over its environmental policies? Is it a political organization that conflicts with your politically neutral stance? It’s always good to check.
Tip 5
Don’t miss the boat! Yesterday’s papers are no longer news. Real-time marketing means reacting swiftly. This can be a challenge if you want to put out posts of quality, and value, but if you can find better ways to export, format, and optimize, this can speed things up.
Tip 6
Prepare for success. We’ve talked about preparing and making the most of your team, but don’t be afraid to hire freelancers if the budget allows. A specialist dedicated to this aspect of your content output can be helpful.
Create a set of guidelines for your team or any freelancers. Make sure you have clear instructions as well as do’s, and don’ts.
Have some content pre-prepared. For example, you could have some posts covering: what is a PBX phone system? Ready for when any topics related to developments in telecommunications start trending.
Benefits of working in real-time
There are things to get right and have in place, but there are also considerable advantages to having a real-time content strategy. Yes, it involves change, but it has great potential to bring in more interactions and, ultimately, conversations than a more long-term plan or campaign.
Research shows that consumers these days tend to interact with brands regularly. Being active as a brand and posting and responding to what’s happening in the world shows a company in an attractive light. A brand that responds to the world and local events in a lively and relevant way is far more likely to entice consumers to follow, and engage.
Social media posts are also a great way to show a brand’s personality; humor or emotionally appealing language or images can help humanize a corporate image, and reveal to consumers the people behind the logo design.
This is an excellent way of building trust and loyalty in a consumer base and attracting new customers through shares and likes. It also allows consumers to feel a deeper connection and involvement with a brand, particularly if replies and comments are added to the original post.
Posting in real-time also helps give a sense of being up-to-date, and current. You aren’t an old-fashioned business plodding along in your niche; you are taking part in the life of your consumers, and sector. This can build a sense of urgency, and encourage consumers to purchase, follow or subscribe.
Responding in real-time is also an opportunity to keep content fresh, and up to date. If consumers see the same old posts sitting there for months, it gives a somewhat stale impression. Shorter, fresher, time-sensitive posts are a great way to keep interest high, and drive engagement.
Real-time content can take time to get to grips with, but once a strategy is in place, it can save time. Get offers, promotions, and information out there to consumers quickly, and in a short, snappy style. Live videos, photos, and comments can be posted and seen; without the planning, and production, more scheduled marketing campaigns can involve.
It can be a liberating form of communication for a brand, like the new forms of business communication and phones now available, such as SIP phone meaning, which streamlines, and speeds up communication.
Change is good
Putting out real-time content is another evolution in the ever-changing marketing tactics available to modern businesses and brands. But it’s not a gimmick or a flash in the pan any more than social media. Both are here to stay, although their use will continue to develop, and change.
Change moves things on and creates new opportunities; it is something businesses, in particular, have to embrace to survive and thrive. In a sense, having these channels of direct communication, and interaction with consumers is something the marketeers of the past could only have imagined.
But as we have seen, getting real-time content right demands thought and planning, even if the eventual aim is to be as spontaneous, and fast-moving as possible.
In all the excitement around the possibilities, this form of marketing can provide, it’s important to remember who your audience is. What do your consumers need and want, and what are they genuinely interested in?
It’s not just a case of firing off content, and messages that you as a company are keen to get out. Remember to give back; if your followers are self-employed tradespeople, why not offer an online contract generator as part of a post commenting on a recent change in tax or the rise in entrepreneurship?
This combination of quick and relevant responses to what’s happening in the world, plus an understanding of who your consumers are, and what they might be looking for, can be a winning formula. Keep things moving and changing, but take time to listen, and engage.
One often overlooked benefit of real-time content and using it as a way to talk to your consumer base is gaining helpful feedback. When you post something, the response from followers is like the survey they hadn’t realized they were completing! It’s a fantastic way to gauge the reaction to new products, WhatsApp API messages, and strategies.
People, for better or worse, tend to be pretty honest in their responses to social media content; an audience giving a ‘like’ or a share can tell you a lot. Especially if you compare the level and nature of the engagement to that of other posts, and similar content.
This, in turn, provides more opportunities to make changes and improvements. Feedback can tell you where you are succeeding or failing, and as this is happening in real-time, it’s a chance to change tack, and move in a different direction.
An excellent real-time content strategy allows a brand to reach customers with up-to-date, personalized content, building bridges, cultivating relationships, and gathering vital feedback with insights. It’s the most significant change within marketing in recent years, and it requires a different approach to the more traditional, long-term strategies that are still important.
But although fast-moving, real-time doesn’t mean a throwaway, casual approach, content companies put out on social media can have a considerable reach. It can shape and change the image of a brand in the hearts, and minds of customers. For this reason, it’s essential to consider the approach carefully, and have a sound strategy in place to make the most of what real-time marketing can offer.
