Curate Compounding Content

The compounding formula varies according to your industry and customers, but the posts do share common characteristics. While you can’t always predict which content will become compounding, there are definitely some commonalities in posts that grow in traffic over time.  How to choose a topic focus, how to title a compounding post, which types of content to include, and how to structure the post, these are all to be considered, especially for content marketing of startups or small businesses. Even in social media marketing.

Most compounding posts are tactical. They intend to help readers, typically by providing instructions. These articles fall into one of three categories, namely, broad tactical, narrow or topical. Broad tactical posts are the most likely to grow and compound.

Broad tactical posts attract ongoing attention. If you’re trying to create a compounding post, write about a broad topic and offer tactical advice with mass appeal. In other words, write for as large as possible a segment of your potential customers. Broad tactical posts include product reviews, breakdowns of processes, or instructions on how to diagnose a practical, mechanical, or health-related issue. As a compounding post generates more traffic, its search authority increases, generating more search hits and more traffic in a virtuous cycle.

Narrowly focused posts rarely grow. Posts that cover niche topics appeal only to a subset of your total audience. Because the total audience is small at the outset, narrowly focused posts generate less traffic overall. Since the number of people searching for the topic is also low month-over-month, these posts have little search authority and rarely compound. You may want some narrowly focused posts in your content mix to speak to those niche audiences, but note that they are unlikely to compound.

Topical posts create a surge, but then decay rapidly. Posts that focus on current events, a technique known as “news jacking”, would decay rapidly over time. You can expect visits for these posts to taper off as readers move to the next news event. And as in this new are wherein “content is king”, all of this is no longer to be ignored. It’s a different game now and make sure you’re content is heavily loaded when you go out on the field.