Understanding All Industries

If you’re going to make content for someone, you have to know what they do.

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On paper, this seems like a simple concept. Obviously, you need to understand someone’s business to make content for it. However, this oftentimes is far deeper than what meets the eye.

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Take Chariot Logistics. They’re a company in Nashville, and we manage their Linkedin. On the surface, it should be fairly easy to shoot this company. We fly out every few months, ask some questions to their staff, and be on our way. In reality, it requires months of research. What is their company culture like? What is their industry like? That second question is often a far more important one than the first.

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If you’re a professional, you’ve seen people who don’t understand your field try to talk about it. You probably also clock it immediately, and cast aside their words immediately. This urge is inherently linked to expertise, and it is not something that the average person on social media will overcome. Because of this, we devote hours to learning the nuances of your industry. This allows us to best promote you within it. 

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This carries over across industries. Working with a window installation company? You’d better be able to talk about windows. Bars? You need to understand where people are going, what they like to see, and how you can best communicate that. 

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Professionals in these industries spend the majority of their lives learning these intricacies. You, as a content manager, likely have weeks. To catch up, I have a few recommendations:

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1. Talk to your clients.  

They know the industry, and they have a huge amount of information to offer.

2. Scroll.  

What is the competition posting? How can you emulate that? These are the two questions I ask myself the most in the onboarding process.  

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3. Use google!

If you’re unsure of what you’re looking at, or can’t find the proper words for a caption, just look it up! Someone knows, and someone probably made a perfectly clear explanation of whatever term you’re looking for in a 5-year old Reddit post. 

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If you’re going to make content for someone, you have to understand what they do. That’s why we onboard, and that’s why we are in constant contact with our clients.

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