Your First Content Strategy: Think Multimedia and Start Creating

I had the distinct pleasure of leading a smart group of health activists in a breakout group at the most recent WEGO Health meetup in Boston. Our topic was using multimedia to engage your communities, and there was no shortage of questions and ideas.

We had a great mix of social media newbies and digital natives in our group. For example, Karen shared her experiences blogging about diabetes, and Paul from the South Boston Hope & Recovery Coalition talked about his work building a community on Facebook. Others had questions about how to get started on Twitter and whether blogging was right for them.

We focused our discussion on three takeaways that we could all act upon right away.

1. Be aware of opportunities
You face opportunities to create content several times a day. It simply takes a mild shift in your routine to recognize them. With a smartphone always near, you can snap a photo or capture video at events, conferences, meetups, at the store…wherever you find inspiration…and quickly share it on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube or your own blog. And take advantage of the many available tools for making your content creation easier. Check out oneforty for some of my favorites, including Alicia Staley’s Toolkit for Health Activists.

2. Realize that content need not always be yours

Get in the habit of sharing valuable, relevant content of others (with due credit, of course) with your communities. Set up searches on Twitter or in Google Reader to capture content related to your areas of interest so you’re aware when something new and interesting becomes available. And comment, comment, comment! Creating content doesn’t always have to be a new blog post. Be sure to follow those who are blogging about your area of expertise and comment regularly.

3. Don’t Wait…Create!
Don’t let moments of inspiration pass you by. Snap that photo, share a 60-second video, capture a note in Evernote for blogging later, or better yet post one paragraph that sums up your thoughts. Whenever and wherever you can, create content in the moment and you’ll find your community will respond in kind.

I’m grateful to our group for a lively discussion, and look forward to continuing the dialogue online and off. And I want to see the content you’re creating, so please share links here.

Thanks to WEGO Health for asking me to lead this discussion, and for creating the opportunity for us all to gather and share our experiences. I’m already looking forward to the next meetup!

So, how are you using the written word, video, audio and photography to create content that engages your community? What tips would you offer others just starting out? What successes can we all learn from?