How to Get More Out of Content Marketing
Companies are jumping on the content marketing bandwagon in increasing numbers, investing in new content for articles, newsletters, whitepapers, blogs, and video to better attract and engage customers. Social media and networking offer an ideal channel for promotion but many marketers chase such tactics as a crap shoot vs. developing a body of content that grows and builds momentum over time.
In a B2B Content Marketing study by Junta42, 79 percent of companies that use content marketing have adopted social media tactics. Social networks and media sites are often centered on content so the relationship makes sense.
Marketers involved with content and social promotion often conclude that creative promotions are essential to jumpstart attention and traffic. In some ways they’re right but many efforts at social promotion of content fall far small of their potential.
Whether it’s to drive traffic to a new microsite or an attempt to revitalize attention to an unfilled blog, social promotion thoughts pop like pick-up lines at a night club: “Let’s do an infographic” or “We should run a contest.” Better yet, “Let’s make a viral video.”
What’s incorrect with those tactics? When they work and work together, nothing.
Individual social content and promotion tactics can achieve a certain level of success on their own, but in many cases it’s a bit of a crapshoot.
Approaching social content promotion purely from a tactical perspective often results in a mixed bag of results. Some succeed and some fail, giving businesses an unrealistic sense of how well social media can work or not for them as part of their marketing mix.
Another approach is to reckon about social content promotions as part of a continuum, not a single event. As a replacement for of thumping out an infographic or online comic just because it’s a cool and trendy business to do, I’d challenge online marketers to reckon a bit more strategically about their social content promotions.
The ideal situation involves objectives, consultation, and strategy where specific tactics are identified. Understanding customer triggers, keywords and buzzing social topics can be instrumental for mapping out a social content plot.
Within that plot certain tactics can be identified as best suited to advance business goals by providing value to prospects, customers, and influentials.
For example:
Video
Rather than shooting individual videos designed to “go viral” consider plotting out a run of videos along a theme. Explore topics that support your customers’ content needs according to their position in the buying funnel but that also trigger social sharing.
Individual provocative, creative and inspiring videos have their house. But also consider the value of building your consultation and community from an ongoing run of videos tied together by your unique selling proposition and addressing key questions in your industry where the answers could involve your product or service.
One of the most successful is the “Will It Blend” run of videos from Blendtec that have had millions of views. Imagine if they had made only one or two videos and went on to something else?
Contests and Ranked Lists
If you run a contest or ranked list, reckon first whether it’s something you could do at regular intervals like monthly, quarterly, or annually. Each contest builds credibility and your list for promotion of the next contest. Consider developing a contest where participation requires creation of content. Repurpose that content for promotions and build community around recognizing participants and winners.
A single contest or ranked list illumination up like a firecracker and then dies out. A well thought out and executed contest that occurs at regular intervals is something people look forward to and can grow larger organically each time it happens.
A excellent example of a successful list is TopRank’s 25 Women Who Rock Social Media. This list is produced with fantastic effort once a year and is held in high regard by many of the recipients who include the badge or mark on their websites, in their resumes, press releases and instigator credentials.
Infographics
There’s an art and science to effective infographics as a marketingtool. Many companies circulate individual infographics as linkbait but never consider how a run of themed infographics can build a on the rise consultation and say to community development.
The theme can be as simple as a common mark that reflects a butt keyword phrase or topic relevant to the business. For example, “Social Media Smarts: Content Marketing Best Practices” or “Social Media Smarts: Top Social SEO Tactics.”
A fantastic example of a company that has used a run of infographics is Flowtown. Initially promoting social media topics, when they were a social media profile/appending company, to their new focus on “gift marketing”, Flowtown has used infographics as way to draw attention to topics related to their offering.
Hopefully this gives you some perspective on the pros and cons of doing individual social content promotions versus finding an approach that involves ongoing use of tactics that work together sequentially and cumulatively.Not only does it make sense to tie a sequence of individual social content promotion tactics together, but to coordinate content types as part of an overall content marketing strategy.
Make content customers will like, share, and look forward to and you’ll find a lot more satisfaction and business results than from a run of disconnected, social content marketing experiments.
A version of this post originally ran in my Social Media Smarts column on ClickZ.
Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.
© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. |
How to Get More Out of Content Marketing | http://www.toprankblog.com