To make sure you are making the most of your content there are some key elements in planning your strategy that will help amplify what you produce.
- Ensure your content marketing fits into your marketing strategy
Like most marketing activity a content marketing plan and subsequent action in isolation is of no use. Your content marketing plan must be part of an integrated communications programme, which means knowing who you’re targeting, what their current behaviour is, and what changes you want to make happen. This involves setting out clear objectives and having some insight into how you are going to change behaviour.
- Develop content based on customer research
Do some customer research. What are the barriers that are stopping them changing their behaviour? Remember, some barriers are rational and others are emotional. The emotional ones are often the strongest. If you understand why a customer is behaving as they are now, you will have an idea of how to overcome the barriers, and therefore what content is needed
- Expand your content.
With so much content being delivered from multiple channels attention spans are short. It’s key therefore that all content is clear and concise.
Content should also be used over multiple channels and different formats, dice-it and slice-it! Long articles can be broken down into blogs, multiple Tweets, Podcasts, Infographics and so on.
- Optimise content for search
It’s crucial not to forget to optimise your content for search also. Most traffic will probably still come from Google. With most people now searching on mobile, responsive mobile design is key for user experience and for Google rankings.
Google still values links and recommendations from reputable websites and social media mentions. Within any social media strategy, it’s important to plan how to maximise the sharing and amplification of your content. Sharing only happens though if it’s relevant and worthwhile!
- Target your social media activity
Consider what social media channels your target market are using and what works best for your business environment. Your clients might use Facebook personally but it might not be relevant to their business needs.
The key to integrating social media and content marketing is making it easy for your audience to share your content in their own channels.