By Steve Lazuka
If you’ve been in this industry long enough then you’ll agree that some content marketing strategies fall flat on their face. Either the initial idea wasn’t creative or unique enough, maybe it wasn’t promoted properly, or maybe the stars just weren’t aligned. In my experience, however, it seems that the most often underutilized part of content marketing is using social media effectively during the promotional period after a content piece goes live.
Content Marketing
Developing a great piece of content, whether placed on your own site or on another site, can be quite difficult. Coming up with a creative and unique concept that will garner the attention of your intended audience, and keep them intrigued enough to share with others, can be daunting. Thankfully there are many examples of successful content marketing strategies available to help get your creative juices flowing. Whether it’s a top 10 list in your industry, a creative infographic, funny video, resource guide, or even a comic strip posted on your site, you can use these types of content to market your website efficiently and successfully. What’s in it for you? Branding, link building opportunities, authority, and traffic of course. But it’s not just about having the ‘build it and they will come’ attitude, you have to promote.
Social Media and Content Marketing
Success in social media often stems back to having something to share with your network of followers, fans, friends, or connections. Users with lots of followers are often seen as experts or knowledge sources that have something interesting, funny, useful, or unique to share and/or say. So, doesn’t it seem logical that one must use social media to effectively market their content? You’d think so, but some don’t see the connection.
Once you’ve put together a great piece of content you need to let the world know about it. Even though you may already have frequent users to your site, or search engines regularly caching your pages, an effective content marketing strategy will get traffic to sites through a bit of social media marketing.
- Twitter/Facebook/Etc…: Tweeting about your juicy piece of content, sharing with your Facebook friends, and posting to all of your social network profiles can garner attention from your current fan base and also has the opportunity to be easily spread to others.
- Bookmarking Sites: Having your content submitted to sites like StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, Mixx, and others can also garner some valuable traffic. Just remember: these communities are super connected and value good pieces of content, not those that are obviously and blatantly sales oriented. So don’t try to game the system here, it’s about quality and they know quality.
- Commenting: Surprisingly, many site visitors will read comments because there is often a great deal of conversation sparked beyond just the content piece itself. Interact with users who comment on your piece, and try commenting on others pieces as well. It might inspire them to come back to your site and interact.
- E-mail: Using e-mail to get the ball rolling with regards to users finding your content, commenting on it, sharing it with others, bookmarking it, and so on can start with a simple e-mail. Have a friend you know would like to view your content? Send them a link. Simple as that.
As you can see, content marketing and social media fit well together. You could almost say each are more successful when used in tandem. What do you think? Is content marketing success still possible without the use of social media marketing?
Steve Lazuka is the President of Interact Media, a company dedicated to providing clients with great SEO content for content marketing, as well as for website copy. You can find him on twitter (@SteveLauzka) or writing on the Interact Media blog.
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Steve,
Great points–especially in terms of the content to keep in mind e.g “10 list in your industry, a creative infographic, funny video, resource guide, or even a comic strip posted on your site”
Content marketing and social media work well together. Mixing it up and creating a good blend that offers readers things they may not otherwise come across is in my opinion, very valuable.
Best,
Debbie Hemley
I think the key is to create outstanding content. It makes promotion that little bit easier.
I think the key is to create outstanding content. It makes promotion that little bit easier.
Well-said. Topic itself insists a very valid point. Thanks for the evidential explanations!