Marketing is one of the most important parts of running a business, and it will determine your notoriety online, as well as how well you engage with your audience and make sales. One of the key aspects of marketing that you see regularly from a company is content marketing.

Content marketing encompasses everything from website copy to social media, as well as graphics and emails.

Content is a key part of marketing for any business. Sharing this content with your followers is important in order to get yourself in front of your audience in the right way. Today, I want to share some simple content marketing tips that you can incorporate into your daily marketing mix to help you reach your marketing goals.

Simple Content Marketing Tips To Start Using Today

 

First things first: Formulate a plan.

A “social media, blog, email marketing” editorial plan is something you should be creating on a monthly basis. This will help you to get content out to your audience in a clear and concise manner. What messages do you want to get out to your audience this month? And more important, what specific products and services are you trying to sell this month? Make sure to always plan at least a few weeks, if not a couple of months, ahead of time. Doing so helps to ensure that you are never left in a panic if you run out of ideas. Of course, having an editorial calendar also helps when you get too busy to think about what content to share.

Engage on social media.

As important as it is to share content on social media, you also need to learn how to engage with your followers on social media in a professional and friendly way. When followers and fans talk to you on social media, talk back!

And if conversations get heated, be sure to deploy your crisis management plan to divert the drama. For example, you can learn how to delete a comment on Instagram and Facebook for abusive comments if they ever arise. You also manage complaints or questions, and chat with the people who are buying from you. Engaging on social media is a great way to bridge the gap between business and consumer. It can help you to propel your business forward and position you above the competition.

Engaging on social media is a great way to bridge the gap between business and consumer. Click To Tweet

Plan your Instagram feed.

One way to make an impression with your followers and start to truly gain notoriety online is to plan out your Instagram feed from a design standpoint. Some of the best Instagram feeds in the world use design as the basis of their feed. They use strict brand guidelines to help them create stunning posts. Take a look at a few Instagram feeds and get some ideas from beautiful galleries. Use these ideas for your own inspiration.

Then, you can use either an app like Later or Planoly, or a simple Excel spreadsheet to create your own post-by-post plan for your Instagram feed. This will help to further appeal to your following. As a bonus, you will be able to look at your Instagram feed and be proud of your visual aesthetic.

Tailor content to each platform.

It is important, as we mentioned briefly above, to use different social channels to your advantage. As with planning and Instagram feed for aesthetic value, you will also want to consider

• • making more news/informative posts on LinkedIn,
  • creating fun promotions on Facebook, and
  • adding infographics and tutorials on Pinterest.

Tailor your content to suit the type that works on each platform and this will have a massive impact on your social standing. In other words, don’t simply cross-post the same content from one platform to another!

Tailor your content to suit what works on each social media platform. Don't simply cross-post the same content from one platform to another! Click To Tweet

Consider PR.

When marketers typically share content marketing tips, they often ignore the power of PR. PR is a clever tool used by many companies, across all sizes and industries, to share their news on journalism websites and news sites. As a smaller brand, if you have something exciting in the works it is a good idea to approach this from a PR level, to get others to speak about you on their platforms. This will improve the overall reach of your brand,  and it will allow you to gain some online attention from those who otherwise may never have heard of you. By default, this will aid your content marketing efforts because you are gaining visibility across new platforms that will amplify your message.

If you’re thinking to yourself, “I don’t have anything newsworthy to share about my company,” think again! You don’t have to launch a new product or service to be newsworthy. For example:

• • Do you have a different perspective on a trending topic in your niche?
  • Or, perhaps you can offer some actionable tips related to challenges consumer face when purchasing the types of products or service you offer?
  • Maybe you hit a milestone with your company that may inspire others?

A PR campaign can be used for all of the above ideas! If you craft a PR campaign, with trackbacks directly to your website, you can benefit from the increased eyeballs and visibility from your PR efforts. Voila, content marketing at its best!

If you craft a PR campaign, with trackbacks directly to your website, you can benefit from the increased eyeballs and visibility from your PR efforts. #contentmarketingideas Click To Tweet

Create SEO friendly articles.

SEO is important for the ranking of your website. One thing you can do to make your content stand out is to make sure it is SEO friendly. Every visible page of your website should be SEO’d for search engine optimization.

From the headlines on each page, to the sub-headlines, page copy, hyperlinks and images, every part of a website page should be designed to not only be human reader-friendly, but search engine friendly as well. Ensure that you use keywords as much as you can in your content. In addition, there are plugins you can add to your website, such as Yoast, that are designed to help you manage great SEO.

Connect to a CRM.

If you really want your content marketing to follow through to sales, it is a good idea for you to connect on a platform like Hubspot and add all of your data in one simple place. By doing this you will be able to see which pages are most viewed and clicked on, you can add live chat and pop-up ads to your website, and you can track form fills and leads. From a content perspective, this allows you to create a database and an idea of what people want to see from you as a business.

 

As a result of implementing these simple content marketing tips, you will have a stronger digital profile, and be able to make informed decisions moving forward.

Ciao,
Miss Kemya