How to play the game of content marketing as a small business with big business

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When it comes to content marketing bigger businesses with deep pockets obviously have an advantage over smaller businesses that cannot spend lots of money on creating high-quality content. Since most of my clients are one-person businesses and small businesses, I can totally relate to it. Most of them have budgetary constraints and they often have to adjust my rates accordingly (without stretching my own resources, of course).

This Huffington Post article quotes Forbes.com that 40% of brands use content marketing channels such as blogs these days. In 2013 the biggest beverage company Coca-Cola launched its content marketing strategy with a big fanfare and it became a case study for many big and small content marketing companies. The above-linked article throws some light on the ways you can score over big businesses. How can you compete with them and sometimes how can you even beat them?

You cannot beat big businesses with quantity. At the most you can publish 2-3 blog posts per day whereas a big company like Salesforce can publish 10-15 high-quality blog posts every day (they can even publish more if they want to). Then, it is not just about publishing blog posts and articles. You also need to market your content, and in fact this can be the biggest challenge faced by a small business. Bigger businesses have many channels at their disposal because they can spend their money on quality content as well as marketing channels. A small business can spend some money on getting quality content, but when it comes to marketing that content, not many options at lower rates are available. Nonetheless, some options ARE available.

Anyway, here are a few things you can do to remain in the game and sometimes even beat the bigger players:

Create authoritative content.
Focus on building your personal brand
Establish a one-one rapport with your audience that a bigger business cannot manage
Create engaging content
Be innovative and give your own personal quest to existing content from big business
Establish a vibrant presence on social media and social networking channels
Study your audience carefully and create content accordingly
Show more agility in tweaking your content according to audience-demand
Write like a person rather than a company representative
Respond to Twitter and Facebook queries as soon as possible
Promote others to enjoy reciprocity

Using content marketing to woo on-the-go modern moms

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Everybody and his or her mom has a mobile phone these days. According to this Business 2 Community blog post if you are not reaching out to young and old moms who are very busy and are constantly using their mobile phones to manage their days’ affairs, you are missing a big demographic and I totally agree.

If you talk about just the US market, according to the figures mentioned in the blog post, moms have a share of $ 2.4 trillion market and women as a whole influence more than 80% of US spending (source from Fast Company).

How should you streamline your content marketing to target busy moms who are constantly on their phones? First of all, create content that is mobile-friendly. According to the statistics mentioned in the above link, an average mom spends 6.1 hours on her smart phone and many use shopping apps. It means not only your website should be able to scale according to the mobile devices, even your content must be created in such a manner that it can be easily accessed and understood using mobile phones.

Most of the moms are on social websites – women being more social compared to men – and this is a place where you can reach them by specifically creating content for social networking websites. In order to promote your content on social networking websites from the perspective of targeting moms using mobile phones you will obviously have to spend some time interacting with people on these websites.

What sort of content would moms find useful? While we shouldn’t stereotype people into various brackets, moms are normally interested in recipes that might be healthy for themselves and their families. They may also like to talk about clothes and various shopping opportunities available. Some of the moms also like talking about the behavior of their kids. Career-oriented moms would like to know how to raise kids while doing a full-time or a part time job. Then you can also target single moms because they may have totally different issues compared to married moms.

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What is viral content and how to use it to get more traffic to your website

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You must have come across the phrase “this has gone viral” especially when it comes to some amusing video or an image or even a meme (remember Kim Kardashian’s break the Internet?”). When your content goes viral, it means it is being shared on the Internet in general and social media and social networking websites in particular like crazy. Millions of people may share it on their blogs, on Facebook, on Twitter and personal websites.

There are two ways you can use viral content for content marketing and consequently, get more traffic to your website:

Create viral content yourself
Create content that is somehow associated with the content currently going viral

There is no exact science that explains what sort of content goes viral although there are some fundamental ingredients that may go something like this:

Your content is outrageously funny or outrageously, well, something
Your content is some breaking news that can change people’s perception or can give them a totally different point of view
Your content is something that gives a new twist to an existing piece of information
It captures attention immediately
It encourages people to create their own content based on what you have created
It should have global relevance

How can you make your content go viral in order to generate traffic to your website?

Remember there used to be Digg? The website is still there, it is not as popular as used to be to make content viral. Every start-up would dream of appearing on the first page of Digg. Once you had reached there, you could rest assured that your content would go viral and even if it didn’t go viral, the massive traffic would stall your servers.

There were many ways you could get Diggs for your link, but the best way was to be friends the so-called Digg power users. They were a part of an inner circle that could push any piece of content to the front page. In fact, this also proved to be the undoing of the website. All sort of shitty content was being pushed (because a small group controlled which content would reach there) and eventually they had to back up. Anyway, this is how content used to go viral back in those days.

Listed below are a few ways you can make your content go viral:

Keep creating content: Since there is no exact science to know exactly which piece of your content can go viral (even if you apply the above-mentioned fundamentals) keep producing as much interesting content as you can. If you don’t have much content, there is no chance of your content going viral although in rarest of the rare cases, the first-most blog post or an article written and published can go viral but then again, it’s a once in a million chance. Most of the websites and blogs whose content goes viral have been publishing for many years on an ongoing basis.
Properly know your target audience: I’m not sure when Kim Kardashian posted her epic butt-thrusting photograph she knew it would go viral or not – maybe she knew because if you know that millions of people are following you, even if a very small percentage reacts, it can set off a chain reaction. But one thing is clear, she knew that her fans would love the photograph and they would share it. What turn it took (according to the Mashable link given above), maybe even she hadn’t expected that. What matters though is, it went viral and as many claim, it actually broke some servers. So knowing your audience helps.
Be spontaneous and don’t invariably worry about your content going viral: Again, since there is no exact science to predict whether a particular piece of content will go viral or not, you cannot specifically create content for this purpose. Just keep following the fundamentals because they should anyway be followed for writing, creating and publishing valuable content, use the appropriate channels to promote your content and then move on to your next piece of content. Something triggers the viral effect. It is unknown exactly what triggers it.
Keep in mind that visual content has more chance of going viral compared to textual content: This is not some rule that is written in stone, but visual content always has a greater chance of going viral.
Network with influencers: Influencers, merely because they are influencers, wield more influence compared to people who are even more talented than them. This is a hard reality of the world. Even if you are a PhD in philosophy, if Kim Kardashian, even with her Internet-breaking butt thrust forward in full glory, says something philosophical, it will get more attention and more responses compared to you. So it would make sense if you somehow convince Kim to promote your content rather than you promoting it yourself.

Creating content that is associated with the content that has gone viral

This may seem like piggybacking, but sometimes, some content that is associated with a viral content also can generate massive traffic. I remember once I wrote a blog post about a herd of buffaloes rescuing a calf from crocodiles as well as a group of lions. A few years ago that video had gone viral. I just blogged about it, wrote a couple of paragraphs and then embedded the video from YouTube. I still don’t know how it happened, but in a couple of days, I received 25,000 visitors to that particular blog post. It was my literary blog and aside from making me some AdSense money (around $15 every day for almost a week) it didn’t give me any business benefit but the blog post still remains one of the most popular posts on that blog.

How viral content can generate more traffic for your business

Remember that if your content goes viral and nobody knows who originally the content came from, it is going to go waste. There has to be some association. If it is one of your images that is going viral, somehow people should be able to know that you are the originator of that image. Maybe there is a prominent photograph of yours or your business product or service. Maybe there is some branding message that makes it easier for people to know that it is from you. Maybe it is your company name that appears with a photograph. If it is a blog post, then it should have links back to your website or blog, If it is a video, there must be some information or some tag that lets people know that you are the one who has created it.

How to draw maximum benefit out of social media content marketing

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Social media content marketing maximum benefit

A content marketing strategy without taking social media into consideration cannot hope to achieve much these days because pretty much everybody uses social media and social networking platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and LinkedIn. If you are into consumer goods or something like fashion accessories, your best bet would be Facebook. If you want to immediately provide support to your customer and client base, Twitter can work wonders to your content marketing strategy. If you want to reach out to the B2B market then there is nothing like LinkedIn. So what I’m trying to say is, for every sort of content marketing need, there is a platform available to you.

This Social Media Examiner blog post lists some ways you can increase your influence by strategically posting content on social media websites according to their core users. There are some basic traits that are common to all social networking and social media websites because basically, as the name suggests, they are “social”.

Here are a few things to keep in mind while posting content on social media websites:

Post content for readers, not buyers: When you try to target buyers, your entire tone changes. People on social media and social networking websites don’t want to be bothered by marketers and businesses. They are there to interact with the existing friends and make new friends. They are there to share all the cool things they are doing. If they want to buy a mobile phone, they would like to buy it on their own and then be cool about it, also, on their own.
Let us use my example. I provide content writing and content marketing services. If I want to target people on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, I won’t constantly badger them with my marketing messages. They will be put off and soon they will start unfollowing me. My best bet would be to raise awareness about publishing high quality content on websites and blogs and what is the benefit of marketing such content. Obviously if they are interested in this topic they will follow me and they won’t mind hearing about this topic again and again. This way, whenever they need a content writer, they will know whom to approach.
Stick to your niche to stand out: If I’m continuously publishing helpful content about content writing and content marketing than people obviously know what I do and what is my expertise. If I go on posting everything under the sun, they won’t be able to make out exactly what I do. This goes for any profession. If you are marriage photographer and if you want people to know that you are available for the same service, you should post lots of content on such photography rather than simply posting cute marriage photographs or cuddly animals playing with each other.
Keywords also matter on social media and social networking websites: I think as long as people use textual cues to carry out searches, keywords are never going to go out of fashion. If someone searches for “business content writer” on LinkedIn or Facebook, they should be able to find someone like me rather than a morning breakfast supplier. Unless these specific expressions exist in the content that I post, how are people going to find me?
Keywords also make an unconscious impact. When you come across my content and repeatedly read about content writing and content marketing, unconsciously these keywords are continuously stored in your brain and this will ultimately have an impact on your decision when you are looking for a content writer for your website or blog.
On social media and social networking websites it’s important to know what your audience wants: And then post content accordingly. It doesn’t mean if my audience is more interested in morning breakfast suppliers or marriage photographers then I should start posting content on these topics – it means I’m attracting wrong sort of audience and which further means, I’m doing something wrong with the sort of content I’m already posting. This should be changed immediately. I should post content for an audience that is interested in knowing more about content writing and content marketing and more importantly, an audience among which someday I hope to come across my clients.
Use data to add value:
People love to know facts. They will love to know that 62% B2B marketers prefer to use content marketing rather than knowing that “more and more people are using content marketing”.
Regularly engage with your audience: Content on social media and social networking websites should never be one way because then it defeats the entire purpose. Encourage people to respond. You cannot always do that, but occasionally, ask interesting questions from your audience. This will also tell you whether they are actually paying attention to what you are posting or not. Engaging your audience will make it easier for them to remember you for what you do.

There is a parallel between Rahul Gandhi and an unsuccessful content marketing effort

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If you don’t know Rahul Gandhi, he is the scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family who is the cynosure of the English media lady journalists here in India and also, seemingly, the only beacon of hope for the Congress party. He is the son of Rajiv Gandhi who was assassinated by the LTTE terrorists, and Sonia Gandhi, who is presently the Congress president.

Why is there a parallel between Rahul Gandhi and an unsuccessful content marketing effort?

In order to succeed in content marketing you need to be regular. And not just any regular, you need to be regular with creation, publication, marketing and most importantly, quality and relevance. These shouldn’t be activities and traits that you orchestrate just when you feel like it. They need to be ongoing otherwise they never take off.

In fact, another good parallel comes to my mind. It’s like riding a bicycle. Unless your bicycle attains a certain speed, you cannot balance. You will fall if you pedal too slow. I remember once Rahul Gandhi also talked about the escape velocity – he had said something to the tune of that India needed Jupiter’s escape velocity in order to experience some progress. Or something like that. The concept of escape velocity can also be applied to content marketing – unless you put in a certain amount of work, it is never effective.

Rahul Gandhi is not a career politician. He is in this field because of his family history and maybe because he has never been able to build another career. He comes and goes according to his own whims and this is why he always fails to make an impact. Had someone else had the sort of opportunities that he has got, he or she would have worked wonders.

Politics is not a part time job, it is a full-time job, just like content marketing. When you’re doing content marketing for your business, you have to take it seriously, you have to give it all it takes. It cannot be a half-hearted effort. To ensure the success of your content marketing effort you need to

Create and publish quality content regularly (if possible, daily).
You need to use the channels available to you to disseminate that content and advocate it.
You need to respond to other people’s content with your own input.
You need to engage your audience so that it begins to recognize you for your strengths and other characteristics.
You constantly need to provide people something of great value.
You need to be there, be one with them.
You need to be present on the same channels being used by your audience.
You need to talk to people in their own language rather than using your own gobbledygook.
You need to take care of the core issues, the issues that really matter to people rather than simply beating around the bush.
You need to be able to inspire loyalty and turn people into your evangelists.

Just as all these qualities are missing in a badly executed content marketing strategy, they are also missing in Rahul Gandhi and this is why he comes out to be a quintessentially failed politician who, instead of inspiring confidence, inspires disenchantment, and sometimes ridicule (because he tries to portray himself as someone he is not).