Tag Archives: Social Media Marketing

Does your content engage your readers?

The most important job of your content strategy is to engage your readers in a continuous manner. This is how they remember you. This is how they become familiar with you, and what you can offer them.

In order to engage your readers, you need to talk and listen and respond, instead of just talking at them from your lonely, isolated part of the universe. Ask them questions, and give them answers, or even probable answers, when they ask questions. Don’t just focus on establishing your authority — although that is important if you want people to listen to you — but along with that also talk in their language and be approachable.

In order to engage your readers in conversations,

Encourage them to interact on the comment section of your blog

The best way of letting people interact on your comment section is to let them share their thoughts. If you have, say, 10 points to discuss on a particular topic, publish just 7 and let the remaining 3 come from your readers. Does this leave your post unfinished? Wait for a couple of weeks, and if nobody talks about the points that can make your post complete, you can always update it.

Publish sometimes things that are relevant to your users even if they’re not directly related to your product or service

Is there some public debate going on on your part of the world and you would like to know what your readers think about it and how it impacts them? Take for instance global warming and rapidly melting polar ice caps. It may not help you sell more network security devices or get you more web hosting customers immediately but it will certainly provide you with an opportunity to reach out to your readers and convey to them that you are not merely interested in promoting your business. Varied topics also encourages those people to come forward and express themselves that are though interested in your field but have got nothing much to say.

Highlight suggestions made by your readers

Sometimes readers/visitors raise very important issues and they need to be highlighted. Talk about them by updating your existing blog post or writing a new one. Give full credit to the reader who gave you the idea and if he or she has a website, link to it. This will give an incentive to your other readers too.

Make good use of social media

Some of your readers may be active social media users. They may like to share their thoughts on Twitter and FaceBook rather than posting them on your blog. If you find it difficult to express what you have to say in the limited number of characters, write a small post on your blog and then just mention the link on your stream.

What more can you suggest?

How to use your business blog content to promote your business

Content strategy before social media strategy

1 Reply

A major part of social media interactions involves promoting interesting and valuable content. Whether it’s blogging, Twittering, Facebook updates, Digging, Stumbling or simply forwarding email messages with engaging links, people are basically promoting content. That content can be in any format: videos, images, animations or text. If it’s interesting and useful, it is valuable.

In this post titled Social media starts with a content strategy the author has rightly stated that on social media nobody cares about you; they care about the content you can provide. People will promote your content if they find it interesting, relevant, topical or useful. So if you thinking about launching your social media campaign you better have some solid content production and content marketing strategy in place.

How do you formulate an advantageous content generation and marketing strategy?

Identify your market and recognize what it is exactly looking for. Does you content meet their requirement? Does it convey the right message? Do you promote your content in front of the right audience? Selling combs to bald people may be an accomplishment but in the long run it neither benefits your customers or clients nor it benefits you.

A successful content generation and marketing strategy involves three fundamental questions:

What?
Why?
Where?
How?

What sort of content should your website or blog have? What purpose does it solve and why you should publish it? Where should you promote your content – in front of whom? And what strategy and methodology you should follow in order to promote your content in front of the right audience.

Once you’ve answered these question, you can kick start your social media strategy.

What does content marketing actually mean?

6 Replies

Content marketing is one of the most popular buzz words these days on the Internet and surprisingly, it gets more traction than content creation, without which content marketing has no purpose to exist.

So what is content marketing?

It basically means promoting the right kind of content in front of the right kind of audience. Content is king is a clichéd expression but it has never been truer. Whether it’s the search engines or the social media websites, they survive and thrive on content: whatever format the content has. But is content marketing as easy as this?

Hardly. To create a solid content marketing strategy, you need to clearly define your audience, and have a lucid perception of what sort of content would tickle their buying buds. Whom do you want to target? Customers, clients, subscribers, advertisers or visitors who devote a fair amount of their attention upon your advertisers? Then you start creating content accordingly. If you are a web design company you want to attract prospective clients who would be interested in buying your services. If you are a content writer or an online copywriter (like yours truly) you would like to attract people who would want to hire you as a freelance writer.

In the early 2000s for nearly two years my website came on the first spot on Google for the word "web designing" because I had generated lots of content around this phrase. The problem was, my website mostly attracted people who wanted to learn web designing rather than hire me for their web design projects. The targeting was all wrong.

So when I started creating content for this website it was constantly on my mind that I shouldn’t end up attracting just "aspiring" content writers and work-at-home people who wanted to do something in their spare time. My content should attract prospective clients. Well-orchestrated content marketing can achieve this for you.

Once you have identified your audience and have created a significant number of blog posts or web pages, you must start promoting and marketing your content using the following methods:

Opt-in email marketing: This is one of the oldest, and still one of the best ways of getting your word around. When people are on your website or blog encourage them to subscribe to your email updates so that they can receive the content you publish without interruption.
RSS feeds: Encourage people to subscribe to your RSS feed by prominently displaying the RSS button on your website or blog.
Social media, networking and bookmarking websites: Such websites can bring you tons of traffic. These websites include FaceBook, Twitter, Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, etc. They may seem to be bringing lots of random traffic (and increasing your bandwidth costs in the process) without generating much business but they certainly increase your visibility and help you strengthen your brand presence.
Online forums: Yes, they’re still popular and get lots of traffic from search engines.
Guest posting and commenting on other blogs: Find blogs in your niche. Write guest blog posts for them (something I have never been able to do actually) and participate in their comments section. Again, this may not bring you direct customers but it does generate buzz and this leads to customers and clients.
Search engine optimization: Some people believe in SEO and some don’t. The most logical thing to do is, produce highly relevant content using keywords your prospective customers and clients would use as search terms on search engines. This can draw lots of relevant traffic to your blog or website.

Content marketing is an ongoing process simply because there are always people competing with you. Ignore it for a few months and you’ll realize you almost have to start it from the beginning, unless you’re a celebrity.

Why your website or blog needs unique content

Search engines looking for unique content

Search engines are looking for unique content.

Original content improves your search engine rankings because search algorithms, especially in Google, rate original content highly.

Websites that routinely publish duplicate content are penalised.

What is duplicate content?

It is identical content that already exists either on your own website, or another website.

Why would you publish duplicate content from your own website?

Let’s suppose I want to optimize two pages: one for online copywriting and one for content writing.

Although there are some broad differences between online copywriting and content writing, maybe (hypothetically) I feel the services are more or less the same and hence, I end up assuming that the content too is more or less the same.

What do I do?

I create one original page for content writing.

Then I create a duplicate page where everything else remains the same, but content writing is replaced by online copywriting.

I feel I’m smart. I think I have outsmarted Google.

The Google AI analyzer can process billions of parameters per second.

It can analyze millions of permutations and combinations of your words and phrases to know if you have written and published duplicate content.

It can read between the lines. It can read between the words. It can correlate millions of words, expressions, phrases and sentences before you can read the sentence.

Publish fewer pages and blog posts, but publish unique content.

It is do or die for the search engines when it comes to finding unique content

Various search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo! are constantly competing with each other.

Just because they get millions of visitors daily don’t assume they have it easy.

Even a small fluctuation means millions of ad dollars lost.

So they are constantly trying to improve their ranking algorithms and trying to find and index content that is unique.

The uniqueness and the usefulness of the content they find for their users keep those users from switching over to another search engine.

Why would the users use a search engine that finds the same stuff that can be found on scores of other websites?

Hence, in order to get higher rankings you have to make sure that the content published on your website or blog is unique as well as highly relevant.

Social media users want to promote unique content

Social media users are looking for unique content.

Nobody likes to promote content that is being promoted by 500 other users.

Social media websites can bring you tons of traffic if you can lure their users to your website by providing highly interesting, topical and relevant content that they cannot find anywhere else.

But do they promote your links just for altruistic reasons? Not at all.

Take for instance Twitter and Facebook.

Why do people keep posting interesting links on these websites?

They want to show that they can locate and share interesting stuff.

They want to be useful to their followers and fans.

This way, if they are posting 10 useful links from other websites and blogs, they can also post a few from their own website without looking spammy.

Besides, on Twitter, interesting tweets get retweeted and this is beneficial both to the owner of the link and the one who tweets it because both gain exposure.

Then there is conventional logic too.

When you publish useful content on your website it tells your visitors that you take pains to keep them informed.

If you share important information with them you establish yourself as an authority, and in more than 99% cases authority brings respect and trust, and respect and trust leads to loyal customers and clients.

20 benefits of writing and publishing unique content on your website or blog

Benefits of writing and publishing unique content.

Writing unique content enhances your website’s visibility in search engine results.
Publishing unique content attracts organic traffic and increases website engagement.
It sets your website apart from competitors, establishing your brand’s authority.
You build trust with your audience, establishing you as a reliable source of information.
Your target specific keywords and improve your website’s SEO ranking.
More people share your content on social media which further expands your reach and increases brand awareness.
Unique content boosts your website’s credibility and encourages repeat visitors.
You get an opportunity to showcase your expertise and position yourself as an industry leader.
You generate loyal following and build a community around your brand.
More targeted traffic and better conversion rate.
Writing unique content encourages backlinking, improving your website’s authority.
You can tailor your messages to your target audience better, increasing relevancy and engagement.
Publishing unique content fosters a positive user experience, keeping visitors on your website longer.
You educate and inform your audience and build brand loyalty.
Unique content provides fresh perspectives, attracting new visitors and encouraging return visits.
You can adapt your content to the evolving needs and interests of your audience.
More opportunities for guest posting and collaboration with other industry influencers.
You generate more leads and sales, positively impacting your bottom line.
You establish a strong online presence and expand your digital footprint.
You create a valuable resource that can be repurposed across different platforms, maximizing your content marketing efforts.

How do you write unique and relevant content?

Writing unique content.

Conduct thorough research to identify trending topics and keywords before writing unique content.
Write unique content by providing fresh insights and perspectives on industry-related subjects.
Incorporate unique personal experiences and anecdotes into your writing to make it more engaging and relatable.
Develop a distinctive writing style that sets your content apart from others in your niche.
Utilize storytelling techniques to captivate your audience and make your content memorable.
Incorporate data, statistics, and research findings to add credibility and relevance to your writing.
Present alternative viewpoints and challenge conventional wisdom.
Stay updated with the latest industry news and trends to ensure your content remains relevant and timely.
Conduct audience research to understand the needs, interests, and pain points of your target audience.
Tailor your writing to address specific problems or provide solutions that your audience is seeking.
Incorporate relevant keywords naturally into your content to optimize it for search engines.
Use headings, subheadings, and bullet points to structure your content, making it more readable and scannable.
Include relevant visuals such as images, infographics, or videos to enhance the value and appeal of your content.
Write relevant content by addressing frequently asked questions or common concerns in your industry.
Use case studies or real-life examples to demonstrate how your content is applicable to real-world situations.
Craft compelling headlines that accurately convey the unique and relevant aspects of your content.
Optimize your meta tags, meta descriptions, and URLs with relevant keywords to improve search engine visibility.
Interlink your content with other relevant articles on your website for better indexing, to avoid writing duplicate content and to provide a better experience to your readers.
Engage with your audience through comments and social media to understand their feedback and refine your content.
Analyze your content performance regularly and make the needed adjustments to ensure it remains highly unique and relevant.

How to regularly come up with unique content writing ideas?

How to regularly write unique content?

Follow industry news and trends to stay informed and generate fresh content ideas.
Conduct keyword research to identify popular topics and create unique content around them.
Engage with your audience through surveys, polls, and comments to understand their interests and needs.
Utilize social media platforms to discover trending discussions and adapt them into unique content.
Attend industry conferences, webinars, and workshops to gather insights and inspiration for your content.
Keep a running list of ideas by jotting down thoughts and observations as they come to you.
Brainstorm with colleagues or other professionals in your field to generate new content ideas collectively.
Analyze your existing content to identify gaps or areas that require further exploration or elaboration.
Draw inspiration from everyday experiences, personal stories, or challenges you’ve overcome.
Explore different content formats such as videos, infographics, podcasts, or interactive content to provide unique perspectives and engage your audience.