Ready to dig a little deeper into how you can build your content strategy out of your website? While your content strategy includes a mix of formats, I'm going to put blogging first.
Content and Blogging
A content strategy focuses on distributing shareable material that adds value to your audience. It should attract and engage but of course also drive conversion.
Your content strategy will be unique to your business and should include a tailored mix of formats like podcasts, blogs, and infographics. A content strategy will also take into consideration the various stages of the customer buying cycle, and offer solutions at each stage. Though you may publish your content across various social media platforms, your website is the hub for all of your content.
Though blogs aren't for every business, sites with blogs can drive significantly more leads than those without, and they can really pump up your keyword usage. Your blogs position you as a thought leader, attract traffic, can drive and fill up your social media plan, and give you loads of SEO juice.
Your blogs give you critical opportunities to exploit keywords, plus they can play a major role in your content plan and offer immense value to your customers. You can use your blogs to showcase your product's benefits, how it solves your customers’ pain points, or, if you're a consultant, position you as an expert in your field.
Long form blogs are typically over 1200 words, while short form blogs will fall under that range. If that sounds like a lot, remember – the point is to offer value to the people using your website. If your blogs are too short you may need to ask yourself if you're producing quality material.
Blogs don't all look the same either. They may take on a variety of forms (some of which will be shorter than others):
Editorial
Listicle – “5 Ways to…”, “Top 10 X”
Guest blogs written by an influencer in your field
News blogs - the latest in your industry
Podcasts/Video including a transcription
And may include video and photographic content, including infographics. Most of all, you must make them shareable.
Content Creation
But…content is really not just blogs. Your rollout should include a healthy mix of the following pieces of content:
Podcasts
Video
Whitepapers
Case Studies
Ebooks
Infographics
Emails/newsletters
Your content should include a mix of “evergreen” (related to your brand or product, with longevity in mind and not tied to any particular event) and “trending” (inspired by a current event, trending topic, hashtag etc).
Content Curation
Curation looks at current trends, keeps your content plan fresh and can make life easier for your marketing team.
Content curation is the process of identifying and selecting existing content that is relevant, of good production quality and adds value to your strategy. You must credit all the original sources, and try to add your own opinion when you share it, so it's not just a regurgitation. You are a thought leader and you do have an opinion!
Curation can help you network with other thought leaders and allow you to become a go to resource for your community.
User Generated Content
Who better to promote your products to someone than their friends? This process provides excellent "social proof". We tend to place trust in word of mouth, and good UGC is like good word of mouth. Facilitating UGC at some point should definitely pop up in your content calendar. There are lots of ways to promote user generated content, including incentivised contests, but it can also be as simple as a hashtag that catches on. Just don't expect people to pose with your product and say 'cheese'. Your UGC will ultimately be about the feeling the user gets from sharing and being shared back.
Remember...social media is a two-way street and isn't just about you.
Closing Thought
Finally: You still have to measure your content. You want to replicate what worked and scrap what didn't, don't you?
Find out what works. Check your engagement, views, downloads and so on. Whatever is working, duplicate it. Your content strategy is an ongoing series, not a one off, and one of the best things about the digital and social world is that you are your own publisher. So...put stuff out there, and see what comes back!
Contact me right away if you'd like to get started planning your content strategy. I'm all ears: carlie.ester@gmail.com
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