In Step 3 of the “ Online Marketing Road Map ” is we’ll explore Perfecting Content Marketing and work on crafting your brand’s story and coming up with creative ways to market it in the online space. This is an important step on The Online Marketing Road Map , as it will generate the content you’ll be pushing through your other online marketing spaces. For the online marketer “ Content is King ” because it is critical to every aspect of your marketing plan, since you need great content to give your marketing message traction on the web. The following are eight (8) strategies that you can use to perfect your content marketing :
Write For Your Own Blog: It seems so simple, but one of the first ways you can go about marketing your brand’s message is starting in your own “ front yard ”. Add a blog component to your website, or use a platform like WordPress that has built-in blogging tools that can provide you with a website and blog all-in-one. Write Guest Blog Posts For Others: Find other experts in your field that have their own blogs and volunteer to contribute posts for it. It’s very important that you don’t promote yourself too much in these guest posts, but instead use their platform as a way to showcase your expertise where it’s so compelling that this new audience of readers can’t help but seek you out to read more! Submit your best content for guest postings, link to your main website or blog in your post’s bio, and be sure to return to actively engage readers in the comments section. Write About Others In Your Network: Mastering social media marketing is all about becoming a part of an “ old school ” word-of-mouth conversation, using “ new school ” technologies like smartphones, Facebook, and Twitter to spread the word quickly. One of the best ways to do this is to talk about and promote someone else, specifically someone who’s content is complimentary to your own, that way they’ll be encouraged to share your writing with their audience. Set Up An Editorial Calendar and Get A Publishing Schedule: Writing for your own blog, submitting guest posts, and writing about others in your network can be a daunting task without preparation. For this reason, you need to set up an editorial blog calendar and get a publishing schedule that you’re sure you can stick to. Check out these “ 7 Tips for generating a blog calendar ”. Write eBooks: Creating eBooks are a great way to generate leads by capturing emails on your website in exchange for this digital marketing piece that highlights your best advice and industry tips, and provides your audience members with information they find valuable. In fact, some of your first eBook creations can be a combination of blog posts and guest posts you’ve written, stylized in e-book form, edited so that they’re not an exact copy of your other published content, with a bit of added graphic work. ( See “ 8 Tools to Create an Irresistible eBook ” to get started. ) Add Social Sharing Tools: Once you’ve created content on your blog, be sure to add Social Sharing Tools to make it easy to share your content to social networks like Facebook , Twitter , Pinterest , and others. Submit Content To Social Sharing Sites: Social bookmarking sites are a great way to get your content in front of others as these sites provide a platform for you to bookmark and share your work in ways that boost your credibility as an expert in your field and within search engines. Sites like Delicious , Digg , Reddit , Squidoo , and StumbleUpon are great tools to use for bookmarking your online content. Create An Infographic or Podcast: Displaying information graphically or “ data visualization ” via an infographic or committing your words to an audio MP3 file are great ways to reach out to your audience through other channels. To get started building your own infographic, you can go the DIY route and learn how to via visual.ly , or farm out the work to experts like Column Five or Infographic World, Inc . Also check out: “ Start Podcasting in 3 Easy Steps ” to learn more about how you can get started podcasting.
In future posts, we’ll delve deeper into specific tools you can utilize with these strategies, in addition to exploring options for tailoring your content to the mobile marketing audience.
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