Basics for Successful Content Marketing

One way to help spread content on the social web is to create a non-commercial zone, like a blog, online newsroom or industry glossary.
Relevant content and search terms should always fit the company as well. A hairdresser can write about the latest fashion trends or use celebrity photos and the new iPhone App iMadeFace to generate comic-style pictures of the hottest hairstyles in Hollywood.
A financial planner, however, may not want that fun kind of content, but aims to curate a serious, professional image. A comprehensive collection of the most common questions on saving, including deeper links to useful calculators or other tools, offers users a relevant starting point to enter the advisor’s site. Offering this neutral content builds confidence in your authority on the subject.
A catering service, on the other hand, may not have to do as much research. Instead, high-quality professional photos of previous events can be published, along with a blog entry on the event.
However, a slick infografic that shows how much of any one food equals 200 calories can be especially attractive for social networks.
How close is close enough, though? Can a shoe store, for example, handle a topic like “The 10 most-loved sneakers of all time” without being hokey?
Sometimes you won’t know until you try. Experiment with content topics and types to see what your readers and followers like and how they share it. Small steps make this process more comfortable. You won’t always go viral on your first try, but by delivering great content to your followers consistently, you prime the pump for your next effort.
This communication requires patience and sustainability. Ask yourself when you last shared content with your community. If you can’t answer clearly and distinctly, or if you’ve never shared content, review and use the systems you plan on leveraging as a “normal user” before you aim for viral content. In the long term, avoid posting too much off-topic content, which could lead to your presence being seen as random instead of a stong voice, which is what a small business is trying to achieve.
A satirical infografic of “15 best destinations to find a good screw” from a hardware manufacturer could add to the company reputation or fall flat, but a Harlem Shake video is completely off topic.

Content Marketing for Readers, “Linkerati” Or Both?

It’s optimal to share content inside a user group that can create links. Since not all users run a website or blog but almost everyone uses some form of social media, that’s the most efficient way to raise your reputation mid-term.
High-quality content, shared by fans, becomes a marketing vehicle that supports your company as the expert in your field. Expertise, quality, pertinence and passion are the main characteristics of this type of content, which is deployed specifically for social media.

How Does Content Marketing Get Links?

A two-track strategy is perfect. The first track publishes content for your target customer so that your site is found and shared. The second track is content for the “Linkerati,” bloggers and influencers who share news and current content.
Content for the second track doesn’t have to be as closely aligned with the search queries of your customer base. Here, we’re looking at a broader, “amateur” perspective on the topic. The thought should be “everything you ever wanted to know about…” and easily displayed in amusing graphics.
Articles like “10 Myths About …” or “12 Questions About … That You’ve Always Asked” or funny infographics like those of The Onion or The Oatmeal can be provocative and create more attention in a broader Web population. This tactic is to raise awareness, not drive traffic for customers looking for an immediate solution.
A computer repair shop could produce or re-post a comic like this to raise its profile among gamers. This post from Dorkly.com has been liked more than seven thousand times.
Publish cool, funny, relevant, helpful, provocative, useful or surprising content on the Web, receive links, raise your authority and profile, and then start the cycle over again.
Ideally, your linkbait or viral content doesn’t run contrary to your business philosophy, positively reflects on your business and easily gets shared: Flash animation, for example, only works on Flash players. Since Apple devices don’t support Flash, animated GIFs, standard movies, still photos and textual content are better mediums.
To get the most out of your content or social media campaign, make contacts on the platforms you plan on using in advance. The Linkerati can be very generous, but it helps to warm them up and build their trust by interacting with their current content before sending off your own. When you launch, you can already call on your contacts to build support for your effort.

Good Content, SEO & Content Marketing

To repeat: good content is content that users look for often. SEO helps users find that content by alerting search engines that it is present. Content marketing, in contrast, ensures that either your authority in the social web rises, increasing your link profile and your rankings, or that users can easily find the right information on your company site.
Whether it’s a photo gallery of hunters in full equipment for a sporting goods store or helpful videos of simple kitchen repairs from a local plumber, users subtly notice that the company has put extra effort into their content. The visitor processes the quality information and realizes that they can’t get it anywhere else. This is content marketing without a specific campaign – simply presenting valuable content in a good form.
Those who believe that they can run an online business without valuable, quality content will have problems getting visitors to convert to buyers. Local businesses whose web presence greets visitors with “Welcome to our site” and a few stock photos but forgets to include their contact information will have the same issue.
Without deep and comprehensive content that is structured into clear subpages, local businesses can’t compete with the ocean of other sites for the top spot. National players have already started working on local optimization, which makes competition even harder.
Sites that continually add useful content, including professional images and quality videos, and gets that content in circulation via social media will not only improve their SEO, but will provide a better experience to the user in general, leading to more return visits or recommendations.