The purpose of your online content is to raise awareness of you and your brand, as well as foster engagement. When people are surfing the web looking for information, they’ll find your content through links or searches. If the content you have helps them, entertains them, inspires them, or gives them some type of unique value, they’ll sit up and take notice AND come back for more.
Successful content creators don’t just sit down and crank out content whenever they’re inspired. They can produce consistent, high-quality content on a frequent basis because they have a system in place for doing so. Below are some content marketing strategy dos and don’ts to guide you in the creation of your content marketing plan.
Make It About Them
To make your content engaging, make it all about your readers and their interests, not you and your interests.
Variety is Key
A variety of content in a variety of formats across a variety of channels works best.
Be Unique
Try to find ways to make your content original.
Recycle
Learn how to repurpose so you can take old content and make it new again.
Encourage Sharing
Get your readers to share your content for you.
Track and Adjust
Track your results carefully and see where changes need to be made.
Get Inspired
Follow the work of other content creators and get tips from the things they do.
Get Help
Use tools and automation wherever possible to save time.
Listen
Seek feedback from your audience to see if your content is meeting their needs.
Get Organized
Organize your content marketing strategy to stay on track.
No Planning
Creating content without a solid plan and schedule in place first.
Putting Yourself First
Creating the content YOU like, rather than what your audience likes.
Plagiarism
Copying the content of others rather than creating something original with a unique voice.
Not Recycling
Letting old content that could be repurposed go to waste.
Not Diversifying
Using only one format and only one channel for content distribution.
Neglecting Mobile
Forgetting to also create content with mobile devices in mind.
Not Getting Help
Trying to do your content marketing all by yourself when you could use automated tools or delegate tasks.
Not Paying Attention
Failure to track the results of your efforts so that you can make improvements.
No Consistency
Publishing just a few times a month, randomly, and expecting engagement to “just happen”.
Laziness
The “set it and forget it” approach; content marketing strategy is an ongoing job.
Over time, content that is consistently helpful, interesting, unique and high-quality builds trust with your audience. Again, think of all of the content providers you follow, like blogs or websites. You follow them because you read and enjoy each installment of content from them.
You can build this kind of relationship with your audience just like this through a solid content marketing strategy.
Web Content Marketing 101
Consistently Create Content that Attracts & Engages Your Market
