It’s almost impossible to overstate the importance of having a performant social media marketing strategy.
The statistics, of which there are many, all confirm that social media leads to an increased audience, better returns, and better conversion rates, providing a boost to your SEO and increasing a trust-based following that will stay loyal to your brand.
Plus, while the huge numbers of people who are a member of social networks seem so large they’re anonymous, the beauty of content marketing is the fact that you can target specific audiences, and engage with your core consumer market, in ways you would have previously been unable to reach them. You can build real relationships, open two-way channels of communication, monitor your competitors, and most importantly your sales will increase.
All of these benefits are available for an incredibly low cost when you have a sound social media strategy, and the following tips help you maximize the potential of your profile across all platforms.
#1 Do Your Research and Plan Accordingly
Before you can create any content marketing strategy, you need to have a clear idea of two crucial factors – one is what you’re trying to do, and the second is who you are talking to. This means defining the explicit aims of your marketing and planning accordingly to achieve those objectives.
Just posting randomly and maintaining a presence is very hard to monitor as you will have no way to measure the effects and successes of your social media marketing. By setting yourself targets and keeping a clear goal in mind, you can effectively see the results of your strategies, as you’ll be able to see if you met your targets, or if the area of business you were hoping to improve has changed since you launched your campaign.
The second step involves picturing your target audience, creating a persona for them, and making sure that all of your content is tailored to appeal to that persona. If your content isn’t directed at your audience, then they either may not find it or may not be sufficiently interested in acting upon it.
#2 Use Feedly to Generate Ideas
One of the most challenging aspects of successful content marketing is the fact that you need to consistently come up with fresh and original ideas for posts. There’s no end to challenges when it comes to this, as duplicated or repetitive content can have an adverse effect on your business and SEO, as well as disincline your audience from reading further.
Fortunately, there is a solution to this common problem, in the form of Feedly, which gathers all of the relevant recent posts about your business in one place, so you can read through them and get ideas for yourself. This is also a great way of staying ahead of the market and being aware of current trends. This is a great way of gathering all of the sites you’d use for research efficiently, and can help you come up with ideas on a daily basis, as well as aid in providing content that improves on your competitors’.
#3 Avoid Plagiarism with Unplag
While coming up with fresh subjects can be hard, with so many other writers on the internet, it is inevitable that at least a few of them will be writing about the same things as you. This could lead to inadvertent plagiarism, accusations of which can be terrible for your business. Plus, if search engine crawlers detect duplicate content on your website, your SEO will plummet.
Avoid the very real issues that come with unintended plagiarism by checking all of your work is completely original before you post it online. While there are many programs that are available to perform this service, one of the best and most accessible is Unplag, which can check multiple documents at a time, and is compatible with 99% of file formats. Plus, compared to other sophisticated software checkers, this is one of the most affordable and is a low-cost method to ensure your business’s reputation and the effectiveness of your marketing.
#4 Use Professional Editing, Writing, and Proofreading Services
When you are engaging in content marketing, the quality of the content is of the utmost importance. Entrusting the writing of the content to an over-worked marketer or manager can lead to poor content, as while your staff is unquestionably skilled, they likely lack experience specific to creative writing. Plus, creating sufficient engaging content for marketing purposes is a full-time job in itself, and can’t be sidelined by your staff’s existing daily workload.
For these reasons and more, many businesses engage the services of online experts to write, edit, and proofread their content before it’s posted. If you want to post an ad and establish a long-term relationship with a writer, then the best place to look is Freelancer, where many individuals can respond to your ads and work on your project. If you want something a little more automated, then you can select the services you want and have them allocated to an expert with either Ox Essays or Big Assignments.
These services are ideal when you’re looking for writers and editors specifically, however, if you want to broaden your search to include experts in content marketing as a whole, then Contently may be the right choice for you.
#5 Put a Stop to Procrastinating with Stay Focused
For a lot of people, writing, specifically content writing which can be a restrictive format, is a challenge. And with the wide world of the internet at our fingertips, we can easily find ourselves distracted. It can seem like we’ve spent hours trying to write one piece of work when in fact, we’ve spent the majority of that time browsing the web. This is true for writing but is also applicable to all other areas of business where we find ourselves staring at a screen.
Sometimes willpower just isn’t enough, and we need a concrete wall to keep us from being distracted – Stay Focused can provide that wall. This app blocks whichever websites you choose for any given amount of time, which means you can guarantee that you’ll write non-stop for two hours, as your computer won’t let you access the sites that typically serve as a distraction.
#6 Use Online Tools to Ensure High-Quality Content
One way to guarantee your content is the best it can be is to use all available resources to check and double-check everything before you post it online. These tools provide various services and functions, but all contribute to great writing. First, you can get support and ideas from other writers, as well as guidance from the fantastic forums at Paper Fellows, which serve as a great help with editing.
Most writers now also consider checking their work with Hemingway App imperative, as it can strip your writing of all delicate features, pick up on errors a person is unlikely going to be able to spot, and just give an overall impression of strength and clarity to your work. These editing tools help create content that leaves a lasting impact and is evident in its ideas and aims – all factors which are essential for good marketing.
#7 Don’t Overlook Headline Analyzer
When you’ve put considerable time and effort into your post, you want people to see it. There is no point in posting amazing content regularly if nobody clicks on it – and to tempt those clicks, it’s important to have a catchy headline. With so many pages available online, your particular posts need to stand out from the crowd, and the headline is your first, and sometimes only, chance to make your audience choose your posts above your competitors.
While creating a headline might sound simple, there is a lot to consider, and the Headline Analyzer from CoSchedule can help make sure that your posts do get noticed.
#8 Make Your Posts Visually Appealing with Easel.ly
The adage that a picture is worth a thousand words is still true, even in today’s internet era. Web sites with images are more captivating, and posts to social media that contain an image have proved time and again to encourage more responses and engagement.
However, when you’re marketing for business, there may not be a ready-made picture that suits you, and having an app like Easel.ly can make creating specific and relevant infographics a breeze. This makes your posts bright and colorful and can be beneficial when explaining dry topics.
#9 Don’t Limit Yourself to Written Content
Blog posts are great, and for most businesses, they will constitute the bulk of your online content. However, the most efficient campaigns also mix things up every once in a while – you could release an eBook, post video content, or even create podcasts. Don’t restrict your options, and keep your audience engaged by producing posts in different formats.
The above tips can help create clear, concise, and compelling content – which coupled with consistent and quality updates can help your business grow faster than you ever thought possible. What steps are you taking to keep on producing high-quality and engaging content? Leave a comment below!.
Sharon Conwell has been a content manager and ghostwriter of over 20 online projects; now she is a part-time educator and freelance writer. She’s specializing in content creation and optimization. She loves coffee, tulips, and her Shih Tzu named Bobby. Feel free to contact her on LinkedIn.
