Amplified Content Marketing

by Michael Stuart

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The 4 Tiers of Digital Transformation

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It’s easy to acknowledge the game-changing role digital technologies are playing in the modern economy. The challenge, to which most companies have yet to rise, is figuring out how to fully capture the different kinds of value that these technologies offer. Developing a strategy for digital transformation that fully leverages this value is also not easy.

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Attracting Audience Attention

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How to Attract an Audience with Creating Captivating Content

 
 

To be successful, every business has to tell its stories.

These days, such stories are usually told through posting content online in blogs, articles and social media.
  • But just pushing content onto the web is meaningless if it doesn’t interest the audience. In an online world bursting with billions and billions of pages of content — with new content being added every minute.
  • how do you ensure you’re creating compelling content that generates views?
  • Whether it’s defining the details that will capture interest, timing your posts to grab the most views or choosing the right venue for your message, there are strategies that will help your online voice be heard.

1. Cater Content To Customers

As a printing company, our target companies are other businesses that need printed collateral, as well as individuals that have a specific need. Content about our latest printer is not effective. However, design tips or examples for wedding invitations, how-tos, or graphic design tips for other businesses will create value that organically leads to sales. Your content does not have to revolve specifically around your goods or services. Rather, cross-pollenating your content into the desired industries you would like to sell to is an effective way to create value and sales. – Brandon Stapper, Nonstop Signs
 

2. Choose The Best Platform For Each Message

Different channels accomplish different types of engagement. Facebook is great for showing company culture. We find images and behind-the-scenes videos get the most likes and shares. For Twitter, we’re testing tweets that are story driven; you create a thread, and each tweet links to different content that threads up around a point. This is a great way to repurpose multiple pieces of content, and it drives conversation with people commenting on tweets. Instagram is obviously image and video driven. The trick with Instagram is choosing the right hashtag to get the right visibility. If you’re looking for leads, you’ll need users to download an asset that’s useful. We’ve been doing checklists on how to do something accompanied by a case study that proves it works. – Kerry Guard, MKG Marketing
 

3. Write Step-By-Step Guides

I’ve noticed that some of our best content is how-to guides that show users a step-by-step process on how to implement something on their own website. This has helped gear us to becoming more of a resource-based blog where customers can find information on how to make their own sites better. Find out what guides your customers want and write a detailed, step-by-step process that will help them. You can even turn some of your most popular ones into content upgrades in exchange for email addresses. – Jared Atchison, WPForms
 

4. Round Up The Experts

When producing content, a helpful strategy is to include experts with relevant experience on the particular topic you are producing content around. By including these experts and their take on a specific issue, you’re providing them with a platform to share their thoughts and ideas and increasing your chances of them sharing your content with their audience — “seeding” the content with additional readers. If the content is well-received, the results will compound from there. – Brandon Pindulic, OpGen Media
 

5. Answer The Questions You’re Always Asked

Answering tough questions about our industry has been a boon for traffic to our site. Some of our top-performing pieces are articles on how much an app costs to build and on how much money an app can make. Think about the questions clients or potential clients ask you all the time, and then go and create blog posts to answer those questions. – Ryan D Matzner, Fueled
 

6. Take On Trending Topics In Your Industry

I’ve noticed that the content that tends to get the most engagement on my company’s blog and my social media channels is around topics that are disruptive to the industry. For example, in the digital marketing industry, some of my most shared and engaging content dealt with new trends, such as voice search and mobile AMP (accelerated mobile pages). The keys for greater engagement and cultivating thought leadership are to provide helpful context and actionable information that empowers your readers. Don’t be a journalist, be a thought leader instead! – Kristopher Brian Jones, LSEO.com

7. Pitch Solutions, Not Products

No one wants to hear your sales pitch. No one is as excited about your product as you are. What they want to see is someone like them who’s struggling with the same issues. Then they want to see you fix those issues. Case study marketing is the way to go. It’s organic, it’s not just about you and others want to share it. At Enlighten we spend a remarkable amount of time working with clients after the sale to follow up and document the successes. These successes become inspiration for others that see them. Case studies have people asking you for help rather than you asking them for business. – Jeremy Jacobs, Enlighten

8. Integrate Insightful Interviews

Interviews are a great way to generate traffic to your site. Find people in your industry to interview and send them a few questions. You can then post your article in a question-answer format and optimize it for SEO. The trick is to find people that your audience is interested in learning from and asking them questions the audience would like to know. You can create a poll on your site to find out who your audience would like featured on your site. – Chris Christoff, MonsterInsights
 

9. Livestream For Authenticity

Content that receives the most engagement for us is livestreaming on Instagram. For instance, after I released my most recent book, I did a handful of Instagram livestreams with other entrepreneurs, and each segment received more engagement than any other type of content marketing we produced. Livestreaming is the most transparent way to showcase your knowledge and expertise without sounding scripted or rehearsed. – Kristin Kimberly Marquet, Creative Development Agency, LLC

10. Tap Into Holiday Spirit

Is there an important date or popular holiday coming up? Injecting your brand (in an authentic way) allows you to take advantage of its popularity. Posting content that taps into the interest of a given date almost always guarantees fantastic engagement. Holidays such as Christmas or Valentine’s Day are obviously days you want to take advantage of. You can also time your content to coincide with the release of a popular movie or more niche holidays, such as “National French Fry Day” or “Star Wars Day.” Timing your content to highlight special days allows for predictability. It’s simple, and you can easily track results. It also allows you to tap into niche or international audiences that you may not otherwise reach. – Shu Saito, Fact Retriever
 
 
 
mike stuart, 1stonline.us
 

Content is the fuel that engages your audience on social media.

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Content is the fuel that engages your audience on social media.
To engage (meaning) to succeed in attracting and keeping somebody’s attention and interest.

Here are nine proven ways to create and share engaging social media content.
  • Stop Using Text, Start Showing. …
  • Use High-Quality Stock Photography. …
  • Recycle Your Evergreen Content into Infographics. …
  • Share Customer Testimonials & Reviews. …
  • Search Visual Trends on Pinterest. …
  • Host Contests & Surveys.

Content marketing plays a big role for social media marketing, because of these connecting elements that help in shaping content marketing strategy for social media:
  1. Goals
  2. Target audience
  3. Product preview
  4. Communication
  5. Plans
In order to succeed in social media campaigns or marketing, the first thing you have to do is to set your goals or objectives. What do you want to achieve? Who is your target audience? How many people are you targeting? When is your deadline? When you have set your goals and targeted audience, from there, social media starts taking place. On social media, you can start taking notes of those people who seem to be your perfect criteria for your target audience.

Once you get the perfect idea about who your target audience will be, you can start previewing your products and classifying them into some parts that depend on your target audience’s age, gender, or locations. From that, you can plan strategies on how to approach your target audience and communicate with them. Yes, even communication needs strategies, because how you deliver a message to your target audience will define what their response will be. With social media combined with strategic planning, you can communicate better with your target audience, your existing customers and even with your potential customers. Now after maintaining good communication with your audience, you can start making marketing plans.

Marketing plan here means that you create a content plan and test it first. In case it does not work out, you try to create solutions based on the problems or things that lack in that content plan. Then re-create the whole plan with new strategies, before executing it on social media. Good combination between content marketing and social media can be the key to great marketing strategies for the future.

Arranging the objectives

When you combine content marketing with social media, you have to be focused on these objectives in mind:
  • Help your target audience understand your products or services better
  • Entertain your target audience with your interesting content
  • Educate your target audience on new trends and best practices
  • Tell your target audience about the challenge of the current situation
  • Convince your target audience to buy your products or use your services and tell them why they need it
reference: bestinau.com.au

Top Content Creators use the title “How a Brand Does Something”

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Top Content Creators often use articles with a title similar to the following template:

How (Brand) Is Doing (Something) to Achieve (Result) to Draw a Bigger Audience 

 
 
 
Why this content model works | (name-jacking)
  • Brand name recognition
    Nielsen wanted to determine why people purchased specific products. What did it find? Brand!

  • Influencer involvement
    These articles are, by definition, exploring how awesome these companies are. They’re literally saying, “If (brand) does it, it must be worth trying.” The brand gets external links, a huge trust boost, and an increased brand awareness it probably doesn’t need (but never hurts).

     

 

5 steps to use this article model

To create your own content using this article model, follow these five steps.

1. Identify an innovative company or thought leader

The most challenging part is determining what business to target. Once you get that down, the rest of the article follows a path set by them, not you.
Here are a few guidelines:
  • Identify a business that doesn’t feel too out of reach. Avoid megabrands such as Apple, Coca-Cola, or Salesforce, as it’ll be tough for your reader to relate to the strategies they’re implementing.
  • Identify a business implementing innovative or interesting strategies. It should be doing something worth writing about. Your article will be harder to write (and less interesting) if you pick a big brand name that isn’t doing something exciting.
  • Target a business doing something interesting related to your business. There’s no point in getting people excited about a strategy that doesn’t relate to your business.

2. Start your research

Explore the company’s sales funnel. Start with the first possible touch-point. Try a search or display advertisement, a blog article, a press release, etc.
As you proceed through the funnel – from ad or article to lead generation to email marketing to sales prompt, take screenshots. Your article will be framed by that funnel.
 

3. Reach out to a representative

You want the company on your side before you publish your insight and observations about what it does. And, if possible, you want information from the company. Try something like this:
Hey [first name of contact],
Hope this finds you well. I am (your name) and was talking to your colleague, (name), and she mentioned you were the one behind (specific strategy you’re writing about). I’d like to congratulate you on putting together one of the most innovative marketing campaigns I’ve ever seen.
Your (specific strategy) would be an awesome topic for an article I would like to write. I would appreciate it if you would have the time for an interview to walk through what you’ve done and inspire other marketers to do something similar. Would you have 15 minutes this week to jump on a call so I can ask you a few questions about the thinking behind the strategy and if it’s performing for you guys?
I look forward to hearing from you!
If they don’t have time for a call, send over a few questions and ask if they have time to respond that way. And if they don’t have time for that, write the article without their involvement, but share the link once it’s done. You’ll still get the bump from a recognizable brand name in your title and the brand will have been made aware your article is being published.
 

4. Go a step above with design

Your article ideally will be at least 2,000 words and broken into several sections. As a result, a table of contents will help readers navigate.
You can format an automated table of contents within your article..
 

5. Promote to specific influencers

If you need help creating an influencer list, use a tool like BuzzSumo.
  • Research the influencers before you reach out to them to better
  • Learn if they are interested in content similar to what you’re doing.
  • Follow them on social media.
  • Then reach out to the influencer and Personalize the outreach.
This is a form of name-jacking!
 
Mike Stuart, 1stonline.us
 
 

Three steps to great Influencer Marketing

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Influencer marketing delivers results with a great ROI, yet many small businesses don’t know how to proceed.

The two main areas of your marketing strategy that work in sync with influencer marketing are content and social media. Content A lot of influencer marketing campaigns will involve creating content in partnership with an influencer. This may mean creating something together or one of you creating content for the other’s platform. Social Media Most campaigns also have a heavy social media component. Influencer campaigns often involve them sharing certain content or participating in a campaign, such as using its branded hashtag.
1: Identify the Right Influencer
Most marketers find the biggest challenge is to identify the right influencer(s) for their brand.
Identifying the Right Influencer
Favorite tool BuzzSumo provides a list of influencer(s) with stats to showcase the content and level of influence.
KPIs | Use the right metrics to find the best influencers
  • Relevance – Does the influencer have a voice with your audience?
  • Content – Can the influencer create authentic and engaging content to promote your brand? Can you provide content?
  • Engagement – Can the influencer effectively engage their audience?

2: Measuring ROI
Keep track of the content each influencer creates for your brand. Analyze reach, views, clicks, engagement, and conversions. Define performance metrics that measure the ROI of your campaigns and understand which results influencers drive.

3: Engaging Influencers
it’s challenging to communicate with all the influencers you want to reach out to. Research the best influencers and find out what their values are, then how they interact with their followers.


Connect and engage influencers with the right content
Monitor influencer activity and understand influencer interests. The right influencer marketing tools can help.
Sources: Business2community and Econsultancy