My previous blogs had been guides to how to write a blog, how to become a blogger and how to get paid for blogging. The next step to effective blogging is to understand how to do content marketing.
One of the most frequently asked questions by amateur bloggers is to know ‘What do you do with your blog after you finish creating it’. Content marketing is your answer. Using your blog to create content that will market your brand is what content marketing entails, in simple words. Through your content, which can be articles, images or videos, you can attract a particular audience group and ultimately, lead the way to profitable sojourns.
Though this may sound simple, rest assured the process is a long one. Looking at established bloggers such as Masoom Minawala (MissStyleFiesta) and Aanam C (What When Wear), it can be easily deduced that only years of hard work and unique content can lead a blogger to high content engagement and a large fan following.
It is also essential that your chosen path for content marketing is right.
“The difference between Content and Content Marketing is the destination.”
Content, nowadays, has become extremely easy to share with the outside world, be it written in the form of blogs and tweets, through images on Instagram or videos with Snapchat and YouTube. Unbeknownst to us, we market ourselves through the content we publish daily, becoming a brand ourselves for all our followers. Therefore, it becomes extremely important to ensure that the correct style of content reaches the correct destination.
The question ‘how to do content marketing’ has been answered by many experts before. I will, however, be sharing it in a much simpler style with you. Here are the 5 essentials that you must keep in mind before choosing content marketing as your promotion option:-
Have a Plan
Knowing what your blog stands for and where you see it in the future are aspects I strongly recommend. The content industry is huge and it can get confusing when you have to choose from an array of work offered if a specific plan is not in place for your blog. However, the journey to discovering where you want your blog to be in the long term is one that requires patience, as content marketing is a long time strategy, where you will reap the benefits after years of hard work.
“The most common content marketing delivery mechanism is social media, used by 87% of marketers.” – CMI Once the objective of your brand is finalized, you can move towards fixing your target audience and selecting the social media platforms you need to focus on for marketing the said content. Twitter, for example, requires multiple tweets a day, whereas Facebook and LinkedIn do well with only one post a day. Research on which time and at what day of the week to post, depending on the social media platform chosen, is also necessary. A well-planned strategy will lead you to better targeting options. Know more interesting facts about content marketing by clicking here.
Do an Audience Research
It is important to know who your ideal reader is. For example, if your ideal reader is a mother-to-be, she is expecting content that will make her pregnancy journey simpler. Sharing content about food products that a pregnant mother can’t consume will ensure a loss of audience. Therefore, sticking to the industry of your brand or niche is advisable.
For research purposes, you can use Google Analytics and Facebook & Twitter Insights to know more about your audience’s demographics, age and gender. To get an in-depth analysis of which content is doing well and how many likes your posts are getting, you can use one of the many tools available in the market. Here are our recommended research tools that will help boost your content marketing: A. Feedly Feedly is an app that compiles news feeds from various online sources for your research purposes. Therefore, once you have selected the topic of research, there is no need to visit various websites to find content for your blog, as it will be shared on one platform, in an integrated format. The app is considered as a well-integrated research tool, designed for content marketers.
B. BuzzSumo A popular option for content marketers, BuzzSumo helps you keep a check on your competitors – what they are doing and whether they are doing good work or not. The tool also shares lists of the best advertisers and the popular keywords, which can help you build a successful blog for your audience.
3. Determine your type of content
Your content should be a clear representation of you. Similarly, the type of content should always be given some thought. There is a vast sea of content style options and it is essential to focus on what represents you and what you would be most comfortable with, rather than choose a content style that looks appealing on your blog but is not something you enjoy. You can choose between the below content types:-
A. Blog Article
A content piece where you focus on a single topic and share your views on it.
B. e-Book A digital book, either in a PDF or EPUB form, developed to offer ease of access to the digital audience.
C. Design Templates Downloadable templates of work such as a calendar form or a painting. For example, The Sorry Girls are craft bloggers who share their DIY templates here. D. Infographics An image designed to share maximum information with the audience, Infographics are mostly developed to share statistical data in a visually appealing way. Take a look at an Infographic designed to show the difference between Indian and American marriages, here.
E. Videos Using videos to show and explain your content is a popular style of sharing content. Videos can be used by a blogger of any stream, be it a food, beauty, fitness or travel, as it offers maximum visual appeal to your audience.
It is recommended that you avoid confusing your audience with a variety of content styles. A blogger should go for a content style that suits their brand. For example, as a lifestyle blogger, the use of infographics is not necessary as the audience is interested more in visually appealing images and less in reading content from an image. Keeping it simple and consistent is the key.
4. Manage your content
Another aspect to consider is the management of the content generated. With the sheer mass of content generated every day, it is important to understand the job of tracking your content daily. The process is made easy through various content analysis and content management tools that help you to analyze your marketing funnel to see that you meet your business goals.
Having a social media content calendar is a must to manage and distribute your content on all platforms as per the requirement. “Only 8% of marketers consider themselves “very successful” or “extremely successful” at tracking content marketing ROI.” – LinkedIn Technology Marketing Community
Tracking the analytics of your content is a vital part of your marketing strategy. Looking at a particular topic that is viewed, liked, shared and commented on by most of your audience will help you to know your audience better.
5. Choose content optimization
In today’s time, the digital audience determines a brand’s success and popularity. It is common for major brands to invest truckloads of cash to achieve high engagement rates on social media platforms. Having the right keywords in your content is a basic necessity for any content creator to get the required engagement and to avoid being trampled upon by the competitors.
For example, when you type SEO on Google Search, the first option that pops up is of a blog named Search Engine Land. This shows the power of a good keyword research. If you have made your audience aware of your brand through your blog, then your first stage buyer’s journey is already done. Through your blog, they will now come to know about you, which will help them in their purchasing decision.
To help optimize your content best for the search engines, you can take the help of several tools for keyword research. You can read all about it in my previous blog.
Content marketing is a vast topic and many researchers are still looking for better ways to which they can market and optimize their content best. Do let us know how you find this blog. We will be happy to hear you out and know any field that we might have overlooked.
Comments