Ep. 21: Using Content Marketing in Your Social Media

Nowadays, content marketing is all the buzz, and for good reason. Not only is it a way to provide your audience with a plethora of consistent, valuable information, it also enables you to stand out in the crowd.  While building your content strategy can be all about trial-and-error, social media should always be an intricate piece.

Key Points

• Content marketing generates more leads than outbound marketing
• Social media acts as a valuable platform for content marketing
• Sharing relevant content helps spark a conversation

What is content marketing?

According to the Content Marketing Institute (contentmarketinginstitute.com) a UM Company based in New York, content marketing is the act of providing truly relevant and useful content to your prospects and customers to help them solve their issues. Instead of pitching your products or services, you’re giving your audience an entertainment feature they come to know and look forward to.

Good content—knowing what your audience wants to digest—can yield impressive results. In fact, content marketing generates almost three times as many leads as outbound marketing and costs 62% less (Content Marketing Institute). These content-generated leads can be nurtured into profitable and longstanding clients.

Social media and content marketing

It’s no surprise that social media and content marketing go hand-in-hand. In fact, social media is a viable piece of a content strategy. Utilizing various platforms can help you produce relevant and timely content to share with your audience.

Tips and tricks

• Stay on top of trending content—daily and weekly
• Follow hashtags(#) on Instagram
• Utilize the app Canva to create high-quality graphics
• Take a look at other brands’ accounts, and replicate what they’re doing
• Test different content on a consistent basis

Creating content that brings leads in the door

Content marketing works because it’s entertainment. It’s something your customers anticipate. This leads to engagement, which in turn can generate more leads for your business.

When you’re posting content, it’s important to remember your actual customers. Who is your content targeting? Posting content that is irrelevant to your audience won’t get you anywhere. Here’s a novel approach: Ask your audience what else they’re interested in reading about. For instance, if you’re posting a blog on curb-appeal tips on Facebook, ask if they want similar articles. This will not only help you get a better understanding of the type of content that resonates, but it will also increase your reader engagement.

Keep in mind you should also be consistent with the type of content you’re posting. You can increase your audience size by creating content they get excited about reading and will surely anticipate your next post. Avoid posting haphazardly, which can deter your audience.

Lastly, content marketing enables you to showcase your personality and connect on a personal level with your audience. While you want your personality to shine through, remember it shouldn’t take away from the quality.

Getting more views on your content   

We all know that the more views on your content, the more opportunities you have to convert them into clients. But how do you get there? The first step is to determine what your goals are and then formulate a plan of action from there.

Follow these tips to increase the number of eyeballs glued to your content:

Tips and tricks

• The 80/20 rule
  • 80% of your content should be interesting and entertaining, 20% should pertain to your business.
• The 5,3,2 rule
  • For every ten posts, five should be industry-specific, but not directly related to your company. Three should be your own content, and two should be just for fun.
• The act of content curation
  • Don’t press share and call it day. Try and put your own spin on it.

Action items

Following the podcast, our goal is to provide you with as many actionable tips as possible. For this episode, they include…

• Determine what type of content will be most relevant with your customers.
• Start mapping out a schedule, and utilize our social media calendar download.

As always, take action on these tips!