August 2020

When last did you read, watch, interact with, listen to, or simply glance at something? Whenever you did that last, you most likely interacted with some form of Content Marketing (CM). This includes but isn’t limited to, an article, social media content, videos posted on any platform, and podcasts. CM surrounds us and is part of almost every tenet of our everyday lives. Therefore, as a brand, one must understand how to use it and as a consumer, one must be aware of how it influences you.  

What is Content Marketing? 

Content Marketing (CM) is yet another part of the Digital Marketing field, potentially one of the most important parts, one may say. CM has a variety of definitions, however, the essence of content marketing can be captured in the following sentence: The continuous process of strategically creating quality content and using it to deliver a message, or a variety of messages on behalf of a brand, for the audience to find relevant, consume, and share. 

Marketing is a vast and endless field, content marketing has been a natural element since the beginning. However, understanding its role and influence in the field and on the brands that use it has been a more recent development, which brings us to focus on its optimization and growth. To fully understand how it can help your brand, it is imperative to first actually understand what it actually contributes to you.  

What can it do for you? 

There is a range of benefits to content marketing. As a brand, CM is like your one-stop shop for all things beneficial. With something for everything, CM takes on multiple forms to suit your needs and the interests of your audience. Be it monetary gain, a wider range of audience or something as simple as being reachable and relatable, social media and all other online platforms are the best way to go. However, to appease the traditional marketer, below are the benefits of CM:

Increased Leads and Conversions:

With the wide range and uncomparable accessibility provided by the digital world, CM finds its home in the comfort of multiple, varying platforms. This allows access to a plethora of consumers from varying demographic groups, leading to an increase in engagement as well as conversions. 

Higher Returns on Lower Investments:

With CM and Digital Marketing, you have two options – to hire a professional agency or to hire professionals within your brand itself. Regardless of which option you choose, it will cost less than traditional and print marketing. The cost of a single hoarding can surpass the cost of running an advertisement on a platform such as Google and simultaneously increase your reach. 

Mutually Beneficial Relationship with Audience:

Providing relatable and informative content helps establish a relationship with your audience. They find value in visiting your various online platforms and in interacting with your brand. Simultaneously, high engagement leads to high levels of sharing, leads, and conversions. All in all, benefitting both – your audience and your brand. This also helps increase customer loyalty, as your value-adding content leads them to believe that their growth and development is important to your brand, as it should be. 

• Visuals and Infographics can be game-changers.
• Writing relatable and shareable content will increase engagement.
• Keep your content properly managed and have access to efficient management tools.
• Create a link between varying Content Marketing platforms.
• Use third-party, public platforms. Get your content out there, by using the resources available to you.
• The curation of content is crucial and effective.
• Fully understand and develop personas for your buyers/readers.
• Make your content easily available, everywhere. 
• Repurpose your old content with a twist. Get the same message across, but in different ways.
• Find your audience’s favorite spots and meet them there. 
• Write headlines worth a double-take. This decides how your content will be received. 
• Convey your message as a story-teller, not a boring lecturer. Fables are more loved than lessons.

How you can use it to benefit your brand 

As interesting and vast as CM is as a topic, it serves no purpose if you do not fully understand how to use it and make the most of it. To help you fully understand this, the following brief strategy tips for each of these commonly used platforms for CM should provide a clear picture.

One of the best way of Content Marketing: Blogging

Create new, exciting and relevant content 

Blogs are the most widespread form of content marketing in today’s world. While that makes it an obvious and imperative addition to your CM strategy, it also makes it hard to stand apart. Thinking of unique topics, creating unique content and eventually producing a product like no other is neither easy nor realistic.

The best you can do is to take inspiration from existing content and find a unique perspective on it. Make sure you give it an exciting spin, and always ensure relevance. If your content does not add information and reliance on the lives of your audience, it serves no purpose. Always check your facts, plagiarism, and make sure you stand apart. 

Make it SEO-friendly 

Writing SEO-friendly content is the first step towards a successful CM strategy. Always ensure you conduct the appropriate and required amounts of keyword research and follow strict guidelines when writing your content. 

Keyword Stuffing and other Black Hat SEO practices can cost your brand a lot if detected. Blogs are the most effective platform for SEO and help your website gain visibility on Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).

Promote your Blog

Use various platforms to promote your blog. Be it a clear tab on your website or sharing a post on various social media platforms, when you write a blog, use it. Not only will this help gain readers, but it will also make your social media feeds and profiles more attractive to your potential customers, employees, and business prospects. 

A mailer announcing your newest blog and a short description with a link to your blog on Twitter and LinkedIn and an Instagram story; that in itself should create a buzz and curiosity amongst the audience.

LinkedIn Content Marketing:

Industry Relevant Content

Make your content extremely relevant and informative for professionals and amateurs within your industry. Creating content that helps brands grow is highly welcome on various platforms and even more so on a platform such as LinkedIn.

With relevant content, not only do potential employees and business prospects see the range of your knowledge and ability, but it helps gain shareability and popularity among a range of professionals.

This may be sharing relevant news articles, industry updates and trends, or articles and content created by others. Anything that influences those within your industry and can make your brand’s content feed is relevant.

Promote your Content

Be it short review articles, creative campaigns or articles from your blog, make sure to post content of your own as well. While industry-relevant content is a brilliant way to find yourself on the radar of juggernauts within your industry, it is not enough to establish your identity.

Take the time out to scour through competitors’ content and understand what your audience would be interested in. Strategize, schedule, and create content that lives up to the standard. While the articles you share may be lengthy, remember to keep your captions and posts short and sweet. Attention spans on platforms with a constant influx of information can be very short. Make it catchy, important, and unskippable. 

Grow your Network 

LinkedIn is a professional, business and employment driven platform. As a brand on this platform, your main focus should be to establish an identity that spreads far and wide within the industry. 

Connecting with brands and individuals who play a part in your industry is one of many extremely important steps towards using content marketing to grow your brand. With the help of the LinkedIn algorithm, it is easy to find people that fall within various industry umbrellas. Use the resources available to you as a brand and as an individual representing the brand, and make the most of these connections. The right connections can help with sharing and promoting the content you post. 

Twitter Content Marketing:

Use Content to Connect

Unlike LinkedIn, Twitter is the platform behind every major trend and the start of the most important revolutions. This is where brands find their identity and build a loyal following for every other platform. As a brand, you have the opportunity to use the content you share and promote to make a lasting impact. Be it in the professional sphere or the social sphere, Twitter offers you the opportunity to make a major difference in the growth trajectory of your brand. 

Use the content you share to connect with your audience’s ideas, thoughts and trends without losing track of your brand and industry. Put your best content with articles, blogs and news that’s relevant. Always remember to keep it short and sweet in your posts and captions on Twitter. 280 characters may be the limit, but you’d be better off keeping it far lesser than that. 

Promote your content

All social media platforms, if effectively utilised can be the biggest step towards promotion of your own content. As mentioned above, Twitter is the platform that initiates the most change in the world and brings brands to the center of everyone’s attention.

While retweeting content produced by stars of your industry is good, make sure you utilise what Twitter has to offer. Share, promote and post your own content, be it a post to celebrate any occasion with your audience or a blog that helps them understand the best way to grow as a brand or an individual in your industry. 

Create Twitter Lists

As a Twitter user, you can create Twitter Lists, which is a compilation of various categories of profiles you can use to find, compare with, and share relevant content. You can create multiple lists such as “Competitors”, “Industry Leaders”, “Industry Updates”, so on and so forth to always stay updated and relevant. 

This helps filter out the content you see when you visit a list. It helps you stay at the top of your game, see what you can produce to keep up with your competitors and leaders and helps you keep tabs on your industry.

Instagram: Content marketing 

Carefully craft creatives

Instagram is a visually focused platform and your brand should embrace that in the best way. Create images, graphics, gifs, videos and other posts that make your audience pause their scrolling and read your content.

While it is generally advised to keep your captions short and create convincing and engaging post copies, it is also okay to provide a little detail in your captions. Uniqueness, creativity and the ability to hone and appreciate a trend with your content are crucial factors for making an impact on Instagram. Use the right hashtags, follow the right pages and tags and keep your head above water when it comes to the constant, 

Use IGTV

Instagram TV, more commonly referred to as IGTV, is a standalone app created by Instagram itself that focuses mostly on video content. Ideal for businesses, brands and influencers, this platform presents a brilliant opportunity to create and distribute video content.

With these videos being available on the original Instagram app as well, people and brands have been using it to connect with their followers and other wider audiences in the ‘Explore’ section. Creating reaction videos, tutorials, prank and challenge videos, IGTV has taken the visual content and digital marketing world by storm. Use this to your advantage. Be it live videos with people from within your company, are well-created animation videos with a clear message, make your impact now. 

Use Insta Stories 

Instagram Stories are uploads that stay at the top of our feeds for 24 hours. These can be images or videos and last for a maximum of 15 seconds. However, Instagram has made it possible for business profiles to use these stories to link anything they wish to promote to their followers and anyone else that views their story.

With the ‘Swipe Up’ feature, you can link your new articles, blogs, or even your website and products to make it easy and accessible for your followers. Make sure the image/video that you use to link out is engaging, attractive, and intrigues those who view it. Always focus on what your audience would like to see, and what about the content you are offering them is attractive and engaging, or you may receive views but lose out on conversions. 

YouTube: Content marketing 

Create Diverse Content 

Youtube is a limitless abyss of content and information. With absolutely no end to the kind of content available on this platform, standing apart, being noticeable, and bringing something new to the table is difficult, to say the least. Therefore, when creating videos for this mammoth platform, make sure you create a range of diverse content for varying audiences. 

Youtube is used by people of all demographics and if you want to make a lasting impact, you will use that to your benefit in the best possible way. Your channel should be equipped with informative, helpful and creative content, so your followers know where to be when they want good content within your field. If you take your blogs and turn them into talks, record videos with your employees, make yourself a human and interactive platform, you’ll be the next big thing in your field. 

Link it to your website 

Use this platform to create brand awareness and awareness about all your other platforms, particularly your website. Using videos on your website has been highly beneficial in giving visitors a reason to stay.

Make your Youtube videos visible on the website and make your website available on your Youtube videos. Provide your audience with the opportunity to explore your company further, maybe even visit your blog and see what more you have to offer. Ensure that you do not compromise on the quality of your website, your blog, and most definitely do not compromise on the quality of your videos. Creating a lasting impact in today’s world is difficult but can be done; ensure that you do your research and make the effort to do so.

Conclusion

Content Marketing is one of the oldest fields and yet one of the youngest in the world of marketing. Grabbing onto this opportunity while you can and making an impact, is easy in the digital world. So, what is stopping you?

Refer to major digital marketing agencies and communication companies and see what they have to offer in terms of information and guidance for the growth of your brand. Seize the day, Carpe Diem, take the chance while you can, and in due time you will be the brand people refer to when learning to grow effectively.