Content.
We don’t know how many times a day we come across someone throwing around the word content or one of the latest buzzwords “content marketing”.
The thing is, alot of people focus on the content (don’t get us wrong, this is important) but forget about the marketing part.
What good is your content if you’re not prioritizing social sharing?
One of the best books we’ve read in a really, really long time (and we don’t say this lightly) is The Content Code by Mark Schaefer. We’re usually quite disappointed by most marketing books as they’re usually out-dated and extremely high-level – they don’t provide real, actionable tips for successful marketing.
Reading The Content Code made us realize how focused many businesses are on just content. However, the real key to success is great content AND phenomenal amplification. You really can’t have one without the other. With so many pieces of new content being produced each day, what are you doing to get your content seen? And, not just seen, but seen by the right people?
Social sharing and influencer recommendations help you to cut through the clutter. Now, many people think that you need big bucks in order to reach large audiences. Yes and no.
It’s true – algorithms on Facebook have changed dramatically (even dramatic, is an understatement) over the past few years. It’s not as easy to get people to organically view your content on Facebook (in other words, get your content to pop up on their newsfeed without paying $$$).
These news feed changes are both a blessing and a curse. It’s great because you’re not exposed to thousands of pieces of content on a daily basis and you would literally have a never-ending news feed. Instead, you get to see targeted, relevant content (although some of the sponsored content we see in our newsfeed is extremely questionable).
On the other hand, in order to get eyeballs on your page and content, you need to pay for advertising, so of course, the larger companies dominate this area.
So, if you’re a smaller business who doesn’t have a large ad spend (or no ad spend at all) – how exactly should you be approaching content marketing?
Here are 4 actionable tips for amplifying your content organically without breaking the bank:
1. Prioritize Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Make sure your content is properly optimized to be found by search engines. There is an awesome free plugin, Yoast SEO that you can install into WordPress and it will help you optimize each post by going through your URL, headings, alt tags, keywords, etc. We also highly recommend reading online resources or even taking an SEO course.
2. Engage and collaborate with influencers
Take some time to find influential people in your industry that have large social followings. Before you decide to reach out about a collaboration, make sure you spend time getting to know them and their content. Go through their posts, look at the engagement from their followers and evaluate whether they would be a good fit for your brand.
3. Hashtag it
Hashtags allow people to discover and engage with your content. They’re just like the keywords you use to optimize your blogposts and site content. Here are three easy ways to come up with a list of relevant hashtags: 1. start by searching one hashtag and then look at the other hashtags that people use, in addition to that one. 2. Look at similar business in your industry and make note of which hashtags they use 3. Use a free app like Tags for Likes that have lists of hashtags organized by category. They can be easily copy and pasted into your Instagram caption.
4. Encourage social sharing
This should be an obvious one! Include social media buttons on your website that link to all your social channels and each blog post should have social sharing buttons so that your readers can share the post in one or two clicks. It’s 2016, if you don’t have these – you need to get them ASAP.
Need some help amplifying your online content without breaking the bank? Contact us and let’s put together a strategy that fits your budget and vision.
