A successful content marketing strategy is not limited to only posting relevant, engaging content on your website. You have to learn how to take that great content and distribute it—syndicating it to other online outlets. One of those outlets is Twitter.
Twitter is where a growing portion of your audience is consuming their content, whether breaking news or pithy analysis. So embrace the power of Twitter to drive people back to your site’s compelling content. Twitter should become a larger source of your referring website traffic.
Wondering how to make Twitter part of your content marketing strategy? Here are three content marketing Twitter tips from Meqouda’s Amanada McArthur:
Your customers are busy. Preoccupied and stressed. They feel the strain of the economy. Despite the many distractions they face, you have to find a way to successfully connect with them. The key to that connection is content–but not just any content. By creating relevant, engaging and informational content you will find that not only will your prospects become customers, but also that you will build loyalty with your existing customers.
If you are looking for the best places online to keep up with the latest on content marketing, look no further. The savvy folks of Junta42 have done the work for you—reviewing hundreds of blogs to come up with the best of the best when it comes to content marketing blogs for your reading pleasure. While we might be a bit biased (as our own Rex Hammock’s rexblog.com comes in at number 11), we think this is a great list full of cutting edge thinking about content marketing.
Here are the top 5 blogs from the list:
Is your company doing a good job executing your content marketing strategy? Are you struggling to find the resources to carry out all of your plans? Are you unsure about whether your content strategy is effective?
Today companies who provide relevant and engaging content for their customers and prospects are positioning themselves ideally to retain and attract new sales. That’s why it’s not a surprise that according to the results of the recent Junta42 Content Marketing Spending Survey, content marketing accounts for one out of every three marketing dollars spent. Having a content marketing strategy is important, but execution is key. Here are five tips on how to improve your content marketing implementation from interactive marketing strategist Heidi Cohen:
A recent interview with Joe Pulizzi of Junta42 provides some great insight into the role of content today in the marketplace and why companies are looking to outsource the creation of this content to experts in custom media and content marketing. Today companies can’t rely on their customers to tell their story. They need their own custom content to tell their story, and then as Joe points out, “great content should spawn useful user-generated content.”
Here are Joe’s keys to success in content marketing:
At Hammock, we know that a well-executed content marketing strategy will allow a client to influence the decision-making and buying behavior of their customers, which is why we were not surprised to read the results of the latest annual Junta 42 Content Marketing Spending Survey, showing that 59 percent of those surveyed plan to increase their spending on content marketing in 2010. For marketers, the research show that content marketing spending is growing rapidly as a portion of their overall budget—serving as 33 percent of current overall marketing budgets, compared to only 11 percent in 2008. Marketers are expected to spend those bigger budgets on social media (72 percent), enewsletters (63 percent), blogs (63 percent), whitepapers (48 percent) and article marketing (48 percent).
View the Content Marketing Spending Report.
At Hammock, we are big believers that a well-executed content marketing strategy develops content and media that engage a potential customer. That is why marketers should review this six-step content marketing check-up before they finalize their content marketing plans for 2010.
The six steps include: mapping site content to the buying cycle, reducing friction on gated content, reviewing content analytics, capturing the value of content, including sharing options with your content and optimizing content for search. This exercise will help marketers assess what is and isn’t working for them when it comes to their B2B content development and content marketing efforts.
We agree with the magazine experts at Foliomag.com who are predicting that content’s role for publishers this year will expand and grow. The creation and execution of targeted content will be a huge asset for publishers and will help them connect with their readers who are looking to access content not only in a variety of places, but also with different platforms and tools.
“It will be imperative to respond to the readers needs—where, when and in the format they prefer—or see yourself being pushed out of the market. Print will still play a flagship role for most magazine enterprises, but there will be a continued drive to expand existing channels including print magazines and newsletters, digital magazines and e-newsletters, mobile, Web sites, blogs, podcasts, virtual events, video and many others.”
According to the study, “The ContentWise and Custom Publishing Council’s 2009 Spending: A Look at How Corporate American Invests in Branded Content,”released by the CPC, marketers spent more on custom and branded content last year than ever before. Highlights of the study include:
In the media world, there has been an ongoing debate for years about the vitality of print media and magazines. Rex has weighed in on the topic a number of times on his blog here on hammock.com and on rexblog.com.
At Hammock, each new relationship begins by first understanding our client’s goals, and then based on these goals, we make recommendations for the best media strategy and mix to meet those objectives. For us, it’s about identifying, creating and distributing the best media or set of media for our clients based on their goals. Today print magazines still play a very dominant role in many of the strategies we develop and execute for our clients because we continue to believe strongly in the power of print magazines for meeting certain business goals. That’s why we’re big fans of this recent Magazine Publishers of America’s “The Twenty Tweetable Truths About Magazines” slideshow. Go magazines!