If you want to use your marketing time wisely and keep reaping rewards well after this downturn, create a sustainable content strategy and production plan. Everyone has a different tolerance for content. Content isn’t easy to keep producing without it getting stale or even tedious. It’s common for a business to want the results that content produces: better organic search rankings, new site visits, new leads, and increased authority scores; but not have the tenacity to keep up with the plan. Marketing content strategy is like dieting – you need to change your habits permanently or your will go right back to where you started.
Know Your Why
It’s important to have a plan that aligns with the reason why you are creating content in the first place. Are you trying to increase brand awareness, organic visits, or quality leads? These goals require different actions and sometimes, different social networks. Once you have your goal, determine what type of content will get you there.
Which Channels?
Channels are another name for the social network where you engage your audience. Ideally, you can determine which social networks drive traffic to your site and key conversion points once you establish analytics. But this can be a “chicken and the egg” exercise. When you start using a new social network that you suspect your audience is using, you won’t have any data yet to prove your choice. In the beginning, you may need to use all networks and test the same content. After a month, you can see which networks are producing the best results towards your goals.
Another consideration is the medium you use. Does your audience respond better to video, written content, images or gifs? The only way to find out is to try it. Be sure to gather reporting metrics before you start so you can determine which areas worked, which areas need work, and maybe even which social networks aren’t worth your time.
Focus On Your Keywords
A standard marketing best practice is focusing on and around your keywords. These should start from the keywords you are ranking for now – either organically or paid search. Test them out using the social network itself to see if these same keywords are being used frequently. The example below shows Pinterest Trends, a helpful internal tool for planning.
You can see the term “dog collar” brought up trends for “dog harness”, “dog accessories” and “dog leash”. Don’t assume the same search engine term applies to all social networks. Each social network rewards different uses of keywords. Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter focus on hashtags in the post. Pinterest rewards keyword-focused boards with relevant pins and repins. You need to know each network’s triggers.
Eye on the Prize
The most important element of content is to measure your results as it relates to your goals. You want to have a CTA in a logical place for site visitors to convert. Check your user experience flow from the perspective of your visitor entering at all possible entry points and through to your CTA. Does each step align with the place in their journey? Are you trying to close too soon, too late, or there’s no attempt at all? Try to direct your social post links to internal site pages that align with your topic. Only send clicks directly to a form if you set that expectation in your post.
Respect your customer’s journey and only provide what makes sense at that moment. Too much too soon will make them uncomfortable. Too little too late will lose the sale. Balance your goals with their expectations to create content and strategy that will continue delivering leads month after month.